THE HOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL
Last-play stand exemplifies glorious season the 6-1 Giants are building
YOU already knew the Giants were different this year — tougher, smarter, more resilient than they’ve been in years and, best of all, closers. When they sniff a victory, they snatch that victory. Doesn’t matter if it’s Aaron Rodgers trying to ruin their day. Or Lamar Jackson. They hadn’t started the season 5-1 by accident.
And here they were again: squarely in the breach, a football game in the balance, hinging this time on another gifted right arm, this one belonging to a Jacksonville Jaguar named Trevor Lawrence.
This minute-plus had already been rife with horrible omens and worse breaks: Saquon Barkley’s toe inadvertently edging the out-of-bounds boundary, costing 40 seconds. A couple of questionable penalties. One huge Jacksonville reception, paired with a roughing the passer penalty.
And now: one final play, the Jags at the Giants’ 17-yard-line. Five seconds to go. All day long it was hard to remember that this game was being played in northern Florida and not North Jersey since so many of the 65,664 folks inside TIAA Bank Field were clad in blue Giants vestments.
“It was almost like a home game,” Giants coach Brian Daboll said.
Now, the blue invaders were on their feet, trying to drown out the locals, trying to rattle Lawrence, but Christian Kirk broke over the middle, shadow of the goal line, and Lawrence found him. If Kirk could just fall backwards, he would land in the end zone and the Jaguars would be a PAT shy of a stunning, staggering 24-23 win.
But Fabian Moreau was right behind Kirk, and clobbered him upright. Kirk stood his ground, tried to somehow power his way the final 3 feet to the end zone. But now Moreau was joined by some friends: Justin Love and Xavier McKinney and Landon Collins.
“We had one job,” Love said. “Keep him out of the end zone.”
They did that. They kept him out of the end zone. When Kirk finally submitted, the Giants had a 23-17 victory and a 6-1 record, meaning they are a skinny half-game behind the idle Eagles in the NFC East. MetLife South exploded with glee and the Giants stormed off their sidelines.
“We made it tougher than it needed to be,” Daboll said, and he may have been right, but he wasn’t about to offer to give it back. “We didn’t finish the game the way we wanted to. But we’ll get back to work.”
The coach’s standards may be high, and they should be. The Giants keep proving, week after week, that they are more than a feel-good story, a cuddly little-engine-that-could sidebar. This is a genuinely good team now, with playoff ambitions. Maybe the Eagles and Cowboys can change the narrative later in the season but for now, the Giants believe they belong in the conversation for the East.
Because they do. “There’s a competitive spirit and a mental toughness to our group regardless of what’s happening in the game,” said quarterback Daniel Jones, who had another superb (and turnoverfree) game, piling up 202 yards passing and 107 yards rushing. “We have confidence that we’ll execute.”
In so many ways this game — specifically the last minute — was a microcosm of their entire season. At times they really do look like a continuation of their recent past, and they invariably put themselves in position to lose. And just when that thought begins to creep in they do something — many things — that remind you it is a new day, and a new team.
And they do the hardest thing there is to do in sports. They close.
Damned if they find a way to close almost every week.
“We fought,” Saquon Barkley said, “and we found a way to win the football game.”
Barkley was kicking himself for not falling in bounds on the play that had allowed the Jaguars one final gasp. A week after sacrificing a late touchdown in order to bleed the clock against the Ravens, his intentions were pure but he just couldn’t fall down in play.
“I have to be better than that,” he said.
Of course, he’d been plenty good across the game’s first 59 minutes, gaining 110 yards, biding his time early before finding some important holes as the Giants took and then kept the lead. But that seems to summarize the Giants’ season perfectly, too.
They are good, but they’re not satisfied with just being good.
And shouldn’t be. They aren’t 6-1 by accident, either.