The Giants Playoff Hopes Stayed Alive Thanks To Wayne Gallman’s Butt

The NFC East crown was still up for grabs on Sunday as the Giants and Cowboys played in the early window, with the winner keeping their playoff hopes alive pending the result of the Sunday Night game between the Football Team and Eagles.

An Eagles win would give the winner of Giants-Cowboys the division, while Washington has a win and in scenario. Aside from the Browns nail-biting win over the Steelers, that meant it was the focal point of the early window and it produced a game fitting of the 2020 NFC East. New York went up 20-6 and appeared to be on cruise control before their offense came to a complete and total halt, with some awful turnover luck and just generally awful play.

Dallas climbed all the way back to make it 20-19 — they settled for four field goals, three of which came on solid drives after being unable to capitalize in the red zone. A Giants field goal made things 23-19 and with under two minutes to play, the Cowboys reached a first-and-goal situation. From there, Andy Dalton ate a sack that dropped them to the 17, CeeDee Lamb dropped a wide open pass over the middle that would’ve set up a third and manageable distance, and on 3rd and goal from the 17, Dalton did…this.

It was, objectively, an awful pass and also felt like a perfect end point for the season in Dallas. However, the Giants still needed a first down to ice the game, and turned to Wayne Gallman, who already had one fumble on the day. Gallman, on second down, broke free and across the line to gain and simply needed to fall down to seal the win. Instead, he just…dropped the football and chaos ensued, with one of the strangest explanations of possession you’ll ever see resulting in the Giants retaining the ball and getting the win.

Somehow, Gallman doing a James Brown split onto the football meant he had possession — an alternate angle during the replay showed there was a hand on it and made it look a bit more like possession — but with the ball eventually squirting free of Gallman’s grasp on video it was wild that it was ruled Giants ball and that the play held up.

In any case, it is Giants fans that will spend Sunday night rooting aggressively for the Eagles, and they have Wayne Gallman’s butt to thank for that.