PHILADELPHIA -- Eagles safety Malcolm Jenkins was unusually animated on the sideline.

His unit had just yielded a 51-yard touchdown to Saquon Barkley, putting the New York Giants up 19-3 late in the first half Sunday. The season dangling in the balance, Jenkins looked desperate to get his message across -- whether it be to coaches or to teammates who lined the bench, from the secondary down to the front four.

The defensive backfield decimated by injury, the Eagles were in the process of yielding 346 yards in the first half -- the most since November 2015 against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (355), when Chip Kelly's reign in Philly came to a crashing halt. Eli Manning was running tempo, and in the midst of a check, the Eagles weren't properly set on that Barkley play.

It prompted Jenkins and a couple other veterans -- he mentioned fellow safety Corey Graham by name -- to express a need for a change to defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz.

"It just got to the point where we said, 'Look, we know we’ve got guys on the back end that are scrambling a little bit. Giants are going hurry-up offense, it’s putting us in a bind to communicate, it’s loud. So give us something simple and we’ll put the pressure on our D-line to take over,'" Jenkins said. "Hats off really to our D-line and Jim Schwartz for settling down the game plan and giving us an opportunity to go play fast.”

The next time out, Jenkins came up with an interception -- the Eagles' first since Week 6 against this Giants team. The second half was a completely different story for the defense. It gave up 56 total yards and three points over the final two quarters, allowing the offense to rally for a 25-22 victory.

“We were able to get back to the style of defense that we like playing," Jenkins said.

Head coach Doug Pederson was equally open to a suggestion. He knew coming in that he was going to have to lean on the run game more to take some pressure off his ailing defense. As was the case with the defensive veterans, members of the offense, including O-linemen, spoke up to make sure their opinion on the matter was known.

"They were coming to me [saying], 'Keep running, keep running, keep running.' They wanted it on their backs," Pederson said. "So they did a really nice job."

The Eagles ended with 29 rushes (for 127 yards) to 28 pass attempts. They had a 62 percent-38 percent pass-run ratio entering the game.

"It allows you to kind of tee off and wear people down when we get that going. It just really makes it easier for our offensive attack so we're not one-sided [and] are able to be balanced," right tackle Lane Johnson said.

The message from Pederson for Week 12, per quarterback Carson Wentz, was to "keep it simple, do what we do best, and play our game." He followed through with that messaging by dialing up a team favorite on the game's most crucial play -- a fourth-and-1 from the Giants' 42-yard line late in the contest. It's a mesh concept the Eagles dressed up six different ways in the Super Bowl and used on a key fourth-down play late in that game against the Patriots, resulting in a conversion to Zach Ertz. This time, Nelson Agholor sprung open for a 12-yard gain, setting up the winning field goal.

It can certainly be asked why it took the Eagles (5-6) this long to strip things down when, as Ertz put it, they spent the better part of 10 games getting in their own way; and it's fair to wonder why it took calls from the players for some of these changes to occur. But on Sunday, the decision -- however late -- to get back to basics paid dividends, and kept the Eagles' season alive.