Halfway through this NFL season, the New York Giants were 1-7, and had fans wondering if they were in somber lockstep with the Jets for the rights to Clemson star quarterback Trevor Lawrence. It was getting harder to preach process and patience for a team on a crash course for a 2-14 season, but after three straight wins, Big Blue is 4-7 and in first place in the anemic NFC East, as they hold the tiebreaker over Washington (4-7) having defeated them twice this season.
Cynics will assert the Giants just nudged past a 2-8-1 Bengals club playing without sublime young QB Joe Burrow, the front-runner for Rookie of the Year and easily the best quarterback the Bengals drafted since Boomer Esiason. Cincinnati also took the field without their next-best player, halfback Joe Mixon, so the Giants faced practice-squad QB Brandon Allen and aging RB Gio Bernard. If there's one thing the Giants can play, it's defense, and they put a chokehold on the Bengals offense, holding them to 10 points all game.
Sure, Big Blue's longest passing play all season was Sunday’s 53-yard throw from Daniel Jones to tight end Evan Engram, but that didn't even score a touchdown. And right after the Giants did punch it in, the Bengals' Brandon Wilson gulped the kickoff and dashed 103 yards for a tying touchdown. Those were the most exciting plays of the game, and both came in the first five minutes of the first quarter.
We've said for weeks that progress isn't pretty. It's a crucial block that gives the QB an extra second to throw cleanly, or gap discipline, or a shoestring tackle that thwarts a big gain – and it’s all those little things adding up to big moments. No matter what critics say there are no ugly wins, just wins against ugly teams. Most of us have noticed tangible improvement in the team, but they only truly matter when they manifest into victory. It took eight games, but the Giants have finally found themselves.
And Big Blue worked the Bengals, beyond what the 19-17 final score would imply. They had 19 first downs to just 11 for Cincinnati. They ran 80 plays to a mere 46 for the Bengals. They more than doubled the Bengals in total yards, 386 to 155, caused three Bengals turnovers, and committed just one. And the Giants held the ball for over 37 minutes, to a little over 22 minutes for the home team.
Sadly, the streaking G-Men may have hit a serious speed bump when Daniel Jones hurt his right hamstring and limped off the field in the second half. An MRI will tell us if he pulled, tweaked, or tore one of the more confounding muscles in a pro athlete's body. The timing is terrible, as not only were the Giants on a roll, but they're about to walk across the scalding coals of their schedule. On Sunday, the Giants start a slate of four straight games against winning teams in the Seahawks, Cardinals, Browns, Ravens, and they may have to play some or all of them with Colt McCoy under center. The Giants are the fourth team for the vagabond 34-year-old quarterback, who is 7-21 as a starter over 10 NFL seasons.
For right now, at least, the feisty Giants don't have to apologize for their winning streak, for whom they beat, or for being in first place, no matter how briefly they stay there or how bad the division is. Just a few weeks ago, it seemed there were two historically bad teams from the Meadowlands. The Giants don't need to worry about that anymore. First-place teams don't apologize for how they got there.
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