Giants Country

Xavier McKinney Recalls Wild End to Giants' 23-17 Win Over Jaguars

According to Xavier McKinney, the Giants defense didn't have its best game, but it came through when it mattered most.

Olivier Dumont

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The New York Giants hung onto a 23-17 victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars to move to 6-1, a feat reminiscent of their Super Bowl run in 2007, where they began the season 6-2. 

With the Giants down 17-13 headed into the fourth quarter, it wasn’t until the 5:35 minute mark that they regained the lead 20-17 following a ten-play 79-yard drive.

After the Giants defense forced a three-and-out following their touchdown, they were able to string together a nine-play, 61-yard drive that was capped off with a 34-yard field goal. 

However, on the final play before the field goal, running back Saquon Barkley stepped out of bounds with just over a minute to spare for the Jaguars offense to strike back.

Over that final minute and four seconds, the Jaguars offense drove 58 yards on nine plays to place themselves on the Giants 17-yard line. With five seconds remaining, quarterback Trevor Lawrence completed a pass to wide receiver Christian Kirk who caught the ball on the Giants' 1-yard line but came up short of scoring a touchdown due to the gang tackling effort.  

“I mean, we knew the situation,” said safety Xavier McKinney, who was part of that effort. “That whole drive, our mentality, and what I was preaching was just to keep them inbounds. 

"We knew they didn't have any timeouts left, so we were just trying to delay as much time as we could, and then the last play, we were just trying to keep them out of the end zone. I think it was a great play call by (Giants Defensive Coordinator Don) 'Wink' (Martindale), and we've got to execute it, and we kept them out of the end zone in the end.”

The popular catchphrase, "it’s a game of inches," came into play at this final moment, with the Giants defense only working a matter of inches in their battle to fend off the game-winning touchdown.

“(We had to) keep him out of the end zone,” said McKinney. “He was in the air when he caught it, I think, so it was harder when he caught the ball, and the offensive line started coming in and trying to push the pile forward. That's what made it a little difficult. But he's a lighter body, smaller guy, so it was easy to be able to keep him out, but once the offensive linemen came and ran into the pile, it got a little difficult there at the end.”

The Giants secured a win that was too close for comfort and unnecessarily so. Over that drive, the Giants defense committed three penalties, one of which negated what would have been a huge Giants interception from cornerback Fabian Moreau.

“It is what it is,” said McKinney. “Things happen in the game, and it ain't going to be perfect. But we've all got each other's back, and that's the greatest thing about this team. We play as a unit no matter what. 

"For us defensively, we just knew we had to go out there and make another stop, which we wanted to do and were able to do. A lot of us don't think we played very good defensively today. (It was) probably our worst defensive performance. But we know we've got a lot of work to get where we want to be. We've got a lot of things to improve on.”

Although the Giants made things closer than they needed to, their resiliency and toughness to fight to the dying seconds for this well-earned win illustrated how strong this group is, no matter how long some of these players have been wearing a Giants uniform.

“I think everybody that's come in has done a great job for us with just buying into what we want to do as a team and buying into what we want to do as a defense, and everybody has been a huge contribution to what we want to do, “said McKinney. 

“They've come in, asked no questions, just got straight to work. It's been easy to kind of bond with them. All these guys are good guys. They're even better teammates. It's been pretty easy for us.”

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Olivier Dumont
OLIVIER DUMONT

Olivier Dumont is a graduate of SUNY Rockland Community College, where he was the Sports Editor of the Outlook. After obtaining his Associate of Liberal Arts degree, he transferred to both Hunter and Baruch Colleges as part of the CUNY Baccalaureate Program for Unique and Interdisciplinary Studies. He graduated with a BA degree with a concentration in Sports Journalism.  

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