Thanks, but no tanks.
That was the message the Giants on Sunday sent to anyone out there — you know who you are — who has given up on this miserable season and has both eyes fixated on the 2025 NFL Draft, the pursuit of the No. 1 overall pick and the selection of the quarterback capable of carrying this franchise out of the muck where it currently resides.
Finally, the Giants said enough. And then they did something about it. They eased just a bit the increasing pressure on head coach Brian Daboll and general manager Joe Schoen and sidestepped some truly embarrassing worst-ever scenarios with a wild and wholly unexpected 45-33 victory over the Colts at MetLife Stadium.
Just like that, the franchise record 10-game losing streak was ended and the No. 1 pick in the draft, for now, is no longer in their possession.
Grumble about that if you wish, but the Giants were so desperate to finally win a game that down the road, in the offseason, was not on their minds.
“It says we’re obviously not tanking,’’ receiver Darius Slayton said. “It’s like anything, we have a job to do. This isn’t basketball, it’s not golf, it’s not tennis. Football, you get hit. I’m not going to go out there and just let people tee off on me just to tank. We always were trying to win and this showed that fight.’’
The Giants had a sudden outburst of passing competence from Drew Lock and some greatness on display from rookie Malik Nabers.
They built a 21-6 lead and then held on. The win prevented the Giants from becoming the first team in NFL history to go 0-9 at home in a season.
“I feel like the fans that came out, they deserved to cheer for something, so it was good,’’ outside linebacker Brian Burns said.
In the here and now, this was a relief for Daboll and Schoen, who are down the stretch of such a brutal season that ownership must consider making changes at one or both positions. The Giants (3-13) went into the day owning the No. 1 pick, and with the rare victory, they dropped out of the No. 1 and No. 2 spot and fell to No. 4.
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So, for purposes of tanking for Shedeur Sanders or Cam Ward, the Giants took a hit, with one game remaining in their season — at Saquon Barkley and the Eagles — to either win and drop further in the first round or lose and possibly move back into the top two picks.
“That’s more of an upstairs thing,’’ Burns said. “They’ll figure out however they want to play those cards.’’
Lock out of nowhere went crazy, completing 17 of 23 passes for 309 yards and four touchdowns. He also scrambled for a 4-yard touchdown that put the Giants ahead 42-33 with 2:57 remaining.
Much of the production came as the result of Nabers looking like the star target the Giants envision him to be. Nabers caught seven passes for a career-high 171 yards and two touchdowns. Slayton and Wan’Dale Robinson also hauled in scoring passes.
“Pretty good day,’’ Daboll said. “It was good to get a win at home. A lot of guys played well. That’s how the offense needs to perform. That’s how the quarterback needs to perform.’’
Daboll repeatedly deflected when asked about what this win meant for him.
“I’m just happy for the players and for the coaches,’’ he said. “It’s a tough season. But we got a lot of good people, a lot of good character people on our football team. It’s good to see a smile on their faces.
“For the fans, too. The fans, the ones that were out there cheering their tails off, we certainly appreciate that.’’
The announced attendance of 73,164 did not reflect the half-filled building, but those who showed up on an unseasonably warm late-December afternoon saw more offensive fireworks crammed into four quarters than this team has managed to put together in months.
“It was a lot of fun,’’ Lock said. “We were clicking. We knew we had it in us. It was just time to go out and show it and do it. So, it was a fun time. Really good time.’’
When Ihmir Smith-Marsette took the opening kickoff of the second half back 100 yards for a touchdown, the Giants expanded their lead to 28-13.
The Colts (7-9) closed to within 28-20 on Jonathan Taylor’s 26-yard touchdown run and threatened to get even closer on a drive that ended with a fourth-down stop of Taylor by Elijah Chatman.
It got stickier when Joe Flacco, starting in place of injured Anthony Richardson, hit Alec Pierce for a 13-yard scoring hookup to make it 28-26 with 10:53 remaining. The slim lead held firm when the Colts botched the two-point conversion try, as Flacco passed to Michael Pittman but Pittman’s lateral to Taylor was fumbled away.
Nabers broke tackles en route to a 59-yard catch-and-run touchdown that made it 35-26 and the Giants were safe.
“A part of me always knew this is what we were capable of, and for whatever reason we couldn’t get that to show,’’ Slayton said. “It gets old kinda saying ‘We can do this, we can do this’ and you never actually do it. Today we actually did it.’’
