The New York Giants gave themselves a chance to be relevant this season on Sunday. Or at least to be something other than a laughingstock that teams mark on their calendars as an easy “W.”

Hardly.

The Giants held a two-score lead at halftime and dominated the action—except for the first two plays—until early in the fourth quarter, when they held on thanks to both good defense and poor play by Cleveland to earn a much-needed 21-15 victory.

GM Joe Schoen said on the offseason edition of “Hard Knocks” that the Giants needed to avoid an 0-3 start. They should have done that last week in a game against the Washington Commanders that should have been a Giants win. But as bad teams often do, they found a way to lose it.

On Sunday it looked like they would do it again.

After Cleveland pulled within 21-15, the Giants held on for three Cleveland possessions. Granted, the Browns dropped the ball once on a simple handoff, and Cedric Tillman blew Cleveland’s last chance by dropping a fourth-down pass that hit him in the numbers.

Yet, lately, the Giants have lost these types of games too often.

Head coach Brian Daboll called it “a normal NFL game.”

Maybe, in terms of ebb and flow. However, this was not a “normal” game for the Giants. This one had huge implications for the type of season the Giants could have. Furthermore, I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that it could have been a huge game for the Schoen-Daboll regime and the direction of the franchise.

An 0-3 record entering Thursday’s prime-time game against the Dallas Cowboys would have made MetLife Stadium an unbearable place to be on Thursday. The season would have been over. The boos for Daniel Jones would have been ugly. The calls for Daboll’s head would have made social media an even more horrible place than it usually is.

Now there could even be a hopeful atmosphere in MetLife Stadium on Thursday.

A few days ago I wrote a post with the headline ‘Can the 2024 Giants Become a Good Football Team?’

It depends on what happens now.

The Giants may be a bad team. This could be a temporary reprieve. A “feel good for a few days in a bad year” deal. It could be that the Giants are taking advantage of a team with more problems than they have.

But it may also not be so.

The Giants have a huge opportunity in four days against a Cowboys team that looks anything but unbeatable. Despite a furious comeback, the Cowboys are 1-2 after a loss to the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday.

The Philadelphia Eagles upset the dreams of all four NFC East teams, who were 1-2 on Thursday. That means the Giants-Cowboys game would be a first-place matchup. But a win for the Giants could put them in the thick of a race that appears to have no dominant team.

The Giants showed a lot of good things against the Browns. And by the way, a week ago against the Commanders.

One of the things that’s difficult — and sometimes impossible — to explain in a league full of ups and downs and weekly craziness is resilience.

They showed it after an Eric Gray fumble put them 7-0 down 11 seconds into the game. They showed it again in the fourth quarter, stopping the Browns three times after Cleveland had pulled within six.

“This is the third anniversary of my grandmother’s death. She raised me,” Daboll said. “I kind of gave her the business after those first two plays. I thought, ‘What the hell do you have in store for me?'”

The Giants played through that misfortune, however, dominating the first half and leading 21-7 at halftime.

A fumble by Devin Singletary in the third quarter — his second in as many weeks — and a botched field goal by new placekicker Greg Joseph with 3:00 left in the game made this win harder than it should have been.

And yet the Giants did it.

Back to the question ‘can the Giants be a good team?’.

“We like a good process, which leads to good results. That’s the ideal box. Sometimes you have a good process that leads to bad results, but still a box you want to be in, even if the results are not good,” Daboll said after Sunday’s win. “Then you can have bad processes and bad results, and that’s what we don’t want. So the commitment to each other, how we do things, or a bad process but good results, which is also a slippery slope.

“Again, the way our guys work, their dedication, their practice habits, their study habits, it’s not always going to lead to a win. You’d like it to, but I know they give it everything they’ve got every week. In the classroom, working hard on the practice field. The coaches are together, there’s chemistry, they’re working their asses off, unfortunately sometimes you don’t get the results you want. It’s good to get the results for this.”

The Giants showed a lot on Sunday that can help them win football games.

Malik Nabers is a star.

His game, which saw him catch the ball 8 times, rush for 78 yards and score 2 touchdowns, was marked by acrobatics, the tenacity to snatch a 50-50 ball away from a defender and a brilliant, energetic, game-winning play to knock away a fluttering ball that should have been intercepted after Daniel Jones was hit in the arm.

The Giants are figuring out how to play offense.

Daniel Jones was efficient in the first half, going 17 of 19 for 178 yards and two scores. Although, he had an interception that was neutralized by a penalty. And no, he wasn’t nearly as good in the second half.

Still, the Giants have played a pretty good offense for two weeks in a row. On Sunday, they protected Jones well enough again — even with Myles Garrett working over Andrew Thomas. They were excellent in the short-to-intermediate passing game, with Jones giving Nabers opportunities and Nabers justifying the quarterback by trusting him.

The Giants showed a varied running game. They used Singletary, sprinkled in designed runs for Nabers and Jones, gave Tyrone Tracy Jr. some touches. Hell, the Giants even showed a few well-executed screen passes.

They took a few deep shots, which Jones couldn’t connect on. Still, the plan was sound and the execution — while not perfect — showed promise.

The pass rush was relentless — until the Giants took some control. Defensive coordinator Shane Bowen ditched his usual four-man rush to send Cleveland quarterback DeShaun Watson out, taking advantage of the Browns’ torn-up offensive line.

The Giants finished with eight sacks and 17 hits off Watson. It’s pressure they knew they would need, not just Sunday, but consistently to be a good defense.

There is, as Daboll also said, “a lot to clean up.” Some of it they may be able to clean up, some of it they may have to work around.

• The special teams play — Gray’s fumble and Greg Joseph’s horrific missed field goal — was problematic.
• The play of Deonte Banks, who was no match for Amari Cooper, was a problem.
• Singletary has fumbled two weeks in a row, which is concerning.
• Jones’ inability to hit the deep ball makes it increasingly difficult to hit the ball underneath.
• The fact that the Giants, who entered the second half with a clear lead, made this win more difficult than necessary is concerning.

Still, the Giants won. They have hope. So Sunday was a good day.

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