John Harbaugh didn’t need long to show that his first night with the Giants could stand on its own, even with Baltimore’s Week 1 thunder rolling in from afar.
The pressure around Harbaugh was already heavy when he became the 21st head coach in New York Football Giants history. Then the Ravens opened the season with a 41-23 rout of the Indianapolis Colts, a result that only turned up the volume on the conversation in New York. Baltimore’s win mattered in its own right, but it also served as a loud first statement in the post-Harbaugh era, with his former protege-turned-successor Jesse Minter guiding the way.
Still, the Giants had their own answer ready. On Sunday night, they beat the Dallas Cowboys 28-20 in a wire-to-wire primetime win that pushed the outside noise out of the picture, at least for one day.
Harbaugh is a Super Bowl-winning coach and a potential future Hall of Famer trying to bring one of the NFL’s most recognizable franchises back to life in the biggest market in the country. That means every step he takes in East Rutherford is going to get picked apart.
Meanwhile, Minter and the Ravens are now tied to him too, and their first test without him was a clean success. So was the Giants’ debut under Harbaugh.
Baltimore looked sharp and complete against Indianapolis. The Ravens piled up 506 total yards, their first time clearing 500 in nearly two years, and their defense forced two turnovers and two sacks while holding the Colts to 4.7 yards per play. It was one of the biggest results of the early Sunday slate, and it set the stage for what Harbaugh had to answer a few hours later.
He answered it with a win.
Dallas never really settled in. The Giants opened by forcing a quick three-and-out, then followed that with a 10-play, 83-yard touchdown march that set the tone. The Cowboys did trim the margin to eight with about five minutes left, but they spent most of the night chasing.
There’s a real contrast here between the two branches of this story. Minter deserves credit for reshaping the Ravens and getting immediate results, but Harbaugh’s approach hasn’t disappeared.
He leaned on play-action at an above-average rate and used 21 personnel - two running backs and one tight end - more than most teams would. New York, for its part, didn’t sell out with the blitz.
The plan was to keep everything in front and take away the explosives.
That kind of matchup can go either way. Baltimore’s old formula clearly wasn’t working the same way anymore, but that doesn’t mean Harbaugh’s version can’t still win somewhere else. On this night, it did.
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What makes that more interesting for New York is that the units expected calling card has not really arrived yet. The pass rush, supposed to be one of the defenses biggest strengths, barely showed up in the season opener, which means the Giants may already have a defense that looks sturdier than the numbers suggest and still has another gear waiting in reserve. [Read more 🡒]