Giants Q&A: Wayne Gallman's late fumble made everyone gasp

What was Wayne Gallman’s response to his fumble in the final minute of the game, potentially giving the Cowboys a chance to recover and try to score a go-ahead touchdown?

"I’m sorry I caused drama," he said somewhat sheepishly. And it certainly did create a few minutes of chaos and uncertainty before it ultimately was ruled, both on the field and upon review, that he’d recovered the ball himself.

First he sat on it — the player known as the Wayne Train put his caboose into service — and then he pulled it into his body at the bottom of the pile.

Gallman said he was confident that he had recovered it and was down by contact. "I was just waiting for the right call to be made," he said. "But I was stressing that very vaguely."  

He wasn’t the only one stressing over it, was he?

No. "I saw him get it back, so I wasn’t too worried. But when it initially hit the ground, my stomach dropped," receiver Sterling Shepard said. On the sideline, the defense already was preparing to come back on the field if the Giants had not converted a first down. They faced the possibility of doing so with a short field and close to a minute remaining. "I wanted to slap Wayne in the back of his head for fumbling, but he got the ball back," safety Logan Ryan said. "I was looking to slap Wayne and go out there and seal it on defense."

Hadn’t Gallman already converted the first down when he dropped the ball?

Yes, though he said he didn’t realize it. He thought he had broken through the Cowboys’ defensive front on the second-and-5 play and already was thinking about dropping to a knee at the Dallas 1-yard line after sprinting to the cusp of the end zone. "I have to go down, I have to be better," he said. "I’ll do better."  

Wasn’t Daniel Jones supposed to be too hurt to run?

That’s what he said on Wednesday. On Sunday, he carried nine times for 17 yards, some on the first designed runs for him since he injured his hamstring in Week 12. "Through the week, I felt a lot better, and by the time we got here, I felt good about running," Jones said.

He wasn’t the best running QB on the field, though, was he?

Nope. That honor went to Andy Dalton, who had seven carries for 48 yards, including a key 11-yard gain on fourth-and-2 just before the two-minute warning that kept Dallas’ final drive alive. "He really gave us a headache pulling the ball down and creating extra yards," coach Joe Judge said.

What did Judge think of rookie safety Xavier McKinney’s first NFL interception that (seemed to) seal the win with 1:15 left?

"At that point in the game, the balls were very slick," Judge said of playing in a cold drizzle and being worried McKinney might drop the pass. "But when you saw the ball go up and flutter, my eyes went to the back end and I saw Zay there in position. He caught it. And then my next thought was ‘stay in the damn end zone.’ "  

How long had it been since the Giants beat the Cowboys?

Not since 2016. The Giants had lost seven straight to their NFC East rivals, many in heartbreaking fashion. Shepard, who has been with the Giants for all of that skid, admitted he was thinking about those losses during the week and late in Sunday’s game. "I was super-tired of that," he said of losing to Dallas. "It’s about time for us to get a W."

Judge, who was not part of most of those losses, said he does not believe in "curses" or the significance of streaks, but it was made clear to him how much the win over Dallas meant. "There were a lot of smiles and socially distanced hugs in the locker room after the game," he said. "Everybody is happy."

By Tom Rock

tom.rock@newsday.com@TomRock_Newsday

Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.