The Giants were dead and you hadn’t even opened your first game-day drink. The bean dip was still wrapped, the Frito bag still sealed. It wasn’t even a quarter past one and you might have been thinking about catching up on the other games on TV, maybe watching the Liberty-Dream playoff game, or Braves-Marlins on MLB Network.

On the opening kickoff, the Giants had thrown the ball away from Eric Gray. On the Browns’ first play from scrimmage, Deshaun Watson connected with Amari Cooper for a 24-yard touchdown. On the Giants’ fifth play from scrimmage, Daniel Jones threw the ball directly to Cleveland’s Ronnie Hickman, again on the Giants’ 24-yard line.

“Oh look! A ‘Matrix’ marathon on AMC! I’m in!”

And then a funny thing happened.

There was a flag on the field. The crowd of 68,616, which had done nothing but scream itself silly at Cleveland’s Huntington Bank Field, fell silent. Greg Newsome’s hand had made contact with Daniel Jones’ helmet. In 1964, that would have only increased the noise to absurd levels.

In 2024 this will be 13.5 meters.

And in that moment — in that moment — it wasn’t just the football game that was turned on its head, it was the way we have to look at these Giants. They scored a touchdown 7 1/2 minutes later, Devin Singletary coming from the 1. Jones hooked up twice with rookie wunderkind Malik Nabers for a 21-7 lead.

They held on and won 21-15. There were a few scary moments along the way. None of them mattered as they walked off the court.

“We showed a lot of resilience,” Giants coach Brian Daboll said. “Especially how it started. But the guys battled, kept battling and I’m proud of them.”

Suddenly, they were no longer a social media punching bag (even though they gave most fans stomach upsets until the final minutes of the fourth quarter).

If the first few minutes inspired any #LOLGiants memes, they were quickly deleted. What followed in the final 54 minutes and 51 seconds was as good a beating as you can dish out on a football field, especially away. Forget the score. Remember what you saw. Remember what you saw.

“Once you get hot, stay hot,” said Dexter Lawrence, fierce all day, responsible for two of the Giants’ eight sacks and one of their five tackles for a loss. “Don’t lose focus. You just have to keep piling them on.”

He meant victories. This was the first. There will be more if they throw more complete games like Sunday’s — certainly more than seemed logical after the way they lost their first two. They made Watson more than grossly ineffective, they made him look scared, unsure of where the next beating would come from.

Jones? Well, he was spared that early pick. He was spared one more time when Nabers made a ridiculous catch later on, setting up his first touchdown. But he was also great for a second straight game: 24-for-34, two touchdowns, no picks, a 109.4 rating.

And then of course there was Nabers, who shook off his big drop from last week and made eight catches (of twelve targets). With each of those catches he gave an Odell-like impression that he might be able to do something extra.

“When you have a guy like that,” Daboll said, “it doesn’t matter what the matchups are. Throw the ball to him and he’ll get it.”

What we know so far is this: Daboll is not wrong on any of these points.

“We kept them on their heels,” Jones said. “I thought we did a really good job today.”

Daboll: “Our guys already have internal confidence. But it’s good to get results.”

They would get them a pooch-point away from Lake Erie on this sunny afternoon, turning all those hopeful voices from 1:15 to 4 into endless cascades of boos, and for the rest of the game in between. Watson was already on the hot seat; it’s now scorching hot, about 212 degrees Fahrenheit. The Giants owned the line of scrimmage, on both sides of the ball.

If you couldn’t fully exhale until Cedric Tillman unleashed one of the few accurate punches Watson threw all day, one that hit him between the “1” and the “9” on his jersey before bouncing harmlessly away… well, that’s just life in the NFL, every week.

Believe what you saw. Believe what you saw. Above all, believe that there is still enough football season left for a team for whom this suddenly seems like a blessing and not a punishment.