It was only one play among dozens in Sunday’s game, but it was a flashing neon sign displaying the Giants’ desperation, designed not only as an attempt to change the course of a game but a season on the brink.
The play — an onsides kick and recovery midway through the third quarter — was executed to perfection, with Giants kicker Josh Brown bunting the ball the required 10 yards and stripping it from San Francisco’s Bubba Ventrone as Giants linebacker Mark Herzlich recovered the ball.
But the play, despite its immediate success, did not bring the desired end result — for the game, a bitter 16-10 Giants loss to the 49ers at MetLife Stadium, or their lost season at 3-7 now and in the midst of a crushing five-game losing streak.
It was uncharacteristic for the Tom Coughlin Giants, considering the last onsides kick the Giants recovered came a decade ago in Coughlin’s first season with the Giants, and that one was late in a 28-21 loss to the Bears with the Giants in catch-up mode.
This one, with a quarter-and-a-half to play and the Giants trailing by only six points, screamed of Coughlin trying to light a fire under his scuffling team, aggressively pushing buttons in an effort to save his team’s season and maybe even his own job.
So too did Coughlin opting to go for the jugular on fourth-and-goal from the 49ers’ 4-yard line with more than 4 minutes remaining in the game and a timeout in hand rather than kicking a chip-shot field goal and cutting the San Francisco lead to 16-13.
“Score,’’ Coughlin would say later, when asked what his mindset was in going for the go-ahead touchdown rather than the safer field goal. “Score while we’re there. Here we are: Four shots.’’
Coughlin then, sensing the natural second-guess, said: “I know what you’re saying. Blame it on me, but we were going to try to score a touchdown right there.’’
What he should have done, however, was override his rookie offensive coordinator Ben McAdoo, who inexplicably called three consecutive fade-pattern plays on the series instead of trying to run the ball once and/or shake up the play calling at least a little bit.
“That’s how we’ve scored a bunch of times,’’ Coughlin said. “I have a problem that they didn’t score. Four shots from the 4-yard line … it’s inexcusable that we didn’t score. In hindsight, we should have run the ball.’’
Yes, they should have.
They also should have taken advantage of the onsides kick, which was called after a 43-yard Brown field goal cut the 49ers’ lead to 16-10 with 8:17 remaining in the third quarter.
But the Giants ran three plays after Herzlich’s recovery, and on the third, Eli Manning threw the third of his five interceptions in the game.
Buzz killed.
“We were playing to win, we were going to go get it,’’ Brown said. “You want to make a spark and hopefully light a fire. Unfortunately, we didn’t get any points out of that. At this point, it’s a lost play, so we move on.’’
Beckham said: “We felt like we had them on the ropes. Sometimes, when you have them on the ropes, you’ve got to take your haymakers. You’ve got to swing as hard as you can. You swing and sometimes you knock them down and sometimes you miss.’’
Defensive end Mathias Kiwanuka called the onsides kick “inspirational for me.’’
“It showed that it was time to go, that there is no reason to hold back,’’ Kiwanuka said.
“It’s a message that we’re a desperate football team,’’ safety and captain Antrel Rolle said.
“We’re desperate to get a win in the worst way. I loved the call. I’d call it every day of the week. That’s my kind of game — let it all hang out. No guts, no glory.’’
For the Giants, this was a day that was longer on guts than it was on glory.