Lights out for Giants, 33-20

The Giants and Cowboys have produced many exciting moments throughout the years, but few games between the rivals have been as bizarre as the one played yesterday.

Forget for a moment about the coaching change in Dallas, the Giants coming in as the hottest - and, according to most observers, best - team in the NFC, the swings of momentum and the constant feeling that a Giants comeback was in the works. There was an eight-minute delay in the third quarter when the power at New Meadowlands Stadium went out, causing a five-second blackness interrupted only by the fans who waved their cell phones to create a hazy blue firefly effect in the stands.

Eventually the power was restored and football continued. Whether it was for better or worse that way was in the strained eye of the beholder.

"If I had known it would have ended like this," Giants president and CEO John Mara quipped after the game, "I would have kept the lights off."

The Giants lost, 33-20, snapping a five-game winning streak and falling closer to a tie for first place in the NFC East. They are 6-3 and have a half-game lead on the Eagles.

Long before the stadium did its impression of a Carnival Cruise, there was plenty going wrong for the Giants. It started as they came out of the tunnel, introduced by military personnel live from Afghanistan. Defensive captain Justin Tuck ran onto the field carrying an American flag, but a few steps onto the turf, the flagpole snapped in two. The stars and stripes fell, and Tuck could only carry on with a useless stick. "That was a bad omen," he said.

The first of many. In interim coach Jason Garrett's debut, the Cowboys (2-7) took a 9-3 lead in the second quarter, but the Giants seemed poised to take the lead. On third-and-goal, Eli Manning threw toward Hakeem Nicks on a slant, but it wound up in the gut of backup cornerback Bryan McCann, who raced 101 yards for a 16-3 lead. It was 19-6 at halftime.

But after the first snap of the second half, the lights blinked. One bank of illumination remained out, casting the field in an eerie glow. The teams played on, and two snaps later, Jon Kitna hit Felix Jones on a screen pass and Jones went 71 yards untouched for a 26-6 advantage.

"If he scored, he was going to score, lights on, lights off, it didn't matter," safety Antrel Rolle said of the dusky conditions on the long touchdown. "We had something dialed up [a linebacker blitz] and they had something for it right away.''

A few minutes later, the stadium went dark in the middle of a Giants drive capped by a 5-yard TD pass from Manning to Mario Manningham. After a Cowboys field goal, a 35-yard catch-and-run by Kevin Boss made it 33-20 with 5:19 left in the third quarter.

That's when the Giants' chances really started to flow, but they couldn't convert. They had a fourth-and-1 at Dallas' 49 but decided to punt. Then they had a fourth-and-1 from Dallas' 42, but Brandon Jacobs was stopped. After Deon Grant intercepted Kitna in the end zone, the Giants appeared to have a 48-yard TD catch by Nicks, but a holding call negated it. On the next snap, the Giants fumbled the ball away.

Dallas tried to keep the Giants in it, missing a 34-yard field goal with 5:45 left. But Manning was intercepted by Alan Ball on a third-and-10 from the 17 with 2:45 left to kill any comeback.

An announcement during the blackout had told fans to remain in their seats until they were told to evacuate. It was now time to evacuate.

"Sometimes you play lights out, literally, and sometimes you just don't have it," Tuck said. "I don't know what it was, but this wasn't the team we had put on film the last month and a half."

They have a month and a half left to get back to being that team.

Someone asked Nicks if he was scared when the lights went out. "Nah," he said with a smile. "I knew they'd come back on eventually."

Whether the power that brought the Giants to a 6-2 start will come back might be of more concern.