Mile Low City

Some losses are inevitable, others are preventable, and still others are reprehensible. Guess which one this was?

Through three quarters at Mile High Stadium, the New York Giants played the prefect road game. They led the Denver Broncos 19-0. Their defense had limited the Broncos to just 107 total yards of offense. While on the other side of the ball, Jaxson Dart threw two touchdown passes; the first one to a wide open Daniel Bellinger. It was the first touchdown Denver had allowed in the first quarter this season. All Big Blue had to do to secure a win was to continue to play aggressive on defense and move the ball on offense.

When Theo Johnson caught a deflected pass by Dart for a touchdown with 10:14 left in the fourth quarter to put New York up 26-8, it certainly looked to all the world that they were going to do just that. I mean, who blows an 18 point lead with 10 minutes to go, right? Even Broncos fans knew it was over; many of them started leaving the stadium at that point. They missed one helluva comeback.

Denver would score touchdowns on their next three possessions, one aided by a Dart interception, to take a four-point lead with 1:51 remaining in the game. To his credit, Dart led his team down the field and, thanks to a pass interference penalty on the Broncos near the gaol line, took it into the end zone to regain the lead for his team.

With 33 seconds left and New York ahead 32-30, the Broncos, with no timeouts left, took the ball all the way down to Giants 21 yard line, where Wil Lutz kicked a game-wining 39 yard field goal. The reason it was a game-winning and not a game-tying field goal is because Jude McAtamney missed the extra point on the Giants last touchdown drive that would've put them up by three. Then again, if McAtamney hadn't missed an earlier extra point, the Broncos would've needed a touchdown to win the game. In all, Denver scored 33 points in the fourth quarter, the most ever by a team that had been held scoreless through three. 

You can always tell when a team is in trouble: they start watching the clock instead of managing the game. The Giants, not wanting to lose, went into a shell; the Broncos, with nothing to lose, pulled out all the stops. I've watched Sean Payton teams over the years. Regardless of what the score is, there's a tenacity to them. They can be ahead by ten, they can be trailing by twenty, you'd never know it by the level of play on the field. He may have only one Super Bowl win to his credit, but he is a Hall of Fame coach, and his players all know what's expected of them.

Brian Daboll is no Sean Payton, that should be obvious. But as bad as Daboll has been over the last three seasons, his defensive coordinator Shane Bowen deserves the lions share of the blame for this latest abomination. His decision to rush only three on the Broncos last scoring drive was inexcusable. This is the second time this season that the Giants have lost a game in which they led with less than 40 seconds remaining in regulation. The first was against the Cowboys in Dallas in week two. New York lost that game in OT, 40-37.

As painful as that loss was, though, it pales in comparison to this one. According to Adam Schefter, since the 1970 merger between the NFL and AFL, only two teams have overcome a fourth-quarter deficit of 19 points or more to win a regular-season game: the Indianapolis Colts against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2003 (21 points) and the Broncos against the Giants yesterday.

I can't imagine what the players must be going through. For three quarters they played their hearts out. They were minutes away from what would've been back-to-back wins against playoff teams. Jaxson Dart went 15/33 for 283 yards, with three touchdowns through the air and one on the ground. Brian Burns had another dominating performance on defense, recording two sacks and two quarterback hits. He was visibly upset after the game, and deservedly so.

Yes, I know the old cliche that good teams find a way to win and bad teams find a way to lose, but it's not that simple with this team. The Giants are not the Jets, or the Miami Dolphins, or the Tennessee Titans. There is talent on this roster, more talent than their record would indicate. They should be 4-3 and in the thick of the playoff race; instead they're 2-5, and facing the very real prospect of going 2-6 after they lose to the Philadelphia Eagles next Sunday.

This was no self-inflicted wound, like we saw in New Orleans against the Saints; this shot came from the sidelines. Even if Daboll fires Bowen tomorrow, the damage has already been done. How do you recover from a loss like this?

The season is all but done, and once more, Giants fans will have to wait until next year to raise a banner of hope.