Russell Wilson's 450-yard, 3-TD game still not enough for Giants to beat Dallas
Giants quarterback Russell Wilson throws a pass in the second half of an NFL game against the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday in Arlington, Texas. Credit: AP/Jeffrey McWhorter
ARLINGTON, Texas
Russell Wilson answered his critics. He answered his own need to prove he still can play at a high level. He answered the faith his teammates and coaches say they have always had in him.
It still wasn’t enough to answer the Cowboys.
“There’s only one thing that would have been better,” the quarterback said after throwing for 450 yards and three touchdowns, including one that gave the Giants a three-point lead with 25 seconds left in Sunday’s game that he thought was going to be the “dagger.”
That “one thing” is the same thing that has eluded many of the Giants who have come before him: a win.
So for the ninth straight time, the Giants left AT&T Stadium bummed out over a loss in Dallas, where they haven’t won since 2016. For the 14th straight time, Dak Prescott started and beat them. And for the second straight season, the Giants are 0-2, this time with the added onus of also being 0-2 in a division in which they have lost eight straight games.
“We needed one more play, one more moment to make a big play,” Wilson said. “Unfortunately, they made it before we did . . . I’ve been a part of a lot of crazy games. I don’t know if I was ever part of something that crazy.”
At least not while being cripplingly disappointing as well. This overextended 40-37 defeat ranks among the most deflating ways the Giants have found to lose a regular-season game in recent memory, joining the 52-49 loss in New Orleans in 2015, the DeSean Jackson walk-off punt return against them in 2010 and the 63-yard field goal that current Giant Graham Gano kicked to beat them while with the Panthers in 2018.
“This was a tough one,” coach Brian Daboll reiterated several times.
Here’s how wild this game was:
At one point Wilson had thrown for a career-high 454 yards, but his last two passes late in overtime were for a loss of 4 on a screen to Devin Singletary and a long throw vaguely intended for Malik Nabers that was intercepted and left him shy of the 452 he had for the Seahawks in 2017.
That interception, his one true mistake, helped set up Dallas’ game-winning field goal as time expired in the league’s first game under its new overtime rules.
(History buffs will recall that the Giants played the first overtime game of any kind, too, in 1958 in a contest dubbed the “greatest game” while leaving them feeling less than terrific.)
Nabers and Wan’Dale Robinson had 167 and 142 receiving yards, respectively.
The Giants gained 110 yards on their opening possession — more than the length of the field — and still had to settle for a field goal (and not even a short one but a 38-yarder).
And of course there were the 14 penalties for 160 yards committed by the Giants. That doesn’t even take into account the six others that either were negated by a Cowboys penalty or declined.
“We played winning ball,” right tackle Jermaine Eluemunor said of the 37 points and 506 yards the Giants’ offense produced. “Shoot, you would think you would win a game if you do all that on offense.”
Yes, you would.
But the Giants did not.
At least Daboll and the Giants won’t have to answer who their starting quarterback will be going forward. The question in fact never came up even as backup rookie Jaxson Dart made his NFL debut with a three-play cameo.
“Russ put on a show today,” cornerback Dru Phillips said.
Eluemunor added: “Russ is a dawg. It was really cool to see.”
Even Dart said the performance should quiet the calls for him to replace Wilson.
“He put our team in countless situations to win,” he said.
The clock continues to tick on Wilson’s hold on the job, though, because they didn’t win. At some point, if they keep losing, it will become time to start looking ahead to 2026 and getting Dart reps that will serve him in that campaign.
Their next two games against Kansas City and the Chargers figure to be no easier to navigate than their first two losses to Washington and Dallas.
Wilson spoke about perseverance and grit and all the things he has tried to embody and bring to this team since his arrival in the spring. He mentioned how the team did not flinch and how there was belief on the sideline. And he spoke somewhat candidly about his desire to respond to the “noise” that was mounting around his level of play and clearly making its way through the concrete earmuffs he uses to keep those sounds away from his precious optimism.
“This game meant a lot to me,” Wilson said. “It was time to answer the call . . . You go through some tough stuff for moments like that.”
He was talking almost as if the Giants had won, as if he had just beaten the Cowboys.
Add that to the list of oddities and absurdities that defined this day — and the heartaches that, no matter the quarterback, continue to define this era of Giants football.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
