Seattle, WA—The last few weeks the NY Giants have been playing with a renewed type of confidence and swaggart.
The defense is legit. The G-Men fly off the edge and play a tight man-to-man defense with their safeties playing over the top and coming down hill for support. NY play assignment-sound football and maintains their gaps. They allow few big plays. They create takeaways. They stop the run with a vengeance.
Held scoreless in the first half, running back Alfred Morris scored a pair of third-quarter touchdowns to help the Giants stunned the Seattle Seahawks 17-12 on Sunday in Lumen Field. It was the Giants’ fourth consecutive victory – their longest streak since 2016 – improved their record to 5-7. They moved a half game ahead of Washington in the NFC East standings. The Seahawks fell to 8-4. The NFC East had been 0-17 against teams with a winning record this season.
“The team had a different swagger about them, had a different juice about them today because we know we played our brand of football,” Giants safety Jabrill Peppers said. “We know we can shock a lot of people.”
NY started 0-5, since then the Giants has won five of its past seven, the last four in a row. The G-Men had been close in tight losses to Tampa Bay and the Rams, but the football gods aligned up perfectly for the Giants on Sunday.
“These guys do a great job,” Giants coach Joe Judge said. “They’ve done everything we’ve asked them to do, and they’ve done it as well as they possibly can. And you see the results come in.”
Colt McCoy was 13 of 22 for 105 yards who started for the injured Daniel Jones, and Wayne Gallman rushed for 135 yards on 16 carries.
It was McCoy first victory since Oct. 27, 2014 when he led Washington past the Cowboys. He completed 25 of 30 passes for 299 yards, no touchdowns and one interception in Washington’s 20-17 overtime win.
“I talked to the guys, coach Judge had me break down the team at the end. I just told them how proud I was to be a part of this, to be with this group of guys,” McCoy said. “That’s special to me. I love the game of football. I’ve been playing for 11 years and I’m fortunate to still be playing.”
The Giants changed up their defensive fronts to confused Russell Wilson all game long. Wilson was 27 of 42 for 263 yards and wasn’t comfortable in the pocket at all.
The G-Men sacked him five times, a number of those simply from holding the ball too long. The biggest sack came in the closing seconds when Leonard Williams tackled Wilson for an 8-yard loss on third down play. A fourth-and-18 desperation throw by Wilson was knocked down, and the Giants celebrated on the field.
“I’m really surprised that this is how we looked against this game plan that they had,” Seattle coach Pete Carroll said. “I thought we could do a lot of stuff that just didn’t happen for us.”
Seattle was on the comeback trail when Wilson hit Chris Carson on a 28-yard TD pass with 6:09 left in the game to pull within 17-12, a drive kept alive by a key third-and-long defensive holding penalty by the Giants.
McCoy was cool and calm in the pocket and made two big throws on the G-Men ensuing drive, converting a third-down with a pass to Evan Engram and finding Darius Slayton for 14 yards on a little dig route into Seattle territory. The Giants took time off the clock and eventually punted, but the New York’ s defense held tight.
“So good, man, feels good,” Peppers said. “But we know we got to keep stacking them. We know that was a great team. We just played well.”
NY topped 100 yards rushing for the seventh straight game and Gallman reached the century mark for the first time in his career. It was Gallman’s 60-yard sprint on a second-and-7 early in the second half that changed the game. Gallman hit the hole on the left side for the long run which set up Morris’ 4-yard TD and an 8-5 Giants lead.
After the Seahawks failed to convert fourth-and-1 at its 48, NY needed five plays to take a 14-5 lead on Morris’ 6-yard catch from McCoy.
The Giants pushed the lead to 17-5 on Graham Gano’s 48-yard field goal after rookie Darnay Holmes’ first career interception — a pass that should have been caught by Chris Carson.
“We’ve got to get ready for a tough opponent going back home next week and that’s the only thing that really matters,” Judge said. “Nothing before that game matters except the lessons we learned from previous games and nothing after that game exists until we get past next week’s game.”
UP NEXT
Giants: host Arizona next Sunday.
