Giants win, but are not in
Hopes for playoff berth dashed with Washington victory
The New York Giants won, and then they waited — hoping for a big win from a bitter rival. It didn’t happen.
Far from .500 but still full of hope, the six-win Giants got to the brink of an unprecedented playoff berth with a 23-19 victory over the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday afternoon, locking things up when rookie Xavier Mckinney intercepted Andy Dalton in the end zone with 1:15 remaining.
New York’s postseason chances were hanging with the Philadelphia Eagles, who could have given the Giants the NFC East title with a victory Sunday night over Washington. The Eagles led at one point 14-10, but they pulled starting quarterback Jalen Hurts in the second half and eventually lost to Washington, 20-14.
Washington will play host to Tampa Bay in the wild-card round next Saturday night. The Giants will go home.
“I won’t be caught dead in an Eagles hat,“receiver Sterling Shepard, the only player left from New York’s last playoff appearance in 2016, said before the night game. “But I will be rooting for them.”
The Giants (6-10) would have been the first team to qualify for the playoffs with six victories in a 16-game regular season and the first to do so after starting
1-7. Hardly how first-year coach Joe Judge planned it.
Dallas (6-10) nearly ripped that satisfaction away.
Dalton rallied the Cowboys with a bloody left hand after being stepped on by defensive tackle Leonard Williams in the third quarter, and he had Dallas on the doorstep when Williams got close again.
Dalton scrambled around on a broken play, avoided being sacked by Williams for a fourth time, but ended up floating one into the middle of the end zone. Mckinney caught it easily, his first career interception.
Jones was efficient and surprisingly mobile after slumping with left ankle and right hamstring injuries during a three-game losing streak.
He was 17-of-25 passing
for 229 yards and two touchdowns, ending Dallas’ seven-game winning streak in the rivalry.
Dalton was 29 of 47 for 243 yards and had a gash on his hand stitched up after the game. He was sacked six times, and the Cowboys ended a threegame winning streak that nearly propelled them to the playoffs despite star quarterback Dak Prescott’s season-ending in
jury in Week 5.
“It’s been obviously a year of a lot of ups and downs,” first-year coach Mike Mccarthy said. “Trials and tribulations. In some ways, this game’s a bit of a microcosm of our season.”
Limited to 26 points over its previous three games, the Giants’ 31stranked offense busted out with 239 yards and 20 points in the first half.