The New York Giants blew a sure win over the Dallas Cowboys Sunday night by horribly mismanaging the end of the game. In addition to calling the wrong play on 3rd-and-goal from the 1-yard line, the G-Men apparently also gave up an opportunity to take a two-possession lead with less than two minutes remaining.
On Monday, Giants running back Rashad Jennings revealed that he was told not to score on consecutive plays inside the Cowboys’ 5-yard line late in the fourth quarter.
“On the first-down play, I was told, ‘Rashad, don’t score,'” Jennings told Dan Graziano of ESPN.com. “On second down, ‘Rashad, don’t score.’ I was tempted to say, ‘Forget it,’ and go score because I could. But I didn’t want to be that guy. But definitely, I was asked not to score.”
The orders came from Eli Manning, who obviously got the call from the sideline. The thinking may have been that the Cowboys had no timeouts left. Jennings explained that the Giants thought Dallas used its final timeout when converting on third down the previous drive. However, the Cowboys had been called for offsides following an Odell Beckham Jr. catch on third down. The Giants declined the penalty, but the clock still stops by rule.
If Jennings didn’t score on first or second down, the Giants believed they could run the clock inside a minute before running their third down play. They were wrong, but Jennings isn’t second-guessing it.
“I’m not mad,” he said. “We’re doing this as a team, and we thought it was best for us not to score at that point. Of course I wanted to, but that’s just the football player in you.”
A touchdown would have given the Giants a two-possession lead. Even if they thought the Cowboys were out of timeouts, they should have just focused on scoring a touchdown to take a 30-20 lead. Instead, they settled for a field goal and Dallas put together a game-winning drive.
Both Tom Coughlin and Manning took the blame for the loss after the game, but it’s hard to argue that horrible coaching cost the Giants a win in an always-important divisional game.
Photo: Tim Heitman-USA TODAY Sports
