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    • How NY Giants Blocked Out the Noise for Brian Daboll’s Biggest Win
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    How NY Giants Blocked Out the Noise for Brian Daboll’s Biggest Win

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    SEATTLE — The noise at Lumen Field for 58 minutes and 55 seconds was deafening Sunday afternoon.

    So what was Isaiah Simmons of the New York Giants hearing when he jumped over Seattle lineman Laken Tomlinson and then jumped as high as he could again to smack a potential game-tying field goal from 47 yards out in the waning moments?

    “What did I hear? A pop of the ball hitting my hand, that’s what it is,” Simmons told NorthJersey.com, as teammate Kayvon Thibodeaux laughed at the question. “Then Bryce (Ford-Wheaton) shouted ‘Ball game’ – I didn’t hear much after that.”

    The silence of the 12s, a typically raucous home crowd left in stunned disbelief, was the sweetest sound the Giants have produced in a long time. This was the biggest regular season win in Brian Daboll’s three years as head coach, there’s no doubt about that, and Simmons worked with Ford-Wheaton to keep it going.

    Simmons’ block of Jason Myers’ field goal attempt bounced once and directly into the arms of Ford-Wheaton, who scooped the ball up and scored, a 60-yard punctuation after the Giants’ 29-20 victory over the Seahawks on Sunday.

    The point is, the Giants can’t erase the missed opportunities that led to losses to NFC East foes Washington and Dallas, two games in which they legitimately had chances to overturn the outcome but failed to do so.

    The deck was indeed stacked against Daboll and the Giants against Seattle, a playoff team from a year ago that entered after winning three of its first four and once again appears headed to the postseason.

    Malik Nabers, the Giants’ best offensive player, was at home in New Jersey, still in concussion mode.

    Devin Singletary, their leading rusher, was unable to play due to a groin injury.

    The outside expectation was that if the Giants lost for the fourth time in five games, the season would suddenly become a referendum not just on Daniel Jones as quarterback, but on Daboll as head coach and Joe Schoen as general manager. In reality, there is an internal belief in what Daboll and Schoen are trying to build, and that was the case going into this game.

    There was no panic, just an urgency to get the football right, right tackle Jermaine Eluemunor said.

    Rookie running back Tyrone Tracy rushed for a career-best 129 yards in his first start. Darius Slayton caught eight passes from Jones for 122 yards and a touchdown. Jones completed 23 of 34 passes for 257 yards and a quarterback rating of 109.6.

    A maligned secondary was led by Tae Banks, who spent his first month dealing with a “Murderer’s Row” of elite wide receivers, drawing criticism for not finishing plays, including from his own position coach, Jerome Henderson, who admitted that he had challenged the second. year as a professional for his efforts on a touchdown catch from CeeDee Lamb in the final game.

    Seahawks star DK Metcalf saw a lot of Banks, managing just four catches on seven targets for 55 yards, just a year after teaching him what the Giants’ 2023 first-round pick called “rookie lessons” in a 24-3 win in Seattle.

    Perhaps most impressively, the Giants’ offensive line, in one of the loudest buildings in the NFL, committed zero penalties prior to the attack.

    “The challenge is always to silence the doubters,” Giants outside linebacker Brian Burns told NorthJersey.com. “Even more important is making sure no one here doubts this team, and now we’re getting ready for (next Sunday night in Cincinnati at MetLife Stadium).”

    The patience with which the Giants held up the play call for the field goal speaks to that.

    Daboll said Giants special teams coordinator Michael Ghobrial identified a hole he thought they could exploit, and it focused on Simmons’ ability to jump over Tomlinson’s down block. The Giants lined up Simmons next to Dexter Lawrence, and when Tomlinson blocked, Simmons took the crease and made things happen.

    The temptation was to go to the play earlier in the game — Myers had scored a pair of field goals prior to his final attempt — but Ghobrial begged Daboll to wait. Don’t drop the hammer too quickly, he argued.

    When the Seahawks trotted Myers out for that 47-yard attempt with 65 seconds left, the Giants sounded the alarm.

    “I knew I could get high enough. My biggest thing was I could double bounce,” Simmons said. “So land and go straight back up. There’s no time for anything else. Once I felt clear, all I could think about was touch and go, touch and go, touch and go. I think my long jump skills came into play there.”

    Giants star Dexter Lawrence had three sacks and dominated up front, as he has done for three seasons in his rise to the position. Burns was down again on fourth down in the fourth quarter, burying a crucial drive for the Seahawks.

    According to NFL Research, the Giants’ 22 sacks as a team through five games are the second-most in franchise history (26 in 1985).

    “Overall, I understand the records, but a record doesn’t always define who you are and what you can do,” Burns said. “I feel like a few of our games have slipped away due to unfortunate events. But at the same time, I firmly believe that you should not let that influence and define who you are. That’s kind of what this game represents. I’m pretty sure everyone was against us on this one.”

    And just when it looked like they might go against the Giants again, Simmons and that sweet sound of silence sparked the kind of block party that Big Blue hopes to build on in the future.

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