The Giants’ final drive in their loss to the Falcons was pure comedy

The Giants opted for two Eli Manning runs on the goal line. The joke writes itself.

The New York Giants are off to a truly terrible start this season, but they still had a slight chance to win late against the Atlanta Falcons on Monday Night Football. They didn’t make it easy on themselves to get the job done, though.

The Giants were down 23-12 with 45 seconds left on the Falcons 1-yard line. At this point it’s still a long shot to win, but a touchdown and a two-point conversion would give the Giants a chance to try an onside kick and send the game into overtime with a long field goal attempt.

Well, the first part happened, but the second couldn’t because of how they executed.

As the clock was dwindling down, the Giants opted to run TWO sneaks with Eli Manning.

And both of them failed:

That not only wasted about 40 seconds of time, but here’s a reminder that Manning is 37 and has exactly one rushing touchdown in the last four seasons (and just six in his career).

The Giants FINALLY ran a short pass play to Odell Beckham for a touchdown ... with 5 seconds remaining on the clock.

Since the Giants didn’t have any timeouts, they had to hurry to the line of scrimmage. Beckham’s touchdown was a thing of a beauty:

But it could’ve happened earlier in the drive, especially when they couldn’t stop the clock. The Giants had called all three of their timeouts before the two-minute warning on Atlanta’s previous drive, when the Falcons kicked a 56-yard field goal to make the game 23-12. Hindsight is always 20/20, but the Giants probably should’ve left one of those timeouts in their back pocket for this situation.

After the Beckham score, Saquon Barkley ran in for a two-point conversion to get the Giants to within three:

So where were these play calls when the Giants first got to the 1-yard line?

This offseason, the Giants paid Beckham $90 million and drafted Barkley with the No. 2 pick. It would’ve made sense to use those players when the game is on the line.

Beckham was having a monster night too — he finished the game with eight catches for 143 yards and a touchdown. At one point in the game, Giants coach Pat Shurmur was visibly upset with Manning for not throwing the ball to Beckham on fourth-and-goal that would’ve tied the game at 10.

After the game, Shurmur, who had been aggressive all game long, defended his calls to run back-to-back quarterback sneaks rather than pass earlier on the last drive.

“No, that’s a defeatist deal. You should be able to convert on a sneak, and we’ve all seen [Manning] do that.”

Perhaps that’s a reasonable explanation for one quarterback sneak, but two? And burning THAT much time off the clock?

The Giants had the right idea on the onside kick, but awful execution.

The Giants missed badly on a long onside kick attempt to set them up in field goal range, but there were only 5 seconds left on the clock. Trying to hit a normal onside kick would leave them in a Hail Mary situation, had they recovered it. They needed get the ball a little further downfield so they could kick a field goal if they recovered.

Unfortunately for the Giants, they kicked it right behind Julio Jones, who was able to easily recover the ball.

Then Atlanta hit a quick kneel to end the game, holding on to a 23-20 win.

That dropped the Giants to 1-6 on the season, making them dead last in the NFC East. But at the very least, this loss puts them in the driver’s seat for a premium pick at the top of the 2019 NFL Draft.