CLEVELAND — They tried every way they could to accomplish the seemingly impossible — turn a thrilling and rare victory into a devastating loss. After building a comfortable lead, the Giants ran into trouble in many ways on Sunday. They gave way, but they didn’t break.
A 21-7 lead was cut and threatened, but never lost. The Giants had to defend and defend they did, leaving Huntington Bank Field with a thrilling and much-needed 21-15 victory over the Browns.
After starting 0-2, the Giants couldn’t handle another loss. That they couldn’t do that was a testament to their weakness at the end – and to the truly awful performance of Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson. The Giants sacked him eight times.
Daniel Jones and rookie Malik Nabers had near-perfect performances in the first half, combining for two touchdowns. However, the offense collapsed in the second half, scoring no points and allowing the Browns (1-2) to decide the game.
Jones completed 24 of 34 passes for 236 yards. Nabers had eight catches for 78 yards.
The Giants were in control, leading by 14 at halftime after scoring 21 straight points, but their offense fell asleep and allowed the Browns to get back into the game. Devin Singletary lost the ball on a fumble, Andrew Thomas was penalized for a false start, Jones was sacked and the offense struggled to move forward. This allowed Watson, who had previously played terribly and been booed by his own fans, to finally look competent. He hit Amari Cooper – who had been squashing Deonte Banks several times – with a 6-yard touchdown pass to make it 21-13 with 11:33 left. The Browns went within two points and got it when Watson found Jerry Jeudy.
The Giants were lucky when Jerome Ford dropped the ball and Azeez Ojulari recovered it with 7:40 left. The Giants’ still-weak offense could not take advantage of this and had to punt the ball away with 5:19 left.
Time for one last stand. Kayvon Thibodeaux and Jason Pinnock stopped Jameis Winston’s quarterback sneak on third-and-1 and Dexter Lawence’s leg tackle on Watson brought him down with 3:36 minutes left for the first down.
The Giants had a chance to tie the game, but newly signed kicker Greg Joseph missed wide right on a 48-yard field goal attempt with three minutes left.
Time for one last fight. Banks defended Cedric Tillman well – Cooper was not on the field due to injury – and sealed the deal for the Giants with an important fourth down stop with 2:33 minutes left.
Jones completed 17 of 19 passes for 178 yards in the first half. When he hit rookie tight end Theo Johnson for 13 yards early in the third quarter, Jones completed 20 of 22 passes. Was he ever that accurate?
If you want to look up “nightmare beginnings” in the dictionary — or just Google it — what the Giants allowed was living proof of how to go down the road. Eric Gray dropped the opening kickoff, leaving the Browns with the ball at the Giants’ 24-yard line. On the first play, Watson found Cooper in man coverage with Banks and the result was a 24-yard touchdown. Less than 11 seconds into the game, the Giants were down 7-0 — despite having the ball first.
Things almost got worse when Jones was intercepted by safety Ronnie Hickman on the second series of the game – it looked like rookie tight end Theo Johnson had gone the wrong way. The loss was negated by a roughing the passer against cornerback Greg Newsome, which turned out to be a huge turnaround.
The Giants completed a 13-play, 81-yard drive with Daboll risking it all and attempting 4th-and-1 at his own 43-yard line (Nabers ran two yards on a jet sweep to score the first down). Notably, the Giants overcame two holding penalties (Greg Van Roten, Johnson) with Jones keeping the ball moving and Singletary ramming it home from a yard out to make it 7-7.
That was the start of the Giants’ most impressive stretch of play this season. They sacked Watson on two consecutive plays — rookie Elijah Chatman made his first in the NFL — to set the tone. On the first series of the second quarter, Lawrence chased and harassed Watson until he was penalized for intentional grounding. Jones then made 7 of 8 on a series that highlighted him as a point guard and directed the ball where it needed to go. Nabers made the biggest splash by stripping cornerback Martin Emerson of what could have been an interception and ended in a 28-yard pass — a classic 50-50 ball that Jones trusted the rookie to handle.
Nabers finished what he started by shaking off Emerson and then making a diving catch in the left corner of the end zone, scoring the ball to make it 14-7 with 1:44 left in the first half.
Amazingly, the Giants extended their lead. They got the ball back when Brian Burns made his first crucial play for his new team, manhandling right tackle Dawand Jones and forcing Watson to strip sack, after which Chatman pounced on the ball at the Browns’ 30-yard line with 32 seconds left before halftime.
Settle for a field goal? No chance. Daboll trusted Jones to do the right thing and threw the ball 12 yards to Nabers, smartly ran eight yards and the Giants ended up at the 5-yard line with no timeouts and just five seconds left to play. Jones found Nabers in the back of the end zone, there was another bounce and the Giants took a 21-7 lead.
