ARLINGTON, Tex. — Losing a wild, 77-point NFL game requires shattering the record books in both the best and worst possible ways.
That’s exactly what Russell Wilson and the penalty-ridden Giants did in Sunday’s rollercoaster 40-37 loss to the Dallas Cowboys.
Wilson became the first NFL quarterback to throw for 450 yards, three touchdowns and a 73% completion percentage since the Cincinnati Bengals’ Joe Burrow in Oct. 2022.
His 450 passing yards, the second most of his career, tied Eli Manning (Sept. 2013) for the fourth-highest total in franchise history. His 153 passing yards in the first quarter were the most by a Giants quarterback since 1978.
And the Giants (506 yards) surpassed the 500-yard mark on offense for the first time since Daniel Jones and Pat Shurmur put up 552 yards at Washington in Dec. 2019.
“I think he showed he’s resilient,” top Giants receiver Malik Nabers said of Wilson’s response to the Giants’ six-point Week 1 loss to Washington. “To me after that first game he didn’t look back, stayed in the same mindset, stayed putting everybody up with high hopes.”
Losing a game when a quarterback puts up those kinds of numbers is difficult to do, but never count out the Giants when it comes to getting in their own way.
The Giants were penalized 14 times for 160 yards as a team, with costly and killer mistakes happening on both offense and defense.
“It’s hard to win a game when you have that many penalties with that many yards,” wide receiver Wan’Dale Robinson said.
The Giants’ 160 penalty yards were the most in a game since they incurred a franchise-record 177 on Oct. 9, 1949.
Their 14 penalties were the most since a 2005 game against the Seahawks, when they Giants had 16 penalties accepted against them.
Defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence insisted the Giants’ defense played “well” outside of costly penalties that did them in.
“Penalties. Too many penalties,” Lawrence said. “I don’t now what you’re trying to fish out right now [with a question about the defense]. If you watch the game, you saw how the game went. We got too many penalties in critical downs. That’s just how it went.
“I think we was playing well,” he added. “I don’t think we played bad. I just think we had too many penalties. You watch the game, we was playing well. We had some good stops. We just gave them too many chances.”
The defense committed four pass interference penalties and three roughing the passer penalties.
Paulson Adebo, Dru Phillips, Jevon Holland and Deonte Banks all were tagged with flags in coverage. Phillips and Adebo each interfered with George Pickens on 20-plus yard gains to set up Cowboys scores in the second half.
Roy Robertson-Harris (twice) and Bobby Okereke accounted for three roughing the passer calls while hitting Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott.
The Giants set the tone as a team at the start of the game, though, for their historically undisciplined day.
Linebacker Swayze Bozeman’s holding penalty negated Gunner Olszewski’s 67-yard opening kickoff return. Then left tackle James Hudson III’s four penalties on the game’s opening drive turned the Giants’ first quarter into a circus act.
Hudson cost the Giants 40 yards on that possession alone with two personal fouls for unnecessary roughness and two false starts. That forced the Giants to kick a field goal instead of having a prime opportunity to open the game with a touchdown.
Daboll’s answers on Hudson were bizarre.
He said he “just told [offensive line coach] Carm[en Bricillo] and James [to] keep an eye on it” when he took Hudson out, which is the understatement of the century — not to mention that keeping Hudson disciplined is Daboll’s job first, not just Bricillo’s.
Daboll also referred to Hudson winding up and smacking Cowboys edge rusher James Houston in the head as “the one where the guy slipped and he hit him in the head.” And the coach said he didn’t take Hudson out during that drive as his left tackle melted down because “we were moving the ball.”
It wasn’t just the penalties that did the Giants, obviously.
The defense hemorrhaged yards and points in the fourth quarter. Wilson and the offense turned the ball over on downs in the red zone after a third quarter Phillips interception of Prescott.
And Wilson had a brutal fumble for negative yardage and the back-breaking interception in overtime.
“I thought he played well, made some plays, attacked certain things we wanted to attack,” Daboll said. “The 2nd and 3 [overtime fumble] kind of slipped out of his hand. That pushed us back there… Other than that, [took a] deep shot and then communication [was the issue] … This one’s tough.”
Still, Nabers (167 yards) and Robinson (142 yards) became only the fourth Giants duo to record 140-plus receiving yards in the same game and the first since Sterling Shepard (167 yards) and Odell Beckham Jr. (143 yards) at Atlanta in Oct. 2018.
And the Giants’ offense had eight plays of 20 or more yards for the first time since Tommy DeVito and the Giants did it against Washington on Nov. 2023.
Teams expect to win games when their offense plays that way, especially when they score a go-ahead touchdown with 25 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter like the Giants did with Wilson’s 48-yard bomb to Nabers on Sunday.
“When Malik scored I was pretty much like we gotta be able to get this one,” Robinson said. “But obviously football’s crazy.”
Football is crazy, but the Giants could have limited the crazy against Dallas if they’d showed some discipline to support Wilson’s historic afternoon.
