CLEVELAND — They tried every which way to do what seemed impossible — turn a rousing and rare victory into a devastating defeat. The Giants after building a comfortable lead got all sorts of uncomfortable on Sunday. They bent, but they did not break.
A 21-7 lead was trimmed and threatened but it never went away. The Giants needed to make a defensive stand and they did, coming away from Huntington Bank Field with a tense and badly needed 21 15 victory over the Browns.
After an 0-2 start, the Giants could not absorb another loss and that they did not was a testament to their revolve at the end — and a truly dreadful showing from Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson. The Giants sacked him seven times.
Daniel Jones and rookie Malik Nabers were near-perfect in the first half, with that duo combining for two touchdown hookups. The offense took a nosedive in the second half, though, coming up with no points and allowing the Browns (1-2) to make a game of it.
Jones finished 24 of 34 for 236 yards. Nabers had eight catches for 78 yards.
The Giants were in control, leading by 14 points at halftime after scoring 21 consecutive points, but their offense went to sleep and allowed the Browns to claw back in. Devin Singletary lost the ball on a fumble, Andrew Thomas was hit with a false-start penalty, Jones was sacked and the attack slowed to a crawl. That allowed Watson, who had been terrible and hearing boos from his own fans, to finally look competent. He hit Amari Cooper — who cooked Deonte Banks several times — for a 6-yard scoring pass to make it 21-13 with 11:33 remaining. The Browns went for two and got it when Watson found Jerry Jeudy.
The Giants got a break when Jerome Ford fumbled and Azeez Ojulari recovered with 7:40 to go. The Giants offense, still stymied, could not take advantage and had to punt the ball away with 5:19 to go.
Time for a last stand. Kayvon Thibodeaux and Jason Pinnock stopped Jameis Winston’s quarterback sneak on third-and-1 and Dexter Lawence’s leg-tackle on Watson dropped him short of the first down with 3:36 left.
The Giants had a chance to put the game away but newly signed kicker Greg Joseph missed wide right on a 48-yard field goal try with three minutes to go.
Time for another last stand. Banks defended well on Cedric Tillman — Cooper was off the field with an injury — on a key fourth-down stop with 2:33 left to seal the deal for the Giants.
Jones in the first half was 17 for 19 for 178 yards. When he hit rookie tight end Theo Johnson for 13 yards early in the third quarter, Jones was 20 for 22. Has he ever been this accurate?
If you want to look up “Nightmare Starts’’ in the dictionary — or, just Google it — what the Giants allowed to happen was living proof of the wrong way to hit the road. Eric Gray fumbled away the opening kickoff, handing the Browns the ball on the Giants’ 24-yard line. On the first play from scrimmage, Watson saw Cooper in man coverage with Banks and the result was a 24-yard touchdown. A scant 11 second into the game, the Giants trailed 7-0 — even though they got the ball first.
It nearly went from bad to worse when on the second offensive series Jones was intercepted by safety Ronnie Hickman — it looked as if rookie tight end Theo Johnson went the wrong way. The turnover was nullified by a roughing the passer on cornerback Greg Newsome in what turned out to be a huge turnaround.
The Giants ended up with a 13-play, 81-yard drive, with Daboll rolling the dice by going for it on 4th-and-1 on his own 43-yard line (Nabers ran for two yards on a jet sweep to pick up the first down). Remarkably, the Giants overcame two holding penalties (Greg Van Roten, Johnson), with Jones keeping the ball moving and Devin Singletary ramming it in from a yard out to make it 7-7.
That was the start of the most impressive stretch of play from the Giants this season. They sacked Watson on back-to-back plays — rookie Elijah Chatman got his first in the NFL — to set a tone. On the first series of the second quarter, Lawrence chased and harassed Watson into an intentional-grounding penalty. Jones then went 7-for-8 on a series that highlighted him as a point guard, directing the ball where it needed to go. Nabers made the biggest splash by taking the ball away from cornerback Martin Emerson on what could have been an interception and ended up as a 28-yard reception — a classic 50-50 ball that Jones entrusted the rookie to get.
Nabers finished what he started by losing Emerson and then coming up with a leaping grab in the left corner of the end zone to make it 14-7 with 1:44 remaining in the first half.
Stunningly, the Giants added to their lead. They got the ball back when Brian Burns made his first impact play for his new team, abusing right tackle Dawand Jones for a strip-sack of Watson, with Chatman pouncing on the ball on the Browns 30 with 32 seconds left before halftime.
Settle for a field goal? No chance. Daboll trusted Jones to do the right thing and he tossed it to Nabers for 12 yards, smartly scrambled for eight and the Giants ended up on the 5-yard line with no timeouts left and only five seconds to go. Jones found Nabers in the back of the end zone, there was another leap and the Giants soared in at the break, ahead 21-7.
