EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — The flawed but feisty New York Giants woke up Monday morning with a 3-1 record and sole possession of first place in the NFC East. That is a pleasant, but absolutely unexpected development.
Just for fun, and because we know it may not stay this way over the next 13 games, a look at the Week 4 NFC East standings:
- New York Giants — 3-1
- Dallas Cowboys — 2-2
- Philadelphia Eagles — 2-2
- Washington Commanders — 1-3
How did this happen? Let’s take a look.
The John Harbaugh effect
The veteran head coach’s impact has been central to the Giants’ early-season success.
Harbaugh made players — many of them used
to losing with the Giants — believe they could win if they earned the right to win. He drove them hard during the spring and especially in the summer, harder and longer than most were accustomed to as NFL players.
Harbaugh made them believe that the hard work, and the bond they developed through their shared effort, would callous them and help build the toughness to earn the opportunity to win.
Be truthful, Giants fans. Would the team have won either of the Week 3 and Week 4 games it was victorious in last season? Almost certainly not. A year ago, the Giants blew five fourth-quarter leads. In each of the last two weeks, they have won games that felt as though they were about to be lost. That maybe should have been lost.
“You have to play the next play, which is what they do. You gotta keep believing, and then you got to do. Keep believing, keep doing, keep believing, keep doing, keep believing, keep doing,” Harbaugh said after Sunday’s game. “That’s really what life is. Football is a metaphor for life, and that’s the way a football game goes. Sometimes it doesn’t go your way. But the last two times it did go our way, and they were rewarded for that.”
Defensive tackle D.J. Reader is in his 11th season in the NFL. He knows what he sees and feels.
“We fightin’, man. We out there throwing punches, and we know our brother beside us is throwing punches with us,” Reader said. “That’s all that matters.
“It might not be as conventional as everybody’s looking for it to be, but shoot, we care about each other. There’s nothing really you can do to replace camaraderie. When people care about each other, a lot of things can happen.”
The Giants are not the most talented team in the NFL. They are not the most talented team in the NFC East. They have lost their young star quarterback for the season in Jaxson Dart. They have lost their defensive leader in Brian Burns for the season. There are plenty of flaws to pick at. Yet, they believe.
It is, again, resilience and toughness born from the work they have done.
“You shouldn’t be out there playing if you don’t believe,” Reader said. “We put a lot of work in in camp. New coaches, new coordinators, new systems. If you believe in the work you put in, you just gotta keep believing.”
Significantly, the winning plays were made the past two weeks by players who are having resurgent seasons. A week ago it was Jevon Holland, who was disappointing in his first season with the Giants in 2025, but earned NFC Defensive Player of the Month honors after getting three interceptions in three games. Sunday, it was Tae Banks, who looked like a bust three years after the Giants made him a first-round pick.
Harbaugh gave Banks a shot at redemption, and from the beginning, Banks has taken advantage of it. Teammates lauded Banks’ resilience on Sunday, making two plays on the final goal line stand after a questionable pass interference call against him put the Arizona Cardinals at the Giants’ 4-yard line with :22 to play.
Banks said after the game that the important thing is to “keep going.” He and his teammates have been doing that.
“That’s real hard,” said Arvell Reese. “After you make a mistake like that, some people would probably get down. He still held his head high, chest up. Man made a play; he won us the game. That’s very hard. Tip my hat to him.”
Abdul Carter is another player who had a rough rookie season in 2025, but who had a big hand in Sunday’s victory.
“I think it just shows what we’re made of,” Carter said. “In those critical situations, that’s where you’ve gotta be at your best. The last two weeks we’ve been at our best in those situations.
“It’s really hard to win in this league. It just reminds me of last year so much because in these situations we didn’t get it done, but obviously this year has been a change. I credit the coaches, I credit the players, I credit everybody in the building. It takes everybody.”
It started with Harbaugh setting the standard, and convincing the players they could do it if they worked hard enough to earn it.
The Jameis-coaster
I think that is what we have to call the Jameis Winston Experience. There is great. There is ugly. There is everything in between. In some cases, all at the same time.
I don’t know about anyone else, but every time Winston drops back to throw, my immediate thought is “Oh, God, what is going to happen this time?” Sometimes it is great. Sometimes it is disastrous.
Every time he starts to move around in the pocket or his feet start to bounce around, I cringe. Yet, some of his best plays occur when that happens. Some of his worst, too. If I’m an offensive lineman, sometimes I love Winston. Sometimes, I hate him for making me look bad.
Winston threw three touchdown passes. He threw two interceptions. He made plays that kept the Cardinals in the game. Yet, in the end, he made plays the Giants don’t win the game without. The Giants are 2-0 with Winston starting games.
It isn’t pretty with Winston, and never will be. Still, could this be the start of a heater like the one Winston was on when he went 5-2 as a starter for the New Orleans Saints in 2021?
Even Winston’s post-game press conference sounded like Jameis being Jameis.
“I’m just grateful for the opportunity I have now. And right now, I get to smile and say I’m the starting quarterback for the New York Football Giants,” Winston said. “So, focusing on what I would love is winning games with my team, being the best that I can be. And I just feel like that, man, I’m heating up and I’m starting to get better, better, and better.
“Last week, I was questioning if I could even throw. This week, I’ve got people talking about the Jameis Winston experience again. So, I’m just still so curious, and I’m so inspired to be the best me every single day. And that alone pushes me. Not another man, not another teammate, just my desire to be what I would love.”
Honestly, I’m not exactly sure all of that makes sense. But sometimes watching Winston doesn’t make sense. Which, right now, with the way things are going for this Giants team, might make him the perfect quarterback for an imperfect team that has so far turned the NFC East upside down.
A monster is rising
In retrospect, it seems appropriate that the first question Arvell Reese was asked after Sunday’s game was about playing so well in front of Lawrence Taylor as the Giants honored the 1986 Super Bowl team. I’m kind of mad that I didn’t think to ask the question.
“Oh man, that means a lot, bro,” Reese said. “With a guy like that in the building, him setting the standard for how that position is supposed to be played back in the day. It definitely means a lot to play a decent game like that.”
Let’s not put Reese in the same category as Taylor just yet. Actually, not for a long while. Maybe never. Still, the 21-year-old rookie had a Taylor-esque game on Sunday. He had nine tackles. He had a pressure that led to an interception when he hit Jacoby Brissett’s arm. He had an interception of his own. He had a tackle for loss. He had three passes defensed. He made one-on-one tackles in the open field.
Still, he only called his play “decent,” because there were “a bunch of plays I left out there.”
Reese said in the celebratory post-game locker room that he wants to be a “dominant game-changer.”
He isn’t Lawrence Taylor. No one is. I have news for Arvell, though. He already is one.
