ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) _ Eli Manning threw for three touchdowns, including the go-ahead score to Victor Cruz in his first game in almost two years, and the New York Giants beat the Dallas Cowboys 20-19 Sunday. On the other side, Ben McAdoo is now 1-0 as Giants coach and his team exorcised one demon from a year ago by holding on to win a game in the final minutes. The 15th anniversary of September 11 resonates with Cruz, the son of a 30-year New Jersey fireman who was among the first responders at Ground Zero.
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The 3-yard scoring pass to Cruz with 6:13 remaining proved to be the difference in the first of two meetings between the NFC East rivals. The NY Giants parted ways with head coach Tom Coughlin in the offseason in favor of Ben McAdoo. That being said, there’s still a lot of room for the Dallas Cowboys to improve as they look to win their first game of the season against the Washington Redskins next week. The Cowboys have lost 15 of the past 16 games in which Romo was not available.
PASSING_New York, Manning 19-28-1-207. And the Giants’ hard work was buttressed by a 45-yard reception down the left sideline by Beckham Jr., which he took to the DAL 10 yard line. The defense actually played pretty well for missing so many pieces, but the offense had to settle for four field goals as opposed to the Giants who scored three touchdowns.
The rookie quarterback Dak Prescott did his job.
Easily, the most disappointing man on the day for the Cowboys was Ezekiel Elliott.
Prescott, a fourth-round pick, was pressed into action earlier than expected with the preseason injuries to Romo and backup Kellen Moore.
It was the rest of the Cowboys that failed to perform in Sunday’s 20-19 loss.
NY linebacker J.T. Thomas III was carted off with a sprained knee at halftime after getting hurt on a kickoff return on the final play of the first half. “We have talked to (Team VP for player evaluation) Marc Ross and our college scouts about what they had on Prescott out of college”, Spagnuolo said, via the team’s official website. That lone TD came via an 8-yard run by Elliott, who finished with 51 yards on 20 carries and a 1-yard catch.
“He’s only going to get better”, said tight end Jason Witten, who had team highs of 14 targets, nine receptions and 66 receiving yards.
Williams, meanwhile, stood in front of his locker and answered question after question on why he didn’t just run out of bounds after making the game’s final catch.
This was Cruz’s first game since suffering a season-ending knee injury against the Eagles in 2014. After tossing the coin, Bush grabbed the FDNY cap off the head of NY linebacker Zak DeOssie.
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The Dallas Cowboys opted to keep Tony Romo on their active roster, which means they anticipate him being healthy enough to play before Week 9. While AT&T Stadium hasn’t provided an overwhelming home field advantage for the Cowboys, they have been able to come away with a win in both of these meetings with NY.
