CLEVELAND – Brian Daboll and the Giants are off the mat.
Daniel Jones, Malik Nabers, Brian Burns and Dexter Lawrence, four of the franchise’s biggest investments and most important players, rose to the occasion in their first win of the season on Sunday, 21-15, over the Cleveland Browns at Huntington Bank Field.
“We just said (expletive) it,” Lawrence said of the team’s mindset. “Let’s keep playing ball.”
Nabers caught two touchdown passes and stole away an interception in a dominant second quarter. Jones was nearly perfect in the first half. Burns recorded a strip sack and constantly pressured slow-processing Cleveland quarterback Deshaun Watson. Lawrence had two sacks.
Shane Bowen’s defense had eight sacks and held Cleveland to 69 yards rushing, bouncing back from a tough Week 2 loss at Washington. And Daboll’s Giants held on and improved to 1-2, with a quick turnaround to a Thursday Night Football visit from the NFC East rival Dallas Cowboys at MetLife Stadium.
“Everyone wants to see the results, and this is a results business,” Daboll said. “I believe in what we do and how we do things. that showed I think it terms of being on the road, it’s cranking there … just to stay locked in and committed to the next-play mentality doesn’t always turn out your way. And today it did. I give our guys a lot of credit.”
There were still some nervous moments. The Giants’ offense went scoreless in the second half after carrying a 21-7 lead into halftime, and running back Devin Singletary lost a fumble for the second straight game.
Watson hit Amari Cooper for his second touchdown catch of the game and converted a two-point conversion to Jerry Jeudy to narrow the Giants’ lead to six points with 11:33 remaining in the fourth quarter.
But Watson and running back Jerome Ford fumbled a handoff near midfield, and Giants edge rusher Azeez Ojulari recovered the ball to stop Cleveland’s momentum with 7:40 to play.
Then Kayvon Thibodeaux and Lawrence made third and fourth down stops to turn Cleveland over on downs with 3:56 remaining at the Browns’ 29-yard line. Then, even when kicker Greg Joseph badly missed a 48-yard field goal that could have iced the game with three minutes left, the Giants defense escaped again on a fourth down drop by Browns receiver Cedric Tillman.
Burns said the defense welcomed the pressure of closing it out.
“It means a lot, as far as how we want to play and what’s expected of us,” Burns said. “We knew going back out there, it’s on our backs… It feels good to get on the board, get off that donut [of zero wins]. We needed that going into a short week against a division opponent. It’s good to get that off the board. Now all the focus is on Dallas coming up.”
Singletary officially iced the game with a 43-yard run and slid down at the Browns’ 1-yard line, with a reminder from Wan’Dale Robinson, to help the Giants run the clock out on their win with three kneel downs in victory formation.
Jones, who completed 24-of-34 passes for 236 yards, two TDs and a 109.4 quarterback rating, was business-like about the result.
“It always feels good to get a win, however it comes,” he said. “First one is important.”
Nabers, who caught eight passes for 78 yards and two TDs, was in high but measured spirits.
“It feels good. It feels of relief,” he said. “We get to go rolling into the game next week with that win on our backs. So instead of going into next week with a loss, it’s way better.”
The Giants were playing from behind immediately due to a disaster on the game’s opening kickoff for a second straight week.
Running back Eric Gray, a Joe Schoen fifth-round pick in 2023, fumbled the return and gave the Browns the ball at the Giants’ 24-yard line.
Watson immediately hit Cooper for a 24-yard touchdown pass on Cleveland’s first play from scrimmage, and the Browns led, 7-0, just 11 seconds into the game.
That marked Cleveland’s first touchdown on the first play from scrimmage in a game since Nov. 20, 2005 against the Miami Dolphins, according to the FOX broadcast.
The Giants’ offense then went three-and-out and punted on its first drive. But Lawrence sacked Watson to get the ball back on Cleveland’s next drive.
It marked the first punt forced by the Giants defense since Week 1, given Washington’s seven straight scoring drives with all field goals in Week 2.
Then, the Giants caught an enormous break to prevent the bad start from snowballing.
Jones threw an interception directly into the gut of Browns safety Ronnie Hickman. But Cleveland slot corner Greg Newsome II was penalized for roughing the quarterback on his blitz by hitting Jones in the head.
That gave the Giants the ball back and ignited a 13-play, 81-yard scoring drive capped by a 1-yard touchdown run by Singletary to tie the game at seven apiece with 2:07 remaining in the first quarter.
The Giants scored 21 unanswered points total from that point on, taking that two-score lead into the fourth quarter until things got shaky.
In the first half, Daboll steered his offense around Browns defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz’s blitzes with screen passes, and he tried his best to offset the imbalance on the line of scrimmage by keeping runs and short throws to the outside.
Daboll also demonstrated the kind of aggressiveness that worked for him in 2022, his first year as head coach. He went for a 4th-and-1 at the Giants’ 43-yard line and converted on a Nabers jet sweep from left to right for two yards.
“I felt I had the right plan all game, but we didn’t score in the second half,” Daboll said. “That’s how you have to feel as a play caller. That’s why you sepnt all that time putting it in … It comes down ultimately to the execution of it, but we were in a little bit of a rhythm. The quarterback was seeing things [well]. We were changing up styles of play.”
Their first touchdown drive, which lasted 7 minutes and 44 seconds, was the Giants’ longest scoring drive by time of possession since their 2022 Wild Card playoff win in Minnesota – a 10 minute, 52-second field goal drive in the second quarter against the Vikings.
Nabers then dominated Sunday’s second quarter.
He ripped an interception out of the hands of Browns corner Martin Emerson Jr. down the left sideline for a 28-yard gain. Then he made a terrific 3-yard TD catch to cap a 93-yard touchdown drive for a 14-7 lead with 1:44 to play in the first half.
Then Burns strip-sacked Watson and gave the Giants offense the ball back, and Nabers finished that drive with another TD catch from five yards out for the 14-point lead at half.
Cleveland’s Dustin Hopkins missed a 53-yard field goal in the third quarter after Singletary’s lost fumble, keeping the Browns down by two scores heading to the fourth – where the Giants held on for their desperately-needed first win.
“So, Brian Burns, how does it feel to start off the season slow and then do what you did today?” Thibodeaux said to kick off Burns’ interview scrum at his locker. “The fans thought you sucked, and now they think you’re great. What do you have to say about that?”
“One day at a time, man,” Burns replied.
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