The Giants were dead, and you hadn’t even cracked open your first game-day beverage yet. The bean dip was still wrapped, the Frito bag still sealed. It wasn’t even a quarter after one yet, and you might’ve thought about scouring the other games on TV, maybe checked out the Liberty-Dream playoff game, or Braves-Marlins on MLB Network.
On the opening kickoff, the Giants Eric Gray had fumbled the ball away. On the Browns’ first play from scrimmage, Deshaun Watson had connected with Amari Cooper for a 24-yard touchdown. On the Giants’ fifth play from scrimmage Daniel Jones threw the ball right to Cleveland’s Ronnie Hickman, again at the Giants 24.
“Oh look! A ‘Matrix’ marathon on AMC! I’m in!”
And that’s when a funny thing happened.
There was a flag on the field. The crowd of 68,616, who’d done nothing but scream themselves silly so far at Cleveland’s Huntington Bank Field, went silent. Greg Newsome’s hand had connected with Daniel Jones’ helmet. In 1964, that might’ve only amped the din to preposterous levels.
In 2024, it’s 15 yards.
And in the moment — in that instant — it wasn’t just the football game that flipped upside down, but also the way we might have to look at these Giants. They scored a touchdown 7 ½ minutes later, Devin Singletary bulling over from the 1. Jones hooked up with rookie wunderkind Malik Nabers twice before halftime for a 21-7 lead.
They hung on to win 21-15. There were some terrifying moments along the way. None of them mattered as they walked off the field.
“We showed a lot of resiliency,” Giants coach Brian Daboll said. “Particularly how it started. But the guys competed, kept competing, and I’m proud of them.”
Suddenly, they weren’t a social media punching bag anymore (even if they gave most of their fans acid indigestion until the very last minutes of the fourth quarter).
If the first few minutes inspired any #LOLGiants memes, they were quickly deleted. What followed across the final 54 minutes and 51 seconds was as sound a beating as you can administer on a football field, especially on the road. Forget the score. Remember what you saw. Remember what you watched.
“Once you get hot, stay hot,” said Dexter Lawrence, ferocious all day, responsible for two of the Giants’ eight sacks and one of their five tackles for a loss. “Don’t lose focus. Just got to keep stacking them now.”
He meant wins. This was the first. There will be others if they throw more complete games like the one they did Sunday — certainly more than seemed logical after the way they lost their first two. They made Watson more than grossly ineffective, they made him look frightened, unsure of where the next battering was coming from.
Jones? Well, he was spared that early pick. He was saved another when Nabers made a ridiculous catch later on, which set up his first touchdown. But he was also terrific for a second straight game: 24-for-34, two touchdowns, no picks, a rating of 109.4.
And of course there was Nabers, shaking off his big drop from last week, making eight catches (off 12 targets), and on each one of them he threw off an Odell-ian vibe that he just might be able to do something a little extra, too.
“When you have a guy like that,” Daboll said, “it doesn’t matter about matchups. Throw the ball up to him and he’s going to get it.”
So far what we know is this: Daboll isn’t wrong about any of that.
“We kept them on their heels,” Jones said. “I thought we executed awfully well today.”
Daboll: “Our guys already have internal confidence. But it’s good to get results.”
They would get them on this sunny afternoon a pooch punt away from Lake Erie, turning all those hopeful voices of 1:15 into endless cascades of boos by 4, and for the rest of the game in between. Watson was already on a hot seat; it’s now crackling at about 212 degrees Fahrenheit. The Giants owned the line of scrimmage, both sides of the ball.
If you weren’t able to fully exhale until Cedric Tillman dropped one of the few accurate strikes Watson threw all day, one that hit him between the “1” and the “9” on his jersey before bouncing harmlessly away … well, that’s just life in the NFL every week.
Believe what you saw. Believe what you watched. Most of all, believe that there’s still plenty of football season left for a team for which that suddenly seems a blessing and not a sentence.
