In his postgame press conference, Giants head coach Joe Judge pointed to his team’s penultimate drive, which went 70 yards over 7:22 and gave the Giants a 13-7 lead with 2:54 to go, as an example of his team’s growth.
Unfortunately, their final drive was anything but that, and nearly cost the Giants the game after giving Philly a second chance to win it in the final three minutes.
“Obviously, you want to be able to close those situations out and we've got to do better in that situation to do that,” quarterback Daniel Jones said of the drive. “We'll look at it and look to improve on that going forward.”
That drive, which started at the Giants’ 37 after a Boston Scott fumble, took just 23 seconds off the clock in a situation where there were only 94 left to begin with. Two runs for no net gain led to two Philly timeouts, and on 3rd-and-10, Jones rolled out, looking to pass to try to pick up a game-icing first down, and ended up sliding down for what goes down as a sack and a loss of eight.
“I think the play there was just to move the pocket. In that situation you don't want to throw an incompletion. So, try to stay in bounds and keep the ball,” Jones said.
Not optimal, but it did burn Philly’s third timeout, which loomed large late.
“They're going to use their last timeout right there, so we don't want to give them a freebie and then all of a sudden give them a drive with a timeout,” Judge said. “I don't think that's any kind of trade secret. There are times we can drop straight back, sit in the pocket and zing it down the field and we have confidence in doing that if you have the right matchup and if you have the right situation. For us today, we had a lot of confidence in terms of how our defense was playing. I'm a big believer in situationally managing the game. I thought it was big for us there that if we're going to give them the ball back, we're going to make them play rushed.”
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“They know that if we're lining up and we're probably going to run the ball there, they're going to load the box. They did a really good job of penetrating,” Saquon Barkley said. “They take a risk there. If we block it off and we block it off right, there's a chance it could be a big play. But they made a play there.”
As Judge noted, you ideally want to finish the four-minute offense with the ball in your hands, but the Giants gave Philly two cracks at the win – the first after not being able to convert on 3rd-and-2 from the Philly 16 with three minutes left, a penalty forcing an incomplete pass and the Gano field goal.
“As a whole, we've got to do better. We have to have a sense of urgency there. That's something that we've got to continue to preach, continue to focus on,” Barkley said. “Obviously, those things happened before and they happen, but you've got to learn from it. Just got to take it and roll with it.”
The second one gave the ball back to the Birds with just under 90 seconds left needing to go 59 yards with no timeouts, and while it may have given fans pause that they were about to see a third Miracle at the Meadowlands, Barkley and company had no doubt the D could finish strong.
"We know the defense is going to do it. We have one of the best defenses in the league, with special players and young guys stepping up and making big plays,” Barkley said. “Were we upset? Yes, and I think that's a good thing, because I haven't seen that in the past. We had a mistake right there where we put ourselves in a position where we had to rely on our defense, so we were really upset and frustrated with ourselves because we know what we have and we know what we're capable of.”
Added Judge: “When we called those plays today, that’s not the first time we’ve talked about what we’re going to call, we talk about that situation all week. If we don't finish this right here, it's a got-to-have-it punt situation, so we talk about what we’re expecting, and then we go to the defense and say, ‘let’s be ready to play defense against a two-minute drill where they need a touchdown with no timeouts.' So, that's the situation right there and you lay it down and you play it. You always want to try and play ahead as much as you can.”
It all worked, as the Giants’ defense made the stop, even though the Eagles saw receiver Jalen Reagor fail to come up with two passes that would have been game-tying touchdowns had he been able to hang onto them.
Sometimes, it’s better to be lucky than good, but it takes all 53 to get there.
“The great thing is it's a team sport, and our defense and special teams came alive,” Barkley said. “At the end of the day, we got a win and, obviously, beat Philly, so there's a lot more to it.”
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