The Giants Won 27–27. It Looks Even Better This Morning.

I spent part of Sunday beating the shit out of my heavy bag, shaking the frames in the house, and convincing my dog that she should probably pursue a quieter living arrangement.

Then I came back and watched the Giants finish with a tie.

Excellent use of my emotional resources. Very mature. Put me down for an A in situational awareness.

But it’s Monday morning now. The NFC East has finished its work for the weekend, even though the Rams and Bills still have tonight’s game to play. We’ve seen the endings, heard the explanations, and had a little time to consider where everybody stands.

Somebody in the BBI game thread put it beautifully:

The Giants won, 27–27.

Today, that sounds considerably less ridiculous than it did yesterday.

If I’d told you before the season that a fully healthy Giants team would be 3–1–1 after five games, alone in first place and more than a game ahead of everybody else in the division, you would have taken it.

You also might have accused me of the usual homerism.

If I’d added that they’d get there after losing Jaxson Dart and Brian Burns, you’d have wanted to check whether I was okay.

Well, here we are.

That’s a game and a half ahead of Philadelphia and Dallas, and two games ahead of Washington. The tie gained us half a game on the Eagles and Cowboys. It kept Washington from cutting into our lead.

A win would have been better. I’m perfectly capable of counting. But look at what this team has absorbed, then look at the standings, and tell me I’m supposed to spend Monday apologizing for feeling good.

Fuck that.

Jameis Winston gave us a reason to feel good that goes beyond everybody else screwing up.

He finished with 326 passing yards, three touchdowns, and no interceptions. Nabers and Likely caught eleven passes apiece. Once the Giants leaned into the no-huddle passing game, the offense started finding answers.

The first half was ugly. We don’t need to edit that out of the tape. Winston also benefited from a pass-interference call that wiped out an interception. We got a break.

But he went 26-for-38 after halftime and brought this team back from fourteen down. That deserves more weight than the verdict some people were ready to deliver after his first uncomfortable appearances.

Dart was the starter. Winston entered the season as the backup. Now he and the coaches are getting real evidence of what works with him running this offense.

He’s now getting the weekly preparation of the starter, and the staff is learning how to get the most out of him. Let that relationship develop before declaring its limits.

My expectation is that more work together brings quicker decisions, cleaner timing, and a better idea of which calls let him play confidently. That’s a prediction, and we’ll keep the receipt.

Sunday gave us something worth building on.

The defense found something, too.

Dennard Wilson turned up the pressure, including Cover Zero, and Dru Phillips finished with two sacks and four quarterback hits. We started making Daniels deal with us instead of letting him dictate every uncomfortable question.

I wanted the dogs let loose during the game. I still want that available next week.

Available matters. You can’t make the entire defense one enormous announcement that everybody is coming. Opponents will prepare answers, and missed assignments can become very expensive very quickly.

But we have another tool in the shed. We have a corner who can get there. We can make an offense prepare for pressure from more places.

The quarterback runs still need fixing. Daniels scored on runs of thirty-eight and twenty-six yards. Nobody gets to point at the comeback and pretend those lanes were acceptable.

That’s work for this week. So are the penalties, the slow offensive start, and the ball security.

Which brings us to Skattebo.

His fumble was costly. He also helped put the Giants in position to win, including the runs that moved that last possession into field-goal range and earned the first down before the two-minute warning.

Daron Payne made the strip. Credit the defender. Then coach the runner, because carrying the ball in that situation comes with a responsibility that doesn’t disappear when somebody makes a good play.

I’m also not joining the automatic prosecution of Harbaugh for continuing to run.

Dominic Zvada had missed three field goals that day. The Giants had just moved the ball on the ground. Getting closer mattered.

Harbaugh explained the plan afterward: gain yardage, protect the football, use the clock, then kick with as little time remaining as possible. If the kick missed, Washington would have little or no opportunity to answer.

That is a reasonable strategy under those circumstances. The fumble makes the execution a failure. It doesn’t, by itself, make the original decision idiotic.

Harbaugh praised Skattebo’s overall game and demanded better ball security. He praised the team’s resilience and acknowledged how much cleaner it needs to play.

That sounds like the appropriate Monday workload to me.

Washington, meanwhile, has a different kind of problem to explain.

The last minute looked like an offense waiting for somebody else to stop the clock. The urgency didn’t match the situation. Watching Daniels on the ground at the end, I had the same thought I’d had as the sequence was unfolding:

Did somebody think they still had another fucking timeout?

Regular-season overtime gives each team two. Washington had none left. With twelve seconds remaining at the Giants’ twenty-four, Daniels went down inbounds, and they never got another snap off.

That’s why I wonder whether someone was operating as though a third timeout existed. It would explain the apparent expectation that the clock could be stopped for them.

Chris Paul reportedly said they discussed having no timeouts in the huddle. Quinn accepted responsibility for the sequencing, and Daniels acknowledged his own responsibility for stopping the clock.

That means the missing-timeout explanation remains my suspicion. There’s no established evidence of a cover-up.

I can tell you their actions did not reflect a shared, functioning understanding of the situation. Knowing you have no timeout has to change what you do. The quarterback, receivers, line, and sideline all have jobs in that moment.

Washington reached field-goal range and never attempted the kick. That failure belongs to the operation as a whole.

They had a fourteen-point fourth-quarter lead. They got another chance after our fumble. They still couldn’t close.

Their reward is a week of explaining it before traveling to San Francisco for Monday night.

Enjoy the flight.

Philadelphia gets its own special edition of Clock Management for People Who Do This Professionally.

The Eagles took the lead in London with eight seconds left, then allowed a fifty-three-yard kickoff return that set up Cam Little’s fifty-seven-yard winner. Jacksonville won, 19–17. Sirianni said, “I lost us that game.”

You can appreciate a coach accepting responsibility and still ask how an ending like that happened.

Now Philadelphia comes home to face Carolina, which is coming off its bye. The Eagles can absolutely recover. But their week begins with questions about how they managed to lose a game they’d just taken the lead in.

Dallas started its contribution to this division-wide headache on Thursday.

The Cowboys lost at home, 24–16, to a previously winless Tampa Bay team using its backup quarterback. Bucky Irving ran for 165 yards. Dallas’ last opportunity ended with another interception.

That buys you several days of unpleasant questions about the offense, defense, coaching, and the people responsible for assembling the whole thing.

Next stop: Lambeau Field, against a Green Bay team that just beat Chicago, 31–7.

Meanwhile, the Giants come home to face New Orleans, which just lost, 23–13, to Minnesota.

That’s an opportunity. The Saints aren’t obligated to cooperate, and I don’t expect Harbaugh to let anybody mistake a favorable position for a finished job.

I expect the Giants to prepare to play better. I expect the coaches to use what they learned about Winston. I expect the defense to keep developing the pressure package while correcting the quarterback lanes.

I expect the ball to be treated like it matters, because holy shit, does it matter.

The full Saints preview is coming. For now, take a look around the division.

Three teams behind us have explanations to deliver. We have corrections to make, a quarterback performance to build on, and first place to defend.

After everything that has already gone wrong, that is a pretty fucking good place to be.

We’re Grateful Blue. We don’t apologize for enjoying it.

The Giants won, 27–27.

This morning, I’m looking forward to next Sunday.