Giants Clips
The Jameis Winston Experience struck again on Sunday, but the Giants were able to overcome giveaways to defeat the Cardinals, 30-24.
Winston and the Giants got off to a bit of a slow start in the first half. But the quarterback then got the offense in the end zone with a 12-yard touchdown pass to Malachi Fields and a 25-yard touchdown to Malik Nabers.
The Giants held a 19-17 lead at halftime and went down 24-19 when the Cardinals scored on a 2-yard pass from Jacoby Brissett midway through the third quarter.
But Winston then connected with Theo Johnson for an 11-yard touchdown, giving New York a three-point lead late in the third quarter. And Dominic Zvada hit a 52-yard field goal with just over two minutes left in the contest to extend the lead to six.
The Cardinals had a great chance to take the lead at the end of the contest, but New York’s defense kept Arizona out of the end zone and put an exclamation point on the victory. On fourth-and-goal from the 4, Deonte Banks picked off Brissett’s pass to Michael Wilson, returning it 98 yards for a touchdown.
Winston ended the contest 18-of-29 for 250 yards with three touchdowns and two interceptions. Nabers led with six catches for 112 yards and a TD.
On the other side, Brissett was 21-of-35 for 166 yards with two touchdowns and three interceptions. Wilson has seven catches for 95 yards while Trey McBride was held to just seven catches for 31 yards.
Giants defensive lineman Chauncey Golston (neck), receiver/returner Braxton Berrios (foot), safety Jason Pinnock (concussion) all exited and did not return.
With the win, the Giants are now 3-1 and will take on the Commanders on the road next week.
The Cardinals are now 1-3 and will host the Lions in Week 4.
The Cardinals started Sunday’s game white hot on offense, but everything flipped in the second quarter and now the Giants have a 19-14 lead at halftime.
Marvin Harrison Jr. caught his first touchdown since Week 10 of last season when he hauled in a 12-yard score from Jacoby Brissett to give Arizona an early 7-0 lead. Then Tyler Allgeier put in a 22-yard touchdown on Arizona’s second drive to make the score 14-3.
The Cardinals averaged 9.4 yards per play over their first two possessions, gaining 132 yards to end up with a pair of touchdowns.
But that trend stopped early in the second quarter, with the Giants picking off Brissett on a deep pass to the right.
From there, the Giants took a 19-14 lead with a 50-yard field goal, a 12-yard Jameis Winston touchdown pass, and a 25-yard Winston touchdown to Malik Nabers — who exited the game briefly with an apparent shoulder issue. He was able to return to catch the scoring strike.
But when New York had another opportunity to extend its lead late in the half, Winston threw an interception. Arizona’s Chad Ryland hit a 60-yard field goal to end the second quarter, narrowing New York’s lead to just two points.
The Giants will receive the second-half kickoff.
After laying out the basic reasoning for releasing receiver Odell Beckham Jr., Giants coach John Harbaugh got a little testy when he was pressed on the question of whether Beckham’s fame contributed to the decision.
“It’s what’s best for the team,” Harbaugh said. “That’s it. And if you think it’s anything else, then you don’t know me and you don’t know what we’re doing here. . . . I’m not hiding anything. It’s not Watergate.”
Beckham apparently has a different viewpoint. He has posted multiple comments on Instagram about the situation. He said, among other things, that he doesn’t know why the Giants “gave me the run along” and he could’ve “been playing this year somewhere and making [an] impact.”
He also acknowledged that he should’ve known better than to join the Giants.
Beckham is now free to attempt to make an impact with another team in 2026. But he would be coming in cold, with no offseason, training camp, or preseason work. At best, he’ll get a spot on a practice squad and a chance to prove that he can eventually contribute to the cause.
For the Giants and Beckham, it was a good story until the Giants realized they needed the roster spot for a player who can contribute on special teams. He barely made the 53-man roster in August; if Calvin Austin III hadn’t suffered a torn ACL, Beckham may have been cut.
Either way, the other 31 teams have a chance to consider whether to bring him to town.
Cornerback Joey Porter Jr. will make his first appearance of the 2026 season on Sunday.
Porter is active for the Cowboys less than a week after joining the team in a trade with the Steelers. Porter was listed with a back injury while in Pittsburgh, but his contract impasse with the team was seen as the true reason for his inactivity and Porter was not on the injury report for the Cowboys.
Jeremy Fowler of ESPN reports that Porter is expected to play a limited number of snaps against the Texans in his Cowboys debut, but his presence should be welcomed for a defense that has struggled to find consistency over the first month of the season.
Cowboys at Texans
Cowboys: LB DeMarvion Overshown, CB Cobie Durant, CB Caelen Carson, RB Emari Demercado, LB James Houston, OL Ajani Cornelius, WR Camden Brown
Texans: LB Azeez Al-Shaair, DE Chris Braswell, OL Febechi Nwaiwu, OT Nate Thomas, TE Marlin Klein
Titans at Ravens
Titans: RB Michael Carter, CB Jaylon Jones, G Drew Moss, OT Brandon Crenshaw-Dickson, TE Kylen Granson, DT Jackie Marshall
Ravens: QB Joe Fagnano, LB Trey Hendrickson, WR Chris Moore, DT Aeneas Peebles
Patriots at Bills
Patriots: OT Dametrious Crownover, TE Tanner Arkin, QB Behren Morton, CB Christian Gonzalez, DT Christian Barmore, CB Channing Canada
Bills: WR Skyler Bell, S Jalon Kilgore, CB Christian Benford, LB Mike Danna, G Ar’maj Reed-Adams, OT Jude Bowry, DL T.J. Sanders
Jets at Bears
Jets: WR Adonai Mitchell, RB Breece Hall, CB Nahshon Wright, LB Kiko Mauigoa, LB Kinglsey Enagbare, G Dylan Parham, TE Mason Taylor
Bears: QB Caleb Williams, OL Ozzy Trapilo, CB Cam Lewis, DL Jaydon Loving, DL James Lynch, DL Jamree Kromah
Jaguars at Bengals
Jaguars: CB Montaric Brown, WR C.J. Williams, CB Christian Braswell, S Jalen Huskey, LB Jack Kiser, OL Daniel Faalele, DE Wesley Williams
Bengals: S Bryan Cook, S Kyle Dugger, LB Swayze Bozeman, OL Myles Hinton, WR Colbie Young, DT B.J. Hill, DT Landon Robinson
Cardinals at Giants
Cardinals: QB Carson Beck, CB Starling Thomas, S Dadrion Taylor-Demerson, LB Cameron Robertson, OL Josh Fryar, WR Reggie Virgil
Giants: S Ar’Darius Washington, RB Devin Singletary, CB Nikko Reed, LB Jihad Ward, OL J.C. Davis, TE Thomas Fidone, DL Bobby Jamison-Travis
Rams at Eagles
Rams: WR C.J. Daniels, QB Ty Simpson, CB Cam Lampkin, CB Jaylen Watson, OL Bill Murray, TE Colby Parkinson, DT Aaron Donald
Eagles: WR Hollywood Brown, WR DeVonta Smith, QB Cole Payton, S Marcus Epps, LB Zack Baun, OT Lane Johnson, OL Fred Johnson, TE Dallas Goedert
Packers at Buccaneers
Packers: OL Jacob Monk, G Kevin Zeitler, G Aaron Banks, DT Anthony Campbell
Buccaneers: LB Rueben Bain, QB Baker Mayfield, DB Benjamin Morrison, TE Ko Kieft, OL Luke Haggard, OL Billy Schrauth, DL DeMonte Capehart
On the surface, Sunday’s game between the Cardinals and the Giants brings little if any sizzle to the NFL menu. But there’s a surprising amount of history embedded in the series.
Via NBC Sports research, the two teams first met 100 years ago next month, on November 7, 1926. Today’s game will be the 130th time they’ve squared off.
From 1950 through 2001 (with the exception of 1968 and 1982), they played twice per year. Even after the Cardinals moved to Arizona, they remained in the NFC East for more than a decade.
Since the realignment of the divisions in 2002, they’ve played 11 times. Most recently, they met in 2023. The Giants won that one, 31-28; the Cardinals had won four in a row before that.
A win for the Giants would give them a 3-0 record at home for the first time since 2008. A win for the Cardinals would end a 16-game losing streak against teams that entered the contest with a losing record.
Of the eight games in the 1:00 p.m. ET window, it still doesn’t generate a ton of excitement. But at least we tried.
The NFL’s announcement of fines for Week 3 featured six infractions for player safety fouls that qualify toward possible suspensions.
Two of those fouls were hip-drop tackles. 49ers linebacker Fred Warner and Rams safety Kam Curl were each fined $17,911. Warner was also fined $23,882 for illegal use of his helmet in a tackle.
Texans linebacker Jamal Hill, Giants tight end Isaiah Likely, and Steelers linebacker Cole Holcomb were each fined for blindside blocks. Texans linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair was fined for a hit on a defenseless player.
Any player with three fines for any one of those infractions will be suspended for one game. The same potential penalty applies to fouls for launching or horse-collar tackles. No player has been fined more than once for any of the qualifying infractions yet this season.
It’s the year of the backup quarterback, so far.
Through three weeks, six quarterbacks who didn’t start in Week 1 have since started six games. They’re collectively 6-0.
Vikings quarterback Carson Wentz started and won at Chicago in Week 2. Seahawks quarterback Drew Lock started and won at Arizona in Week 2. Falcons quarterback Michael Penix Jr. started and won at Green Bay in Week 3. Giants quarterback Jameis Winston started and won vs. the Titans in Week 3. Washington quarterback Marcus Mariota started and won vs. the Seahawks in Week 6. And Bears quarterback Case Keenum started and won vs. the Eagles in Week 3.
In Week 4, two more quarterbacks who didn’t start in Week 1 are expected to start their first games of the season: Bears quarterback Tyson Bagent vs. the Jets and Buccaneers quarterback Jalon Daniels vs. the Packers.
The situation shows the importance of having two, if not three, quarterbacks who can be counted on to play, and play well. A game here or a game there in the absence of the starting quarterback could eventually make the difference between making the playoffs or missing the bus.
The Cardinals listed a key member of their defense as questionable to play in this Sunday’s game against the Giants.
Linebacker Josh Sweat landed in that category after a limited practice on Friday. Sweat was listed as limited on Thursday for a rest day, but the Cardinals added a groin injury to the report on Friday.
Sweat has three tackles and a tackle for loss so far this season. Baron Browning, Zaven Collins, Jordan Burch, and Eku Leota are the other outside linebackers on the 53-man roster in Arizona.
Safety Dadrion Taylor-Demerson has been ruled out for this weekend. Taylor-Demerson is dealing with a back injury.
The Giants have not said whether J.J. McCarthy will be Jameis Winston’s backup for this Sunday’s game against the Cardinals, but there’s a good chance that the 2024 first-round pick will get a chance to play quarterback for the team at some point in the near future.
McCarthy was acquired in a trade with the Vikings earlier this week as the Giants work out a plan to move forward without Jaxson Dart for the rest of the season. McCarthy said on Friday that there are “a multitude of things you could think of” to explain why his time in Minnesota did not go as planned, but that the only thing that’s important now is making the most of his current situation.
“When I got the call here, it was a shock. I didn’t anticipate it, but at the end of the day, it’s an opportunity,” McCarthy said, via Jordan Raanan of ESPN.com. “It’s an opportunity to take advantage of. And I love these guys already and I can’t wait to do it for them.”
It remains to be seen whether McCarthy’s results will be markedly different than his time with the Vikings, but things had clearly soured in Minnesota and his best chance to find a long-term role as a starter in the NFL was going to come with a different team. The Giants may not be that team once Dart is able to play again, but a good showing will open a door for McCarthy somewhere in 2027 and beyond.
Nick Saban’s two-year stint as an NFL head coach began in 2005. It could have started eight years earlier.
In a Thursday interview with Chris “Mad Dog” Russo of SiriusXM Mad Dog Radio, Saban admitted — eventually — that the Giants had offered him the head-coaching job after the Giants fired Dan Reeves, when Saban was the head coach at Michigan State.
“It’s very difficult in college, you know, and the NFL, you have an opportunity to go to the NFL, you’re still coaching, you’re still recruiting,” Saban said. “If you stay in college, you don’t want it to upset your coaching and recruiting and all that. So you don’t wanna say that I’m gonna go interview for the Giants job. So [G.M.] George [Young] and I worked out a deal. He said, ‘Well, where do you think we can meet and nobody would know it?’ And I said, ‘The least obvious place you would ever think. Just come to my house in East Lansing and nobody will ever know it.’ That’s what he did.”
In other words, Saban (like plenty of other college coaches over the years) had made various promises that he didn’t want anyone to know he was thinking about breaking, until the moment he decided to do so.
So did the Giants offer him the job in 1997?
“You know, I can’t really remember what we talked about and how we ended up there, but I think Ernie [Accorsi] was assistant general manager then,” Saban said. “And I love Ernie. He was at the Browns when I was there with Belichick. Yeah, they did offer me the job actually.”
Saban obviously didn’t take it. The Giants hired Jim Fassel, who took them to the Super Bowl in 2000.
It’s unclear whether the Giants made another run at Saban after Fassel was fired, after the 2003 season. A year later, Saban took the Dolphins job.
If he’d jumped to the NFL in 1997, Saban would have faced the same issues he did in Miami. The salary cap is the great equalizer, and there’s no way to recruit an annual flock of players who are the equivalent of NFL first-round picks. Saban learned that, at the college level, it’s a lot easier to stack the deck in his favor.
