There was no reason to think Chad Ryland wasn’t going to kick the ball through the uprights and another game-turning play was going to go against the hard-luck Giants.
Unless you were closely observing the Patriots kicker’s body language as he lined up for a 35-yarder from across the line of scrimmage.
“I felt like he was going to miss it. I think he was a little nervous,” safety Xavier McKinney said. “I was trying to talk to him before he actually kicked it. I was just telling him, ‘Don’t miss it. Don’t be scared.’ He was a little shaky — you can always tell.”
Sure enough, Ryland hooked his chip-shot wide left and the Giants escaped with a 10-7 victory, avoiding overtime and a replica of how they choked away a near-surefire win over the Jets in their most recent home game.
“As a kicker, it’s always nerve-wracking when you’ve got that last-second field goal,” McKinney said. “Especially when you know if you miss this, you are losing this game. It’s different when it’s tied.”
McKinney was at the center of the ensuing celebration, rolling his helmet down the field to draw a meaningless penalty.
“There’s no easy way around it. There’s no soft way around it. I missed the kick,” Ryland told reporters in the visitor’s locker room. “I completely own that, and I’ll take responsibility for that every day of the week. The protection was good, snap was good, hold was good. I’ve got to do a better job of making that kick.”
Were the Giants simply due?
After ending both halves at the 1-yard line in a loss to the Bills and after losing to the Jets when their win probability was 99.9 percent in the final minute?
“I don’t feel like we were owed one,” said defensive tackle Rakeem Nunez-Roches, who was in the middle of the line trying to block the kick. “The way the game works, you have to take it. The way we were fighting, we had more of an edge than they did. We wanted it more.”
Nunez-Roches said he could tell the kick was headed wide off of Ryland’s foot.
“Once we got enough penetration, I felt it,” Nunez-Roches said. “I was up and the tackle snatched me back and I was like, ‘No!’ It all works together — feeling the pressure and us coming after him.”
Giants quarterback Tommy DeVito was preparing for overtime and wound up just having to kneel down once to run off the final three seconds after the turn of events.
NFL kickers have made about 92 percent of 35-yard field goals since 2010, according to FootballGuys.com.
“About time we got a little lucky,” DeVito said. “Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good. Heard that saying a lot when I was growing up. But it worked out for us — we got the win.”
Read more
