The path was clear for the Giants to score by run or by pass, but they somehow wound up with the disaster behind Door No. 3.
With a chance to take the lead Sunday by converting for two points in the final four minutes of the fourth quarter, Tyrod Taylor took a shotgun snap, rolled to his right and could’ve either beaten the defense to the pylon with his legs or dumped the ball into Saquon Barkley’s chest and let him do it.
Instead, Taylor looked indecisive and the result was an incomplete pass that loomed large in the moment and even larger when Mason Crosby’s missed 54-yard field goal on the next possession settled a 26-25 loss to the Rams.
“I was caught between running it and throwing it, and didn’t do either one of them,” Taylor said. “Anytime you are indecisive on the football field, it’s never a good thing.”
Actually, Taylor did throw on the move — behind an open Barkley, who reached back across his body as the ball glanced off his hands.
“We kind of had a new version of a play that we scored before in the past,” Barkley said. “Me and Ty didn’t connect. That simple.”
The Giants had just scored on a 94-yard punt return touchdown by Gunner Olszewski, and head coach Brian Daboll was emboldened to forgo the tie when an encroachment penalty on the PAT attempt moved the ball from the 2-yard line to the 1.
Asked if the miscommunication happened because he thought he was going to have to block linebacker Ernest Jones for Taylor to run, Barkley said, “I don’t want to get too much into it. I have to make the play there.”
Taylor blamed himself.
“I take full responsibility — that falls on nobody but myself,” he said, “and I’ll be better if put in that position again.”
Maybe the miscue still was on Barkley’s mind when he uncharacteristically dropped an on-the-money pass at the start of the next drive, which ended with Crosby’s missed field goal.
“Thinking of taking it to the house instead of securing the catch,” Barkley said. “That’s just myself. There’s so many other plays throughout the game. That’s what it is — the little things. That’s what the league comes down to.”
Nobody knows that truth better than Taylor, whose 13 years of NFL experience are the most on the Giants offense.
“It’s a routine throw,” Taylor said. “Something I’ve hit plenty of times before. But in that moment I didn’t execute.”
It was a flashback to the bold Daboll of 2022, when he set the path for his NFL Coach of the Year award and the Giants’ playoff berth by passing up a tying PAT to go for a two-point conversion in Week 1 against the Titans. Barkley powered his way into the end zone and the Giants prevailed.
As Barkley slipped out of the backfield against the Rams, it seemed this score would be easier.
Not so.
“Liked the call we had and just came up a little short,” Daboll said. “[Taylor] just missed it. Short-armed it a little bit.”
Let it be another example that 2023 was not 2022.
Here comes 2024.