Please Explain Giants vs Cowboys final 2 minutes

[JETS SB]

I am shocked that this has not been a bigger issue today. How do the Giants not run the ball on 3rd and 4th down with 1:54 remaining. The Giants had 1st down at the Cowboys 4 yard line. The Cowboys had 2 time outs remaining. They run the ball on 1st and 2nd down, to use up the Cowboys timeouts. Now 1:43 remaining. Its 3rd down on the 1 yard line. The Cowboys have no time outs. If they run the ball on 3rd down and dont make it, its 4th down at the 1 yd line with less than 1:00 remaining, where they can call their own time out to figure out a 4th down play. On 4th down, they could have run it again and if they didnt make it, that would leave about 45-50 seconds for the Cowboys to drive at least 65-70 yards with no timeouts, all from their own 1 yard line, to TIE the game with a field goal... and thats only if the Giants dont score on 3rd and 4th down runs.

Instead the Giants throw (incomplete) on 3rd down and kick field goal on 4th down. On top of that, they squib kick and dont kick through the end zone, giving the Cowboys 1:37 on the clock at the 28 yard line, instead of 45 seconds from the 1 yard line. This isnt hindsight... this is common sense. At the very least, Eli needs to take the sack instead of throwing it away, stopping the clock.

How do the Giants mess this up?

[MGB MARTY]

BAD coaching I guess Think Coughlin is getting too old for this. Even with the ridiculous play calling With no Dez and Witten being a giant killer and best option why not double him

Just an opinion
Marty

[got heeem]

Fun to watch though. Real nice drive to win.

[JETS SB]

So, the latest is, Eli Manning instructed Rashad Jennings NOT to score on the first two plays of that series. Jennings did as instructed. Afterward Manning says he was confused with how many time outs there were. WHAT? They were winning by 3 points. They score and they are up by 10 points! No matter the time outs, what was he thinking??

[KenGill]

A complete embarrassment..... the amount of $$ that these clowns make, and your QB is telling your RB to NOT score in that situation. Score the TD, go up 10 points and the game is over

[Jim A]

Obviously the 3rd down play was horrible, but you have to kick the FG on 4th down. You do not allow them to extend the game by just kicking a FG. Even if you make them start from the 1 it isn't smart. The toughest yard are the last yards.

[CoMoHusker]

On the 3rd down play when Eli saw nobody was open, he should have just went down into the fetal position. Hell, his brother does that all the time when he's about to get sacked. This would have allowed 40 more seconds to tick off the clock and would have severely impacted the Cowboys ability to march down the field without any timeouts. Those are the type of loses that come back to haunt you later in the year and can cost a mediocre team like the Giants a playoff birth.

[chriseibl]

Andy Reid totally one upped Eli.

[KenGill]

Agree on Reid. Not a prime time coach, never was, never will be. Plays 'not to lose' rather than playing to win.
He's another guy in the long line of coaches like: Marty Shottenheimer, Bud Grant, Chuck Knox etc. I'm dating myself here, but all of these guys won in the regular season but never got it done when it counted.

[CoMoHusker]

Agree on Reid. Not a prime time coach, never was, never will be. Plays 'not to lose' rather than playing to win.
He's another guy in the long line of coaches like: Marty Shottenheimer, Bud Grant, Chuck Knox etc. I'm dating myself here, but all of these guys won in the regular season but never got it done when it counted.

Hard to pin that loss on Andy Reid. Charles fumbles inside the five taking sure points off the board and again fumbles to give up the game winning score. It's tough for any coach to win a game when their team turns it over five times. I'm not an Reid supporter and I agree that he's struggled in big games but he at least got Charles involved last night. There were times in the past where their best player was hardly touching the ball. However, they are going to have to throw the ball downfield more if they want to be successful. I think I heard that they only attempted 7 passes that traveled over five yards. If that's true, that's crazy when you have Maclin and Kelce as downfield threats.