NEW YORK _ Ben McAdoo was asked last week about his decision-making.
"I believe in being aggressive," he said. "It's how I grew up in the game."
That may not have shown itself more clearly this season than Monday night, when the Giants went for a touchdown on fourth-and-goal from the 3 early in the fourth quarter. At a point when most teams would have kicked a field goal and trimmed the deficit, the Giants decided to put the ball in the hands of Eli Manning and a receiving corps that had largely let him down throughout the game with a series of drops and bad routes.
This time, though, Manning hit rookie Sterling Shepard for the go-ahead touchdown in a 21-20 victory over the Bengals at MetLife Stadium. The play gave the Giants the 21-20 lead with 14:05 left in the fourth. That lead held thanks to a defense that registered an interception by Landon Collins with 11:22 left and notched two straight sacks inside four minutes to go. The Giants were able to run out the final 3:01, capped by a 25-yard run from Rashad Jennings just after the two-minute warning.
The winning touchdown was set up by a defensive stand that forced the Bengals to punt and set up the drive at the 47, along with a 24-yard run by Jennings to the 9.
It was the fourth straight win for the Giants (6-3) and allowed them to keep pace with the NFC East-leading Cowboys (8-1) and stay ahead of the Redskins and Eagles, the other teams in the division that also won Sunday. The win also pushed the Giants ahead of the Vikings, Saints and Falcons _ all of whom lost _ in the wild-card race. With their next three games against teams currently holding losing records (Chicago, Cleveland and Pittsburgh), the optimism of a first playoff berth since 2011 is becoming more realistic.
It's the first four-game winning streak for the Giants since 2013, and the first time they are three games over .500 since they were 8-5 in 2012. Their six wins are by a total of 21 points.
Tom Coughlin delivered plenty of inspiring halftime speeches to the Giants over the years. This time, his words seemed to have an adverse effect. The former coach's long sermon upon entering the team's Ring of Honor ran long and had barely finished echoing through the stadium when Bengals rookie Alex Erickson returned the second-half kickoff 84 yards. Cincinnati scored on a 9-yard run by Jeremy Hill two plays later to take a 17-14 lead with 13:58 left in the third. The Bengals added a field goal to score 10 points in the first 6:08 of the half and go ahead 20-14.
The return and touchdown grabbed momentum from the Giants, who ended the first half by scoring a touchdown and batting down an Andy Dalton pass in the end zone. Both plays were made by Odell Beckham Jr.
Beckham scored with 1:17 left in the second quarter, using a stop-and-spin move on cornerback Adam Jones to catch a wide open 10-yard pass for a 14-10 lead. The Bengals reached midfield with three seconds left and chucked a Hail Mary, but Beckham was deployed as a safety at the goal line and he out-jumped a group of players from both teams to knock the pass to the turf.
The Giants started the game quickly, and the Bengals answered even faster. After driving 80 yards on eight plays the Giants went ahead 7-0 on a 10-yard pass from Manning to tight end Jerrel Adams. It took the Bengals three plays to go 80 yards and tie it at 7. A 71-yard completion to a wide-open Tyler Eifert on which the Bengals used an unbalanced line set up the 13-yard TD pass to A.J. Green.
Both teams struggled to move the ball for a while after those initial bursts. Manning was intercepted by Dre Kirkpatrick with 5:13 left in the second quarter, and the Bengals took over at the Giants' 7. Dalton threw two incompletions and a pass for no gain before the Bengals kicked a field goal for a 10-7 edge.
