The Eagles spent Christmas showing everyone they’re just not good enough to be trusted

If you were feeling generous — and it was Christmas, so why wouldn’t you be feeling generous? — you could focus on the ways the Eagles benefited from beating the Giants, 33-25. They improved to 11-4, moving a game ahead of the Cowboys and into full possession of first place in the NFC East and the No. 2 seed in the conference. They derived the psychological sugar rush from ending their recent losing streak after three games and winning for the first time this month. And they …

And they …

And they …

There’s generosity, and there’s reality. And the reality of what happened at Lincoln Financial Field on Monday is that the Eagles won because they were playing a bad team, and they barely won because they themselves spent much of the night playing like a bad team.

The reality of what happened Monday is that the Eagles are not a bad team compared to the Giants, who are bad and for most of the last decade have been bad and will continue to be bad until they find a decent quarterback and surround him with more talent than they have on their roster now. The Eagles aren’t even a bad team compared to most teams in the NFL, which at the moment is a league in which Bailey Zappe, Easton Stick, and Mason Rudolph are starting quarterbacks and the NFC South still exists.

No, the Eagles are a bad team compared to the team they were last season and the team they were expected to be this season. They made the kinds of mistakes Monday night that they did not make in 2022 and that they have made all too often in 2023. They were undisciplined. They were sloppy. They were boneheaded. They got away with it against the Giants, but they won’t against the kinds of teams they will face in the postseason. Teams that can be competent for 60 minutes. Teams like the 49ers and the Cowboys and the Seahawks. Teams like the ones the Eagles just lost to over the previous three weeks.

You want reassurance? There’s none to give. How do you find reassurance in Jalen Carter still moseying off the field and getting flagged for offsides as the Giants’ punt team snapped the ball midway through the second quarter? In Jalen Hurts — late in the first half, his team out of timeouts — turning up field and getting tackled inbounds inside the red zone, an inexcusable lack of time-place awareness that threatened to cost the Eagles a field goal?

In Olamide Zaccheaus delivering a terrific open-field tackle on teammate Boston Scott as Scott returned the opening kickoff of the second half — a hit so hard that Scott lost the football? (Hey, look at the bright side: Zaccheaus is now tied for second on the Eagles in forced fumbles.) In rookie safety Sydney Brown launching himself at Giants quarterback Tyrod Taylor after Taylor already had given himself up, a personal-foul infraction that wiped out a New York holding penalty on the same play? In Reed Blankenship taking a terrible angle to cover Darius Slayton on a fly pattern, allowing Slayton to get behind him for a 70-yard touchdown with less than 5½ minutes to go?

There they were with four seconds left, Taylor throwing into the end zone from the Eagles’ 26-yard line, and until Taylor’s pass landed in the waiting hands of Kelee Ringo, was there any reason to feel secure and confident that the Eagles would finish off an opponent that is marking time until its season ends? More and more, they look less and less like a legitimate Super Bowl contender. More and more, they are reaffirming that they can’t be trusted to play a clean game, to put away an inferior foe, to do the little things that win the games that matter most.

“We’ve had a really good week of practice, focused on what we can control, what we need to do better,” Eagles coach Nick Sirianni said Saturday. “So: good meetings, good walk-throughs, good practice. Guys are in a good spot, and we want to obviously get out of this skid we’re in. … The guys are hungry to get out there and coaches are ready to get out there and show what we’re capable of and what we can be as a football team.”

That’s the problem. Maybe they did.