With 4:29 remaining in the fourth quarter of a primetime game tightly contested and knotted 17-17, the underdog New York Giants had the struggling Kansas City Chiefs with their backs nineteen yards from the wall and the momentum shifting to their side of the line of scrimmage.
Second down and 20 from the Kansas City 19, the beleaguered Patrick Mahomes threw another interception, this time straight into the gloves of Giants rookie cornerback Darnay Holmes. Spotting the ball at the 34-yard line, suddenly the perpetually deafening Arrowhead Stadium went momentarily silent as Daniel Jones and the Giants offense began their strut onto the field for what they hoped would be a short game-winning drive.
Then the decibel shattering atmosphere returned just seconds later, as the sight of yellow laundry, that the Giants have grown poorly accustomed to seeing at this stretch of a game, hit the historic turf. Oshane Ximines was offside prior to the snap, the Chiefs would regain possession of the football and five free yards, and earn the redemption their season desperately needed.
Nine plays and 45 yards later, fifteen of that from another costly Giants penalty, Harrison Butker answered the call from 34-yards distance, helping the Chiefs take victory from the jaws of defeat.
The Giants? Well, it’s the same script they’ve already seen two times this season.
Succumbing to more injuries, committing more untimely penalties in the final minutes with the game on the line, and failing to execute and produce on critical offensive drives. All of it played out for the third time as the Giants narrowly fell to the Chiefs 20-17 on Monday Night Football.
It was a game the Giants felt, despite mistakes, they had a lot of positives to take from and show on the tape. While second-year head coach Joe Judge didn’t hold back comments regarding issues like the team’s in-game headsets during the postgame, he didn’t want the whole presser to be about that or to espouse a totally woeful take on his team’s performance.
Unfortunately in New York, and Judge knows this, the mistakes a team makes on the field are remembered just as much as the successful plays.
“I think there were a lot of things the offense did positive tonight, Judge said. “We strung some drives together. We knew the kind of game plan we wanted to play on our terms tonight. For a large part, we did. For a large part, we came in and said this is the kind of game we have to play tonight, offensively and defensively and the kicking game”
“We anticipated a lot of the answers they were going to have and we had our kind of change ups ready for what they were going to. There was a lot of situational ball going back and forth. A lot of good coaching adjusts. A lot of good execution adjustments on the field.”
“Ultimately it was not enough. We have to eliminate the mistakes we make down the stretch. We can’t allow a team like this to have extra opportunities. We can’t rob opportunities from ourselves with break downs in focus. We have to make sure we do a better job than that”
The mistakes began with Daniel Jones, who on the Giants first possession following an interception by cornerback Julian Love on a Mahomes pass that ricocheted into the air off a Chiefs receiver’s helmet, immediately threw his own interception right to linebacker Willie Gay on the second play.
The Chiefs would respond to Jones’ return gesture with a four play, 13-yard drive that ended in a Mahomes’ 6-yard pass to receiver Tyreek Hill for a 7-0 Kansas City lead.
“Yeah, it was just a bad decision there,” said Jones on his turnover. “I should’ve kicked the ball out to swing there. It was just a bad decision.”
Luckily for Jones, he too received an opportunity to avenge himself, and it came two drives later.
After a pair of punts by both teams, the Giants executed a nine play, 85-yard drive to the Chiefs’ 1-yard line, where they were met with one of their worst enemies this season– goal line offensive play calling. The Giants have struggled all season to score touchdowns from within the redzone, and this time it took them till 4th down and goal before they punched in their six point ticket.
Jones connected with tight end Kyle Rudolph on a 1-yard pass and the Giants tied the game at 7-7. It was Rudolph’s first touchdown as a Giant, after his score last Sunday against the Panthers was called back for his foot touching the white sidelines just before he stretched the football to the pylon.
Both teams remained fairly mistake-free, with the Giants’ exception being a taunting penalty by Collin Johnson to start an 8 play, 86-yard drive that ended with a 23-yard field goal by Graham Gano, and the Giants went into the locker room at halftime trailing 14-10.
Coming out of the half, it felt as if the Giants inability to cut the score even closer in the final seconds was going to give the Chiefs offense the push it needed to open things up and quell any Giants pressure. Instead, the Chiefs came out lifeless and the momentum swung to the Giants direction as soon as a live ball hit the turf.
On their second drive of the half, the Chiefs drove 51 yards to the Giants’ 28 yard line and were sniffing out the endzone and a double digit lead. Mahomes threw an 8-yard pass to his trusty, playmaking tight end Travis Kelce on 2nd and 20 to the Giants’ 30, but this time the All-Pro receiver let the ball out of his hands.
A hit by veteran cornerback Logan Ryan jarred the ball loose, James Bradberry recovered and returned the fumble thirteen yards, and the Giants were in business after forcing the second Chiefs’ turnover of the game.
What was so shocking about Kelce’s night was not so much that he fumbled in a critical drive, but that he was never a factor to begin with. The Cincinnati product was held to just one receiving yard the entire first half, and finished with four receptions for 27 yards, sixteen of those coming on the final drive of the game that helped set up the Butker game-winning field goal.
Mahomes talked about how his team rallied from Kelce’s fumble, and will need to continue to do so, in order to stack wins like the Giants and save their slipping season. His trust in Kelce from one game has not wavered either from what happened on the field Monday.
“We’re going to keep battling. Even the Titans game the week before, we’re going to battle to the very end, I promise you that. You’re hoping that the turnover luck flips the other way, but that comes with us trying to execute at a higher level.”
“Like I said to Trav and all these guys, ‘I’m going to keep coming right back to you. I’m going to throw it to you and let you make a play because I have that trust in you.’ I think as the season goes on, hopefully we can correct the turnovers and I think we can still be a special offense.”
Nevertheless, the Giants offense capitalized off the turnover by going 8 plays and 57 yards and Jones throwing a 5-yard pass to tight end Evan Engram–one of his three catches for 15 yards–to give themselves a 17-14 advantage at the start of the fourth quarter.
The following drive, the Chiefs drove 57 yards and Harrison Butker nailed a 36-yard kick to tie the game at 17.
As the second half of the fourth quarter began to dwindle down, the Giants had the ball beginning at their own 19-yard line with around eight minutes left. An opportunity with the ball in their control to drain as much clock on Mahomes and the Chiefs and punch in one more touchdown to raise the pressure on the home team to save their season. The hard corecore Giants fan had glimmers of excitement in their eyes that their team could just knock off the defending AFC Champions.
Nope, insert poor offensive drive and one that was stifled by one of the newest penalty annoyances in the NFL–taunting. The Giants had a 8-play drive that initially got them into Chiefs territory, but instead stalled at their own 42 after only 24 yards and 4:12 elapsed.
Fullback Elijah Penny had a rare catch and run that saw him trip over the field yet still stumble for 16 yards to the Giants 43. It was a fair play, this is until Penny got up and proceeded to mouth some words to Charvarius Ward, causing the refs to throw the yellow laundry and back his team up fifteen yards for taunting.
Just like that, the Giants offensive drive was stifled. The Chiefs defense only allowed small pick and pocket plays for minimal yardage the rest of the way, and the Giants had to punt and put the game into their defense for another week.
The defense almost succeeded.
Receiving the ball at their own 19, already flustered over two turnovers and irritated over only putting up 17 points on a less than average Giants defense, Mahomes and the Chiefs looked to execute one solid drive in the fourth quarter to steal the game in their typical fashion.
The drive started with a Mahomes incomplete pass batted down by Oshane Ximines, and little did anyone know his big first down play would be a more fortunate prelude to what would follow on the next play.
Standing in the pocket on second down. Mahomes fired a throw towards receiver Byron Pringle, who before the ball could reach his hands was picked off over the top by Giants corner Darnay Holmes. The Giants sideline erupted as the rookie out of UCLA had just forced an immense turnover–Mahomes 11th interception of the season–and placed his offense within field goal range to start one last, game-winning drive.
The celebration was short lived as one refs’ eyes had different plans. As Holmes fell to the ground at the Chiefs’ 34-yard line, one of the Giants defense’s familiar demons came back to haunt them. An offsides penalty was charged to Ximines who clearly jolted before the snap, and instantly the ball possession was reversed back to Kansas City.
The Giants’ undisciplined defensive play in the fourth quarter struck again for a third time this season. In Washington, Dexter Lawrence went offsides on a questionable call during a Football Team field goal, and the succeeding attempt was successful at the buzzer. The following week against Atlanta, Adoree Jackson dropped a surefire interception that could have allowed the Giants to milk the clock and hold onto the victory, instead the Falcons won on a field goal as well.
Now, five weeks from the last instance of undisciplined football, it was happening again. The Chiefs, like the previous two opponents, didn’t fail to capitalize on the unprofessional mistakes. Mahomes and company took the ball 55 yards down the field, drawing 15 yards on Tae Crowder’s facemask infraction along the way, and let Harrison Butker do the rest from 36-yards out.
With 1:07 left and no timeouts, the Giants’ offense had one more opportunity to get Graham Gano into his career-long range and have a chance to extend the game, but it was fruitless and a false opportunity that ended on downs and a Jones fumble recovered by center Billy Price.
All the Giants needed was a little luster to upset the Chiefs and change the discussions of their season with a 3-5 record and the league trade deadline looming, but even with the two turnovers from the defense, putting up just 17 points on the scoreboard wasn’t enough shine.
A missed opportunity is how Daniel Jones described it in his postgame presser, one of three that has made the difference in the Giants being 2-6 instead of 5-3 through eight weeks.
“Yeah. I think we did a lot of good things and I thought we had an opportunity to win there at the end and we didn’t finish. It certainly feels like a missed opportunity,” he said.
Ximines explained his game-defying mistake after the game as well, and vowed to make no excuses and make the next step in order to come out on the right side of every play next game.
“I’m not making no excuses or anything, but I thought they had some movement on the offensive side of the ball, but my opinion doesn’t matter. It’s what the ref sees. I was offsides, I’m accountable for that. It’s never acceptable to do that. And it goes against everything we’re building as a team. We’re a team that doesn’t like to make mistakes.”
“Looking back that’s never a play you want to give up. I’ve been playing ball for a long time and jumping offsides is never acceptable. I’m just looking to move on from it and taking the next step.”
The next step for Joe Judge and the Giants is a return to MetLife Stadium to host a Week 9 battle with another AFC West team in the Las Vegas Raiders (5-2). Las Vegas stands atop the AFC West division, having won their last games despite all the outside noise resulting from the Jon Gruden email scandal that led to the second-stint Raiders head coach resigning in the middle of a 10-year contract.
While the Kansas City loss stings and the organization has headset beef to handle with the NFL, per Joe Judge, Ximines knows the Giants have no time to lay flat on their stomachs and bang their heads against the wall for another crushing loss. They must get ready for a Raiders that averages over 400 yards of total offense per game and is dominant in the passing game as much if not more than their division rival this season.
“We just got to keep rolling. We got another game in less than seven days. Another team will be rolling into Met-Life. So we got to get ready for them.”
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