Pugh: G-Men would’ve beaten Cowboys ... again

A 38-13 loss on Sunday didn’t stop Justin Pugh from boasting about the Giants a day later.

As the offensive lineman lamented the missed opportunities early in the defeat, he turned his focus to the Cowboys, the team the Giants had hoped to face again this weekend.

“I don’t think [the missed chances] bothers me as much because they know they’re lucky we didn’t beat the Green Bay Packers,” Pugh said of the Cowboys. “Because we were go- ing to come down to their house and beat them a third time. I can’t say that because we didn’t take care of our business. But I hope the Packers beat them.”

The Giants might have had a chance to knock off the Cowboys if they didn’t let multiple opportunities to build a large early lead slip away.

And Pugh acknowledged there was plenty of blame to go around.

“We have to score in the red zone,” Pugh said. “If we get touchdowns where we got three points, it would have been a totally different game. We were up 6-0 and it should have been at least 13-0. And they come down and get two touchdowns in the last five minutes and that ended up being — not really the difference in the game — but it had a major impact on the game.”

There were dropped passes and other mistakes that ended up costing the Giants from late in the first half through the rest of the game.

The play that really set the Giants back was Aaron Rodgers hitting Randall Cobb for a Hail Mary on the last play of the second quarter.

“Everything really was going our way until the last five minutes of the first half,” Pugh said. “The game was being played the way we want to play. I wish we didn’t have that three-andout and give them the short field.”

The Packers quickly turned that into another score before the half.

“I guess I didn’t realize that we hit them for a Hail Mary the last time we played,” Pugh said of Eli Manning hitting Hakeem Nicks in 2012. “So I guess it was a little poetic justice and they got us back.”

And then they poured it on.