Giants improve to 7-2 with win over Texans
Jaylon Smith of the Giants celebrates his fourth-quarter fumble recovery against the Texans at MetLife Stadium on Sunday. Credit: Jim McIsaac
Playing the team with the worst record in the NFL at home wasn’t a cakewalk for the Giants. But Saquon Barkley and Daniel Jones did enough to secure a 24-16 victory over the Houston Texans on Sunday at MetLife Stadium.
Barkley ran a career-high 35 times for 152 yards and a touchdown. Jones was 13-for-17 for 197 yards with two touchdown passes and no turnovers. He garnered a career-best 153.3 quarterback rating, the best in the league this season.
The Giants, coming off their bye week, improved to 7-2. They host the Lions next week. Detroit (3-6) beat Chicago on Sunday, 31-30. The Texans fell to 1-7-1.
“At the end of the day, a win is a win,” Barkley said. “As a competitor, you want to go out there and you want to dominate . . . It’s hard to win in this league. An ugly win? I don’t know what that is. A win’s a win.”
Said coach Brian Daboll: “Good to get another win. Hard-fought game. Thought we did a lot of things well. Things that we can clean up, like there always is.”
Daboll said Sunday was his youngest daughter Avery’s seventh birthday and that she said she wanted a win and a game ball with her name on it as her gifts. “That’s pressure,” Daboll said.
The Giants didn’t dominate, but it also never felt as if they were going to lose. It’s the first time this season they led wire to wire.
“I think certainly after the game you can reflect a little bit on where you are,” Jones said. “Certainly, it’s a lot better on this side of it than how it’s been in the past. You’ve got to enjoy that and appreciate it and at the same time know there’s still a lot that you can improve on.”
After a sleepy first half in which the Giants led 7-3, Jones hit Darius Slayton near midfield on the first drive of the second half. Slayton (three catches, 95 yards) eluded would-be tackler Jalen Pitre and scampered down the left sideline for a 54-yard touchdown.
Jones, who was crushed just before releasing the throw, said of Slayton’s catch-and-run: “I got up. I saw him.”
Trailing 14-3, the Texans opened it up for Davis Mills, a second-year quarterback from Stanford. Mills had completions of 23 and 17 yards on a drive that concluded with a 12-yard touchdown pass to Nico Collins.
The Giants immediately answered with a 2-yard touchdown run by Barkley, who surpassed 100 yards on the drive for the fourth time this season and 16th in his career.
Asked how he felt after all the carries, Barkley said: “I feel good. How do you feel?”
He did admit he would have a date with the hot tub before returning to practice this week.
Down 21-10 early in the fourth quarter, the Texans had second-and-goal at the Giants’ 10 when Dameon Pierce was hit by Leonard Williams and fumbled. Jaylon Smith recovered for the Giants.
Giants safety Dane Belton picked off Mills in the end zone on the Texans’ next possession. Mills was 22-for-37 for 319 yards with one touchdown and one interception.
“It’s not going to be easy,” safety Julian Love said. “We want it to be cleaner, for sure. But this is our style of game right now. What we did today was just getting after it, making some plays, getting some three-and-outs early. I thought we were fanatical on defense today.”
The first drives of the game went about as you would expect. The Texans went three-and-out, with safety Jason Pinnock sacking Mills for a 12-yard loss on third down.
The Giants cut through the Texans’ defense as if they were running practice plays against a defense made up of assistant coaches and interns. Jones was 4-for-4 for 66 yards, including a 36-yarder to a wide-open Slayton to the 6.
After a penalty, Jones found tight end Lawrence Cager for an 8-yard touchdown at the 7:51 mark. Cager was elevated from the practice squad. It was his third career catch (his first two came with the Jets in 2020) and first touchdown.
But they could have scored more than seven in the first half, and the Giants knew it.
The Giants opened the second quarter by attempting to go for it on fourth-and-1 from the Houston 36. Guard Jack Anderson was called for a false start, negating what would have been a first-down keeper by Jones, and Daboll called on the punt squad before berating Anderson on the sideline.
Daboll was much calmer after the victory as he headed to a birthday party.
“You’re always happy [winning],” he said. “It beats the alternative. It’s hard to win in this league. There’s a lot of good coaches, a lot of good teams . . . If you do the things that cause you to lose, you’re probably going to lose no matter who you play, where you play, what time you play.”
Anthony Rieber covers sports media and business and professional sports (you know, games and trades and things). He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since Jan. 1, 2026.
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