LANDOVER, Md. — If nothing else, they will have this image, this picture, this play, proof that there is still fight in the legs and fuel in the heart. The Redskins were dinking and dunking their way down the field, a few yards here, a few yards there. The stadium was half empty, the season all but dead.
Robert Griffin III flipped a ball to his right, to Pierre Garcon, and the Redskins were going to get a fresh set of downs, 90 seconds left, the field getting shorter and shorter by the second. Neither of these teams is likely to make the playoffs, but this was an elimination game in every sense of the word.
The Redskins were still alive.
And then they weren’t. Because here came Will Hill, greeting Garcon as he received the ball, reaching in for it, grabbing it, then taking it away. Here was Hill, and here were the Giants, joyous on the sideline, victorious in the den of an ancient rivals, shooing the remnants of the crowd at FedEx Field to the exits.
“We had to make a play,” Hill said.
He made the play. The Giants made just enough plays, showed just enough resolve, walked away with a 24-17 victory and with their season intact, for now. The treacherous part of the week was already over; the Raiders had given them no help, blowing a two-touchdown lead to the Cowboys on Thanksgiving. The Cardinals had given them no help, failing to finish a comeback in Philadelphia earlier in the day.
Their bleak playoff hopes had narrowed to dreary, and then they went and spotted the Redskins 14 points. Whatever hope they harbor, slim as it may be, all of it depended on making it to the other side of this game, against this team, in this stadium, where a year ago they’d surrendered the division to RG3.
Where two days shy of a year ago, following his team’s 17-16 win, the Washington owner, Daniel Snyder, had defiantly and gleefully declared “I hate those mother[bleepers]!” in the triumphant home-team locker room.
The division may have been decided that night. Survival was determined on this one, a lesser goal, a less satisfying reward, but for the Giants it was precisely the kind of survive-and-advance performance they were hoping for.
“It was,” Tom Coughlin said, smiling, “a beautiful night for football.”
It may well be a lost cause, of course. The Giants may be 5-7 but they were once 0-6, and if the league can be a forgiving place for resilient and tough teams, it is also absolute when it comes to certain truths. And you can’t go 0-for-September, and the 0-for-the-start-of-October, and expect to have all the dominoes you need fall in place for you.
It isn’t that forgiving.
“I was proud of the way we hung in there,” Coughlin said. “We took the ball down the field when we needed to do that. And we made any number of outstanding plays.”
There was Hill’s signature moment, and there were four sacks from Justin Tuck after a season in which he’d collected four sacks, total, across the first 11 games. There was a splendid answer from the defense, holding Washington to a field goal after what could’ve been a devastating Eli Manning pick. The Giants never led until the opening minute of the fourth quarter. But they were never seriously threatened thereafter, either.
“We can get better,” Tuck said. “We have four games and we need to pretty much win them all. And we have to keep improving.”
Had the night turned out differently, that would have been happy talk and senseless pap, and it still may turn out that way. They have to win out — and winning out means not only winning at San Diego next week against an equally desperate Chargers, but also at home against the Seahawks, only the best team in the NFC. And even if they do, they need help.
“Lot of work left,” Manning said.
“Just have to keep your head down and plow straight ahead,” Tuck said.
But you don’t win five in a row without winning one in a row first, and there were a hundred reasons why this all could have ended differently for the Giants. And only one that mattered, one that explains why it didn’t.
“We keep coming,” Coughlin said, and if you aren’t going to the playoffs, that’s not a bad way to be remembered all things considered.