ORCHARD PARK — One lousy yard.
One lousy yard at the end of the first half.
One lousy yard on the last play of the game.
The Giants, 14-9 losers, couldn’t make one lousy yard.
The Longest Yard.
With one last play to make from the Buffalo 1, following pass interference against Terrel Bernard on Darren Waller, Tyrod Taylor could not make it, threw high in the back of the end zone for Waller, no pass interference called on Taron Johnson.
He had this one last chance to redeem himself but could not.
The Giants lost this game more than they failed to win it.
Because it was 6-0 for the Giants and it might have been 13-0 had Saquon Barkley, first-and-goal at the 1 with 14 seconds and no timeouts left in the first half, had not been stuffed on an inexcusable play-call with no timeouts left. That play had Brian Daboll raging at Taylor on the sidelines as they headed to the locker room.
A peewee football player would know that, without a timeout, you do not run the risk of failing to get into the end zone because time will run out on you.
“It was a decision looking back on it I definitely shouldn’t have made,” Taylor said.
He shouldn’t have called an alert to a run play when he thought he saw something better.
“Gotta be better in that situation,” he said.
Saquon Barkley (24-93) had recognized Winning Time in the fourth quarter and of course he wanted to be the one to get The Longest Yard.
“There was some discussion,” Daboll said, “but we had been stopped on two third-and-1s, we’d been stopped on the goal line at the end of the half.”
Daboll liked the play that OC Mike Kafka called for the 6-foot-6 Waller better than a tush-push.
“Could have been a better ball,” Taylor said. “We didn’t execute and it starts with me.”
It always starts with the quarterback, or the backup quarterback, being the stand-up guy.
Taylor (24-for-36, 200 yards, 5-24 rushing) would have given anything in his return here for one last shot at The Longest Yard with 0:00 on the scoreboard clock one last time.
“I may have wasted a little bit more effort trying to push him away as opposed to just going up and get the ball,” Waller said.
It could have been, it should have been, a shock-the-world upset that would have revived their season.
There had been no advanced warning. How could there have been? The Giants were 15-point underdogs.
Yet here they were, Wink Martindale’s defense making Josh Allen resemble Woody Allen playing quarterback.
It played with an edge and a sneering defiance that seemed to stun Allen and the Bills.
There was Bobby Okereke forcing a fumble that Micah McFadden recovered, and tipping a pass that McFadden intercepted.
There was that patchwork offensive line losing LT Josh Ezeudu in the first quarter and never giving in.
There was plenty of fight, literally — with 1:29 left in the third quarter and Allen driving for the go-ahead score, tempers erupted. Dion Dawkins was giving Kayvon Thibodeaux, who was on the ground, the business, and first Dexter Lawrence and then Leonard Williams went after Spencer Brown, before order was restored, and Allen denied the Giants a goal-line stand.
“Everyone’s gonna continue to say what they want to say about us, but it’s on us,” Barkley said. “No one’s gonna save us.”
For the first time this season, the Giants deserved better.
They were playing like they deserved to win.
They wound up deserving to lose.
They were refusing to lose.
And found a mind-blowing way to lose.
They should have left Highmark Stadium 2-4.
They left Highmark Stadium 1-5 instead.
“You don’t get trophies for trying,” Daboll said.
You don’t get trophies unless and until you make The Longest Yard.
