SAVED BY ODELL
ODELL Beckham Jr. needed divine intervention.
Eli Manning’s Giants had been inept, they were in grave danger of watching Jerry Jones celebrate a division title in their stadium.
“I told myself, ‘You need to wake up. I don’t know what’s going on with you, but you need to wake up. You’re on autopilot. You’re not out here affecting this game. You’re not out here doing anything,’ and that bothers me, that eats me up,” Beckham said. “It just kills me to be able to come out here and not do what you’re supposed to be doing.
“I talked to the man above, I said, ‘ Wake me up. It’s time to wake up.’ And sure enough we came to life.”
And so Beckham knifed inside Brandon Carr and Manning hit him in stride and hearts broken all night began racing with Beckham, chased by Carr, all the way to the end zone. And just like that, the whole night changed, and maybe the whole season changed along with it.
This time, it wasn’t Beckham’s right hand reaching up behind his head to shock the Cowboys. It was his legs, racehorse legs gifted him by his track-star mother that electrified MetLife Stadium with this 61-yard touchdown that gave the Giants a 10-7 lead and victory at a time when you wondered whether Manning and Ben McAdoo had lost their bold way. After Beckham had beat himself up over a pair of drops.
“Just caught a slant, tried to hit a gear, I could feel somebody running,” Beckham said. “Carr was running as fast as I’ve ever felt somebody chasing me, I don’t know whether it’s sixth sense, whatever it was, you could just feel him on your back, on your neck. I had to hit another gear, shoutout to my mom, ‘Thank you for the hamstrings.’ ” Thank God for Odell Beckham Jr.
“It’s one of those plays that kinda just propel your team, and propel your team to bigger and greater things,” Victor Cruz said.
With a chance to deliver the kill shot, Manning threw errantly to Cruz and was intercepted by Anthony Brown at the Dallas 15 with 9:40 remaining. And then, starting at their 32, the Giants ran three consecutive times.
This is either playing not to win or asking your defense to win the game or both.
It was an odd time not to put the game in the hands of Manning and Beckham.
“It’s frustrating, I want the defense to be sitting there, eating candy, untying their shoes, knowing that the offense has this game in control. They don’t even have to go back in the field,” Beckham said.
And then, starting at his 33, Manning nearly threw a pick and ran Rashad Jennings on thirdand-11, and the Boys called their second timeout with 2:39 left.
No matter. Big Blue, implored by Giants fans standing and roaring and waving white towels, doesn’t surrender leads anymore. Big Blue finishes games.
“This is a championship defense,” Beckham said.
Jackrabbit Jenkins stripped Dez Bryant following his first catch of the night and Landon Collins recovered and ... Brad Wing and Dwayne Harris pinned the Boys at their 2 with 1:06 left and ...
HOW ‘BOUT THEM GIANTS!
HOW ‘ BOUT THAT BECKHAM!
Who snatched victory from the jaws of defeat.
“It felt like LSU-Alabama,” Beckham said.
You better be a pressure-proof team, and a weather-proof team, if you want to defend Giants Stadium with the stone-cold defiance
that champion Giants once defended it, if you want Jerry Jones humbled in the visiting luxury box, if you want to convince these Big Bad Cowboys and all of the NFL that you are back, and you are a team to be reckoned with again, finally.
This was their statement game. The statement: We will go as far and as fast as Odell Beckham Jr. will take us.
The idea was for Manning to either hold the ball and keep Ezekiel Elliott from running roughshod behind that vaunted offensive line and dominating time of possession and wearing down in the fourth quarter a Dallas defense that isn’t accustomed to being on the field for long stretches, or attacking from the git-go and getting in the end zone perhaps enough to score 30 points for the first time all season and forcing Prescott to play catchup, or both.
The best idea: let Beckham save you. And O Boy, did the Giants need saving.