Inside the wild final minutes of Giants’ heartbreaking collapse

Two penalties nearly gave the Giants another win during their final drive of the game, only for the Broncos to respond with less than a minute left in the game to pull out a victory. 

The Giants’ 33-32 loss to the Broncos looked as though it would be a win for Big Blue after a drive that saw the officials make several controversial calls on Denver that kept the Giants alive. 

At one point, the Giants were down to fourth-and-19 on their own 26-yard line when Jaxson Dart heaved up a 19-yard pass to Wan’Dale Robinson and then got yards tacked on after the refs called a roughing the passer on John Franklin-Myers advancing the ball all the way to Denver’s 40. 

After throwing incompletions on the next two plays, Dart tried to find wide receiver Beaux Collins near the end zone on third down and the pass attempt led to another Broncos penalty with the officials calling a pass interference on Riley Moss. Dever coach Sean Payton even got an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for running onto the field, which cost his team a yard.

The calls set up the Giants on the Broncos’ 1-yard line and led to a go-ahead touchdown with 30 seconds left. Giants kicker Jude McAtamney missed the extra point, giving Big Blue just a 32-30 lead.

It took the Broncos all of five plays to score the winning field goal, with Bo Nix completing two deep passes for a combined 51 yards. Wil Lutz made a 39-yard field goal attempt for the win on the only second down the Broncos faced on the drive. Nix completed passes for 29 and 22 yards on the drive.

The Giants had led 26-8 in the fourth quarter before the game slipped away from them as Denver cut their deficit to 10 and then Dart interception with just under five minutes left set up the Broncos to score on the ensuing drive. 

“Obviously, kind of a crazy back-and-forth game,” Broncos coach Sean Payton said. “We struggled for, shoot, at least two-thirds of the game offensively. They hit some big plays on us defensively. I was proud we fought to get back in it. It’s like we had to find a way to clean up our mess.”

The Giants fell short of getting on a two-game winning streak for the second time this season and will look to rebound against the Eagles in Week 8.