The last time the Giants won a game that mattered was Week 17 of the 2016 season when they beat the Redskins 19-10, and that game didn’t even really matter. It mattered more to the Redskins, who had to win to clinch a playoff berth, but it didn’t matter for the Giants. All it did was make everyone think the team could go on an extend postseason run because they played to win a game they didn’t need. Instead, their extended postseason run lasted one half.

I forgot what it felt like to experience a Giants win because it had been so long. That win over the Redskins was nearly 21 months ago and since that win the Giants had been 3-16, including the postseason. That’s an incredible amount of losing over almost a two-year period that had Odell Beckham Jr. telling the media last week he didn’t remember the last time he won a football game since the Giants were still winless when he was lost for the year last season.

I didn’t think the Giants were going to win in Houston. Even though I wagered on them at +260 despite swearing off betting on them following the disaster in Dallas the week before, I talked myself into placing money on them despite not truly believing they would win.When the news broke that Ereck Flowers was going to be benched, I was ecstatic. It had been a move now two seasons overdue and even if the Giants were going to lose, at least they weren’t going to lose with the untalented Flowers ruining the game for them.

After their first two losses and the way the offensive line played against the Cowboys, going on the road to play the also 0-2 Texans and the mobile Deshaun Watson and Top 5 wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins and the stacked pass rush featuring J.J. Watt, Jadeveon Clowney and Whitney Mercilus, I figured the Giants were in for their second straight 0-3 start. When the Texans marched down the field to the Giants’ 5 on the opening possession of the game, my expectations for the game were flawlessly unfolding.

First-and-5 at the Giants’ 5 after driving 69 yards and I was furious both at the Giants defense and at myself for wagering on the team after what they had done to my bank account in the first two weeks. Somehow, the Texans didn’t target Hopkins once in the end zone, after a pair of runs to Lamar Miller and an incomplete pass to Will Fuller, and the Giants were able to hold them to 3.

Not only had I forgotten what it felt like to win, I had forgotten what it felt like to have a lead. The last lead the Giants had that mattered was back in Week 3 last season when they scored 24 fourth-quarter points against the Eagles to take a 24-21 lead before eventually losing 27-24. Once they lost that game, their season was over at 0-3, so that 24-21 lead was the last time they had a meaningful lead.

Ten plays and 75 yards later and Saquon Barkley capped off the Giants’ most impressive drive of the season (their only real drive of the season) and the Giants had a 7-3 lead. I didn’t know how to feel or how to react. It had been so long since I had that feeling, I can only imagine it’s how a major league pitcher feels to take the mound after a pair of Tommy John surgeries. I suddenly remembered what it felt like when watching the Giants was fun and when they were good and when they were expected to win.

The Giants scored on all four of their first-half possessions for a 20-6 lead at halftime, and they were getting the ball to start the second half. I began to wish I had only hammered their money line at +260 even more than I had, but the negative thoughts about blowing a two-touchdown lead started to creep in.

The Giants punted on their first possession of the second half and the Texans answered with a field goal. 20-9.

The Giants punted again and I began to get worried as the Texans drove to the Giants’ 33. But on second-and-10 from the 33, Miller fumbled and the Giants recovered to take at least three points off the board from the Texans.

Unfortunately, the Giants punted again, and the worrying returned as Watson hit three passes in a row for 24, 22 and 14 yards to put the Texans on the Giants’ 8. An illegal block penalty on Miller followed by a sack moved the Texans back to the 25. And on second-and-goal from the 25, Watson noticed Miller was being covered 1-on-1 by linebacker Alec Ogletree, so he went for the touchdown, and Ogletree intercepted it in the end zone.

The offense had punted three times in the second half already and had been saved twice by the defense with two turnovers in Giants territory. Four plays and a couple of sacks later and the Giants were punting again, having wasted the interception.

With 8:28 left in the game, Hopkins scored a touchdown that was called back for a holding penalty, but two plays later, the Texans scored a touchdown that would stand to cut the Giants’ lead to 20-15. The two-point conversion failed. The once 20-6 halftime lead had dwindled to 20-15 and visions of the Vince Young Titans comeback started to appear as I stared blankly at the TV.

There was 7:37 remaining and the Giants were clinging to a five-point lead, having failed to add on to their 20 first-half points. They desperately needed to put points on the board. And now just 3. They needed 7. I envisioned them either not scoring or kicking a field goal only to have the Texans score a touchdown and tie the game on a two-point conversion. These are the thoughts that enter your mind when you’re a Giants fan.

Eli Manning found Sterling Shepard for 23 yards on the first play of the drive to put the ball on the Giants’ 46. Three plays later and the Giants were face with a third-and-2 at the Texans’ 27. I could already feel the handoff to Barkley getting stuffed at the line of scrimmage to bring out Aldrick Rosas, who would miss for the first time this season, giving the Texans great field position to go down the field to win the game. I had seen this game too many times before, and I knew what was going to happen before it happened.

The Giants didn’t run the ball though. Instead, Manning hit Barkley for 21 yards and a first down, putting the ball on the Texans’ 6 and forcing the Texans to use their second timeout. I felt a sense of relief, but not complete relief, for the red zone stall followed by a field goal followed by a Texans touchdown and two-point conversion were all still on the table.

On first-and-goal from the 6, the Giants lost two yards on a pass to Barkley. On second-and-goal from the 8, Barkley ran the ball one yard. Here it was, third-and-goal from the 7, a season-changing play. There would be no end-around to Beckham like there had been in Week 1. There would be no draw to Barkley. Manning connected with Shepard for the touchdown. 27-15, Giants. It was everything Manning and the Giants used to be. A clutch, game-winning (or game-sealing) drive. It’s weird how when given time, Manning is no longer old or washed up or unable to start in the league anymore.

The Texans had 2:08, two timeouts and the two-minute warning to score 12 points. I was cautiously optimistic about the Giants’ chances, but again, I’m not foolish enough to think any Giants game is over.

The Giants were going to exchange yards for clock, but it looked like it might not matter anyway after the Texans were suddenly faced with a third-and-20 from their own 15. But this is the Giants defense, and sure enough, after a 16-yard pass and 12-yard pass, the Texans had a first down.

The Texans did score a touchdown, but by the time they did, there was one second left in the game. The Giants had won and they have saved their season. It’s never good when you’re faced with a must-win game in Week 3 of the season, but for the second straight season, the Giants were, and this time they won. The win was overshadowed by my anger of wondering how many more wins the Giants could have had over the last few seasons if not for the presence of Flowers on the offensive line.

Nothing has ever come easy and nothing ever will for this team, not even when they hold a 20-6 lead at halftime, are getting the ball back, and win the turnover battle in the game. That magic record of 4-4 is still needed if this team is going to go on a run when their schedule softens after the bye and this win was just one of the four. It was finally a step in the right direction for a team that hasn’t taken a step in the right direction in almost two calendar years. But don’t get too excited yet. I’m not.

I thought putting up a 3-spot in Dallas in Week 1 last season was as low as it could get for the Giants on the road in Dallas. And then Sunday night happened.

Let me start by saying the Cowboys aren’t good this season. In fact, they suck. Their best player is out with an unfortunate illness, they released the team’s all-time leader in touchdown receptions and possibly the best kicker in the history of football, their Hall of Fame tight end retired, their quarterback can’t throw the ball accurately over seven yards, their running back is in effective without the offensive line completely healthy, they don’t have a No. 1 wide receiver and they might not even have a real No. 2 and their defense is blah. So yes, the Cowboys suck.

All of this was evident in their Week 1 loss in Carolina when they put up 8. It’s why I was stunned to see the Giants getting so much disrespect on the money line and why I once again jumped on it. The idea that the Giants need to be at least 4-4 entering their bye week has always felt a little easier despite their schedule because of this game in Dallas.

It took three plays for all of that to go away. On the third play of the game, Dak Prescott hit Tavon Austin for a 64-yard touchdown. It was everything the Cowboys aren’t in 2018 and a play I wasn’t even remotely worried or concerned about occuring against the inconsistent Giants defense. But one minute and 34 seconds into the game, the Giants were down 7-0 and AT&T Stadium was rocking like it was the Super Bowl.

How did that play happen? How could Austin, a complete bust with the Rams, torch the Giants defense that bad? How could Prescott, who could barely achieve a first down passing against the Panthers a week prior make that pass? I have no idea.

The game never got better from there.

The Giants had five first-half possessions and punted on all of them. Then they fumbled to open the second half, giving the Cowboys three points to go down 10-0. Then they finally got the offense going, driving to the Cowboys’ 3 before settling for a field goal in true Giants fashion. After another punt, the Cowboys scored a second touchdown to take a 20-3 and end the game with 8:23 left to play. Sure, the Giants scored 10 garbage time points when the Cowboys were giving them the entire middle of the field, but the game was effectively over at 20-3. Before those 10 points were given to the Giants, they had scored one touchdown in seven-and-a-half quarters of the season. The 20-13 final score is in no way indicative of what happened in the game.

The only thing to take away from this game was how bad the offensive line was and it was bad as the line allowed Eli Manning to get sacked six times for a combined loss of 59 yards. When Manning wasn’t getting sacked, he was getting hurried or hit, forced to dump the ball off to Saquon Barkley 14 times (he was targeted 16 times), only being to complete four passes to Odell Beckham Jr. and three passes to Sterling Shepard, including the garbage time stats.

If someone wants to think Manning is no longer a starting quarterback, they’re wrong, but they can have that opinion as long as it’s not based on his actual abilities. Manning can still throw and can still throw the deep ball and his health is fine and he should still have his consecutive start streak intact. He’s not mobile, and he never has been, and certainly isn’t going to start being at age 37. But no mobile quarterback would be able to produce with this offensive line. It’s impossible to produce when the ball is hiked and you’re already about to be hit.

Unfortunately, Pat Shurmur’s illogical in-game decisions will be lost in all the attention the offensive line will receive. On the Giants’ first possession of the game, the Giants had fourth-and-1 on their own 48 and Shurmur decided to punt. In the second quarter, the Giants had a fourth-and-1 on their own 35 and Shurmur decided to go for it. Later on that same drive, the Giants had a fourth-and-1 on their own 46 and Shurmur decided to go for it again. I love his aggressiveness to go for it the second and third times, but how can he defend not going for it on the 48, but going for it on the 35? I don’t want decisions being made by his gut. I don’t want someone coaching the Giants who stays on 16 with the dealer show a 7 in blackjack sometimes, but hits with the same hand other times. It makes no sense. The decision not to go for it on the 48 immediately after the Cowboys’ big-play touchdown likely changed the momentum in the game and quite possibly changed the game as a whole. Luckily for Shurmur, his Hall of Fame quarterback, who didn’t stand a chance behind his embarrassing offensive line will be dealing with all the criticisms from the game.

Those dreams of winning the division or even making the playoffs are now on the brink of destruction. The Giants are 0-2 and everyone knows the history of 0-3 teams: they don’t make the playoffs. The Giants are now faced with going 4-2 before their bye week and essentially 10-4 the rest of the season and there was absolutely nothing on Sunday night that showed that that is even a remote possibility.

The good news is if the Giants win next week, their season is saved. And if they don’t win, well every Giants fan got about 39 hours of their life back that they would have wasted watching this team in the remaining 13 games after Week 3.

The Giants will once again play a must-win game in Week 3 in Houston. The NFL playoffs don’t start until January, but for the Giants, the playoffs start on September 23.

Change the general manager, change the head coach, change the coordinators, change the majority of the roster, but it doesn’t matter, the New York Football Giants will never change. They will always be the same team.

You never would have known if it was Tom Coughlin or Ben McAdoo or Pat Shurmur on the sideline on Sunday in the first game of the 2018 season because the performance from the Giants over the last several seasons, spanning all three coaches, has been the same. Even if it’s unfair to group Shurmur into the disappointing losses suffered during the tenures of the other two after just one game, it was such a Giants-esque loss that I can’t help but include him.

The second play of the season was a 31-yard pass against the Giants defense and the first play of the season for the offense was a tripping penalty on Ereck Flowers at the Giants’ 14. And they were at their own 14 because Cody Latimer decided to run the ball out of the end zone, gaining only the 14 and costing the Giants 11 yards of field position on their season-opening drive. After the Flowers trip, the Giants were backed up to their own 7. They then ran a play for no gain before Eli Manning connected with Evan Engram for 34 yards. But that play was negated by a flag. Who was the flag on? Do you even have to ask? Flowers, of course. This time for holding. Now facing a second-and-20 from their own 4 against the best defense in the league, it was no surprise the possession would result in a punt. Thankfully, three plays later, Blake Bortles would turn into Blake Bortles and throw an interception.

The second Giants possession took the Giants 59 yards from their own 37 to the Jaguars’ 4, where it would stall out in typical Giants fashion. Facing a third-and-Goal from the 8, the Giants decided to run an end-around to Odell Beckham Jr. The play, which actually made me laugh out loud, shockingly resulted in a loss of one yard. Aldrick Rosas converted the 27-yard field goal to tie the game.

From there, the Jaguars kicked another field goal to gup 6-3 and the Giants punted for a second time, leading to a Jaguars touchdown to put the Giants behind 13-3. The Giants got the ball back with 2:42 in the half and a chance for my favorite thing in football: the double score with a possession before the half and the first possession of the second half. The Giants once again got the ball to the red zone and couldn’t get it in the end zone against the vaunted Jaguars defense, and they trailed 13-6 at half.

On the first play of the second half, the Giants called timeout after not being able to get the play off in time. It was the most Giants thing of all time. Even more than the two penalties in the first three plays of their season. How could they come out of halftime and not have the first play of the half decided upon? That’s not rhetorical. I’m asking because I need to know. Using a timeout on the first play of the half is irresponsible. But don’t worry, I’m sure they won’t need that timeout later in the game.

A third Rosas field goal to open the half cut the deficit to 4, but I started to think how Rosas was now 3-for-3 and if the game were to come down to a field-goal attempt, the odds would be against him at that point. You can only trust Rosas for so long. The Giants defense got the Jaguars to punt again and thanks to an unnecessary roughness penalty and a bad punt, the Giants would start with the ball on Jaguars’ 46, trailing 13-9. The Giants had a chance to take the lead against possibly the best team in the AFC and all of football.

On third-and-7 from the Jaguars’ 43, the Giants did what the Giants always do in situations like these: they threw the ball five yards. The Engram reception left the Giants two yards short of a first down at the Jaguars’ 38. Shurmur knew what every Giants fan knows and that is that letting Rosas try a 55-yarder isn’t the best idea, considering it’s almost a certainty the Jaguars would then have the ball at midfield. So being stuck in no-man’s land, Shurmur decided to go for it on fourth down, which to me was the right call. The actual play that ran? Not so much the right call. Manning handed it off to Saquon Barkley and he was only able to gain one of the two yards. Turnover on downs.

It felt like a huge opportunity had slipped away and the Giants had gone from the chance to take the lead, or at worst make it a one-point game, to potentially being down two possessions again if the Jaguars scored a touchdown. The Giants’ defense, which came to play (something they didn’t do at all in 2017), allowed only 15 yards and the Jaguars punted again. One first down and three incomplete passes later, and the Giants punted it right back. Then the Jaguars punted, then the Giants punted, then the Jaguars punted. The game had become a defensive standoff, something I expected from the Jaguars, not the Giants. With 11:24 left in the game, the Jaguars defense basically put the game away when Manning threw a pick-6 into the hands of Myles Jack. 20-9, Jaguars.

The play was deflating. I went from thinking for the fourth straight possession that the Giants might take the lead and win a game I didn’t expect them to win to realizing I was a fool for ever having that thought. But two plays later, Barkley made me regret being so against drafting him with the second overall pick as he broke through with a 68-yard touchdown run.

It’s been so long since the Giants had a good running back. Actually, it’s been so long since the Giants have had an average running back that I forgot what it was like to have someone who can run like that and also catch balls out of the backfield and force the defense to not focus on Beckham. The touchdown made up for Barkley’s inability to get the two yards on the drive that ended with a turnover on downs earlier in the game. Naturally, the Giants’ two-point attempt failed and instead of the game being a three-point game, it was a five-point game at 20-15 with 10:39 remaining.

Another punt from the Jaguars, followed by a punt from the Giants and another punt from the Jaguars gave the Giants the ball at their own 19. The Giants were able to drive the ball 45 yards, but on fourth-and-6 from the Jaguars’ 36, they turned it over on downs for the second time in the second half.

With Leonard Fournette out of the game, the Giants were able to stop T.J. Yeldon and get the ball back with 54 seconds left and no timeouts. (No timeouts because remember the first play in the second half?) But having no timeouts or all their timeouts wouldn’t matter. Recently-signed Kaelin Clay was set to receive the punt, but he muffed it, allowing the Jaguars to recover and take a knee to run out the clock. Why was Clay out there? Why wasn’t the best hands on the team and possibly the league in Beckham not out there? There’s no reason. If you wanted Clay to just catch it and not return, Beckham would have made more sense. And if you wanted a return, Beckham still would have more sense. There’s nothing in a football game in which Kaelin Clay would make more sense than Odell Beckham Jr.

From start to finish it was the exact type of Giants game I have gotten used to watching in my life. Between allowing third-and-longs to convert, to taking two offensive line penalties in the first three plays of the season, to turning the ball over on downs twice, to not being able to convert once in the red zone, to throwing a pick-6, to failing to convert a two-point conversion, to wasting a timeout on the first play of a half, to muffing the punt with a chance to win the game, the game have everything a Giants can could expect. If I were to explain to someone what it’s like to watch the Giants every week of every season, I couldn’t have put together a more accurate depiction of the team if I tried.

I enter every Giants season the same way: thinking they will win the Super Bowl. I realize it’s not a smart approach to set my expectations for the season at a championship, considering I root for a franchise that despite its four Super Bowl wins in the last 31 years has given its fan base a lot of regular-season disappointment. It’s also not the best idea to think an ownership group that interviewed Ben McAdoo and then named him head coach after speaking with him and then let him bench Eli Manning for Geno Smith has now put the team in proper hands moving forward. But the same way I’m dumb enough to bet on the Giants nearly every week, I’m dumb enough to think they can win the Super Bowl this season.

I’m not the only one though. The Giants think they can too. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t have stuck with Manning for the foreseeable future and would have used the second overall pick in the draft on a quarterback. It’s quite possible that Giants ownership, the front office, the coaching staff, the players and myself are all dumb, but I like to think we’re not.

Two years ago, the Giants were an 11-win team that should have won their only playoff game. Who knows where the franchise is right now if Odell Beckham Jr. and Sterling Shepard come down with what should have been early-touchdown catches in that awful wild-card game. The disaster that was the 2017 season likely doesn’t happen and Ben McAdoo is likely still the head coach and Jerry Reese is like still the general manager. Instead, the team is coming off a three-win season in which the both McAdoo and Reese were fired midseason, only after destroying Manning’s consecutive start streak for no reason.

I realize success is fleeting in the NFL, but I have a hard time believing the Giants could be an 11-win team in 2016 and the only team to beat the Cowboys in that regular season, which they did twice, and then become a three-win team overnight. Maybe the eight wins by a touchdown or less in 2016 were a sign that the team just had some breaks go their way in a way they never did near the end of Tom Coughlin era, but winning one-possession games is the way to win in the NFL.

It’s felt like two years since I watched any Giants football that has mattered. Last season was over in Week 3 when they lost to the eventual champion Eagles on a last-second field goal to fall to 0-3. Two weeks later, they were still winless, and a month after that, they were 1-8. It was the most miserable Giants season of my life and for many Giants fans lives, all culminating with the decision to bench Manning for no reason. But looking back, had McAdoo and Reese not decided to bench Manning and handle it the way they did, maybe the Giants win a few games down the stretch and they are both still in their old jobs for the 2018 season. It’s possible that the two idiots needed to make the worst decision in the history of the Giants to avoid Giants fans going through another season with them in charge.

Now it’s Pat Gettleman and Pat Shurmur and I don’t know what to expect. Everything about the way the Giants have planned for this season makes you think they are a playoff team. Factor in the potential Super Bowl hangover of the Eagles, the illogical roster decisions of the Cowboys and the unknown with the Redskins and it’s very easy to see how the Giants could return to the playoffs in 2018, and quite possibly as the NFC East winner. The only thing standing in their way is their schedule.

Normally, when you finish last in your division, you have a path to the playoffs paved for you the following season. Not for the 2018 Giants though. The first seven weeks of the Giants’ season are as hard as any ever with games against the Jaguars, Cowboys, Texans, Saints, Panthers, Eagles and Falcons. Throw in what is always a challenging division game against the Redskins in Week 8 and it’s an absolute gauntlet for the Giants until their bye week. I know it’s not about who you play in the NFL, but when you play them, but as of now, the Giants are going to have to be at least 3-4 in those first seven and 4-4 after Week 8 to have a chance at returning to the postseason. And they are going to have to start hot with a new head coach, a new offensive line and a defense that doesn’t have one true pass rusher on it. The more I write, the more I’m talking myself out of the previous paragraph and the Giants being a playoff team.

But for now, I’m optimistic. That’s right, I’m optimistic about not only the New York Football Giants, which is as ridiculous as it gets, but I’m optimistic about a Giants team that has a new head coach, a new offensive line and pass rush-less defense coming off a three-win season. I don’t know how long this optimism will last (probably until the first delay of game by the offense, or draw play on third-and-19 or holding penalty by the offensive line or first down allowed by the defense on third-and-21), but I think it will last longer than it did a year ago. It better.