Inside the game-saving play that sealed thrilling Giants win

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Only 17 yards from pay dirt. Trevor Lawrence was 17 yards from Jaguars 24, Giants 23.

Saquon Barkley was beating himself up not getting out of bounds moments earlier, giving Lawrence one last chance, even with no timeouts.

A second roughing the passer penalty against Dexter Lawrence had positioned Lawrence at the 17 now.

Seven seconds on the scoreboard.

Lawrence threw deep over the middle and Christian Kirk caught the ball at the 1 — and Julian Love and Fabian Moreau, and then Xavier McKinney, refused to let him in the end zone.

Giants 23, Jaguars 17.

“That whole drive, our mentality and kinda what I was preaching was to just keep ’em inbounds,” McKinney said. “We knew that they didn’t have any timeouts left, so we were just trying to delay as much time as we could. And then the last play obviously we were just trying to keep him out of the end zone.”

Lawrence had started from his 25 with 1:04 left.

“Probably our worst defensive performance,” McKinney said.

But just good enough at the end.

“I know they wanted to run inside breaking routes,” Moreau said. “I just expected him to get into the end zone before he threw it, and he threw it a little sooner, so I gotta make that tackle.”

And McKinney, who had earlier forced a Travis Etienne fumble into the end zone that was recovered by Love, was right there to defend the goal line.

“He was in the air when he caught it I think,” McKinney said. “It was harder when he caught the ball, and the offensive linemen started coming in and trying to push the pile forward, so that’s what made it a little difficult. But he’s a lighter body, smaller guy, so it was easy to kinda be able to keep him out, but once the offensive linemen came and ran to the pole, it got kinda difficult there at the end. … We didn’t want the pile to get pushed forward into the end zone. I think the whistle blew before all of that even happened.”

Landon Collins and Jaylon Smith, recently signed Giants, also each made a big stops. Red-zone Giants.

“We’re making ’em earn it,” Love said.