Giants-Browns ‘things I think’: After hanging on, Giants have reason for hope

The New York Giants gave themselves a chance on Sunday to be relevant this season. Or, at least to be something other than a bottom-feeding laughingstock teams mark on their calendars as an easy 'W.'

Barely.

The Giants held a two-score lead at the half and dominated the action — except for the first two plays — until early in the fourth quarter, then hung on thanks to both some good defense and some bad Cleveland play for a desperately-needed 21-15 victory.

GM Joe Schoen said during the offseason edition of ' Hard Knocks ' that the Giants had to avoid an 0-3 start. They should have taken care of that last week in a game against the Washington Commanders that should have been a Giant victory. Like bad teams often do, though, they found a way to lose it.

Sunday, it looked like they might do it again.

After Cleveland closed to within 21-15, the Giants held on three Cleveland possessions. Granted, the Browns fumbled the ball away once on a simple handoff and Cedric Tillman short-circuited Cleveland's final chance by dropping a fourth-down pass that hit him in the numbers.

Still, too often in recent times the Giants have found ways to lose games like this one.

Head coach Brian Daboll called it "a normal NFL game."

Maybe so in terms of ebbs and flows. This wasn't, though, a "normal" game for the Giants. This one had huge implications for what type of season the Giants might have. Beyond that, I don't believe it is an exaggeration to say it might have been a huge game for the Schoen-Daboll regime and the direction of the franchise.

An 0-3 record heading into this Thursday's prime time game against the Dallas Cowboys would have made MetLife Stadium an insufferable place on Thursday. The season would have been over. The booing of Daniel Jones would have been ugly. The calls for Daboll's head would have made social media a more awful place than it usually is.

Now, MetLife Stadium might even have a hopeful vibe on Thursday.

I wrote a post a few days ago headline ' Can the 2024 Giants be a good football team? '

It depends what happens now.

The Giants might be a bad team. This might be a temporary reprieve. A 'feel good for a few days in a bad year' deal. It might be the Giants taking advantage of team with more problems than they have.

Then again, it might not be.

The Giants have a massive opportunity four days from now against a Cowboys team that looks anything but unbeatable. As I write this, the Cowboys are in the midst of getting pounded by the Baltimore Ravens , which would leave them with the same 1-2 record the Giants have.

The Philadelphia Eagles messed up the dream of all four NFC East teams being 1-2 heading into Thursday — meaning the Giants-Cowboys game would be for first place — but if the Giants win they can put themselves in the middle of a race that does not appear to have a dominant team.

The Giants showed a lot of good things against the Browns. For that matter, a week ago against the Commanders, as well.

One of those in a league full of ups and downs and weekly craziness that is hard — and sometimes impossible — to explain, is resilience.

They showed it after an Eric Gray fumble put them in a 7-0 hole 11 seconds into the game. They showed it again in the fourth quarter, stopping the Browns three times after Cleveland had closed within six points.

"This is the third anniversary of my grandmother's death. She raised me," Daboll said. "I was kinda giving her the business after those first two plays. I was like 'what the hell you got in store for me'?"

The Giants, though, played through that misfortune. They dominated the first half, leading 21-7 at halftime.

A Devin Singletary fumble in the third quarter — his second in as many weeks — and a shanked field goal by new placekicker Greg Joseph with 3:00 left in the game, made closing out this victory harder than it had to be.

Still, the Giants did it.

Back to that 'can the Giants be a good team?' question.

"We like to have a good process, which leads to good results. That's the ideal box. Sometimes you have a good process that leads to bad results, but still a box you want to be in although the results are not good," Daboll said after Sunday's victory. "Then you can have bad processes and bad results, which is what we don't want to do. So the commitment to one another, how we do things, or bad process but good results which is a slippery slope too.

"Again, the way our guys work, their commitment, their practice habits, their study habits, it's not always going to lead to a win. You'd love for it to, but I know every week they go in and give everything the've got. In the classroom, work hard on the practice field. The coaches are together, there is chemistry, they work their tails off, unfortunately sometimes you don't get the results you want. It's good to get the results for this."

The Giants showed a lot of things on Sunday that can help them win football games.

Malik Nabers is a star.

His 8-catch, 78-yard, 2-touchdown game featured acrobatics, toughness to rip a 50-50 ball away from a defender, and a brilliant, gritty, winning play to knock away a fluttering ball that should have been intercepted after Daniel Jones' arm was hit.

The Giants are figuring out how to play on offense.

Daniel Jones was efficient in the first half, 17 of 19 for 178 yards and two scores. Albeit, he had an interception negated by penalty. And, no he wasn't nearly as good in the second half.

Still, the Giants have now played pretty good offense two weeks in a row. Again Sunday they protected Jones well enough — even if Myles Garrett worked over Andrew Thomas. They were excellent in the short to intermediate passing game, with Jones giving Nabers chances and Nabers making the quarterback right for trusting him.

The Giants showcased a varied running game. They used Singletary, sprinkled in designed runs for Nabers and Jones, gave Tyrone Tracy Jr. some touches. Shoot, the Giants even ran a couple of well-executed screen passes.

They took some deep shots, which Jones could not connect on. Still, the plan was good and the execution — while not perfect — was promising.

The pass rush was relentless — until the Giants pulled back on the reins. Defensive coordinator Shane Bowen abandoned his usual four-man rush to send the house at Cleveland quarterback DeShaun Watson, taking advantage of a tattered Browns' offensive line.

The Giants ended up with 8 sacks and 17 hits on Watson. It's pressure they knew they were going to need not only Sunday but consistently to be a good defense.

There is, as Daboll also said, "a lot to clean up on." Some of which they may be able to clean up, some of which they will perhaps have to work around.

The special teams play — Gray's fumble and Greg Joseph's horrible shanked missed field goal — was problematic. The play of Deonte Banks, who was no match for Amari Cooper, was an issue. Back-to-back weeks with fumbles by Singletary is a concern. Jones' inability to connect on the deep ball is going to make it harder and harder to complete the underneath stuff. The fact that the Giants, with a clear advantage heading into the second half, made this victory harder than it had to be, is a concern. Still, the Giants won. They have hope. So, Sunday was a good day.