- May 21, 2026
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The Commanders' mismanagement of the clock at the end of overtime in Sunday's 27-27 tie with the Giants obscured another coaching decision that backfired earlier in the period.
The Giants picked up a first down at the Washington 24-yard-line at the two-minute warning and had a chance to run the clock out to take a field goal as time expired because the Commanders were out of timeouts. They never tried that kick because running back Cam Skattebo fumbled on the next play and the Giants' handling of that situation would have been under more intense focus had the Commanders pulled out the victory.
In his postgame press conference, Giants head coach John Harbaugh called a 42-yard field goal "very makeable, but it's not a gimme" and said that the goal was to "try to get as many yards as we could" rather than kick at that point or simply take a knee to work the clock down.
"That's a really, that's kind of, strategically, the idea was to run it twice, and then run it down, get as close as we could, protect the football, which we talked about numerous times, and then run it down and take the knee," Harbaugh said, via a transcript from the team. "So in case he doesn't make the field goal, there's no time for them to come back and get the field goal. That's the strategy. That's the strategy we decided on early in training camp, and that's the strategy we'll probably do next time, too. We'll see. Depends how close we are. But, Skatt knows he's got to — Skat played a hell of a game, but he's gonna have to learn from that. And I think everybody's gotta learn from that. What type of running is called for in that situation. We practice that very situation plenty of times. I expect him to be accountable. I know he will, he already was. And he'll do better next time, so we gotta learn from that."
The pain of the lesson would have been worse if the Giants had lost the game, but there's still plenty to learn ahead of the next time the Giants find themselves in a similar situation.
The Giants picked up a first down at the Washington 24-yard-line at the two-minute warning and had a chance to run the clock out to take a field goal as time expired because the Commanders were out of timeouts. They never tried that kick because running back Cam Skattebo fumbled on the next play and the Giants' handling of that situation would have been under more intense focus had the Commanders pulled out the victory.
In his postgame press conference, Giants head coach John Harbaugh called a 42-yard field goal "very makeable, but it's not a gimme" and said that the goal was to "try to get as many yards as we could" rather than kick at that point or simply take a knee to work the clock down.
"That's a really, that's kind of, strategically, the idea was to run it twice, and then run it down, get as close as we could, protect the football, which we talked about numerous times, and then run it down and take the knee," Harbaugh said, via a transcript from the team. "So in case he doesn't make the field goal, there's no time for them to come back and get the field goal. That's the strategy. That's the strategy we decided on early in training camp, and that's the strategy we'll probably do next time, too. We'll see. Depends how close we are. But, Skatt knows he's got to — Skat played a hell of a game, but he's gonna have to learn from that. And I think everybody's gotta learn from that. What type of running is called for in that situation. We practice that very situation plenty of times. I expect him to be accountable. I know he will, he already was. And he'll do better next time, so we gotta learn from that."
The pain of the lesson would have been worse if the Giants had lost the game, but there's still plenty to learn ahead of the next time the Giants find themselves in a similar situation.