The Giants left themselves open to second-guessing with their clock management down the stretch once again Sunday.
While not as egregious as their last-minute time miscues in two early-season losses, the Giants’ decision to all but abandon the running game on their final drive of an eventual 27-26 gut punch at the hands of the Patriots was still ripe for postgame dissection.
Had they run three consecutive times from the New England 5-yard line with 2:06 remaining, the Giants theoretically could have scored a touchdown or kicked a field goal for the lead while leaving Tom Brady just 1:15 or less on the clock to answer.
Instead, Eli Manning threw incomplete twice (one of them an apparent Odell Beckham Jr. TD that was overturned on replay), then was sacked after the two-minute warning.
The Patriots then called their final timeout — which Bill Belichick likely would have been forced to use before the two-minute warning — to give Brady 1:47 to move into Stephen Gostkowski’s considerable range and preserve the Patriots’ unbeaten record.
Which, of course, is exactly what ended up happening. Gostkowski’s 54-yard blast with one second left all but ending the Giants’ upset hopes.
Eli Manning said the Giants planned to run from the Patriots’ 5 in hopes of draining the clock, but he decided to audible to passes after New England brought in extra defensive linemen specifically to stop the run.
Manning admitted the Giants “didn’t run enough clock” because the Patriots’ defensive moves spooked them.
“We had some runs called, and they weren’t going to let us run,” Manning said. “They had goal-line personnel [with extra linemen] in, and they just weren’t going to let us run the ball in that situation. So the one to Odell on first down was actually a run call.
“That was just kind of the way it was going to be,” Manning added. “They weren’t going to let us run the ball right there.”
All of that would have been moot if Giants safety Landon Collins had been able to hold on to an interception of Brady on the Patriots’ final drive, but the struggling rookie couldn’t do it.
As a result: Cue the clock-management second-guessing that the Giants knew all too well from excruciating losses earlier in the season to the Cowboys and Falcons.
“It was close, but not as good as it could be,” Manning said.