LANDOVER, Md. _ The New York Giants played 14 previous games on Thanksgiving Day, the first 11 prior to 1939. Perhaps it was in homage to that long-ago tradition that they played the kind of offensive football Thursday night that would have been recognizable to those pre-war audiences.
That's not entirely fair. The Giants haven't scored an offensive touchdown on Thanksgiving since 1938, when Ed Danowski hit Dale Burnett, so maybe this was more a continuation of present-day holiday blues.
Not that it matters much. The Giants' inability to move the ball doomed them in a 20-10 loss to the Washington Redskins at FedEx Field. Eli Manning threw for only 113 yards and was sacked four times. The final takedown came on a fourth-and-3 with 2:19 left and the Giants trailing 17-10. Manning was intercepted by Kendall Fuller with 1:08 left.
Thus ended the Giants' second one-game winning streak of the season as they fell to 2-9, securing a losing season for the fourth time in the past five years. Washington is 5-6.
Kirk Cousins hit Josh Doctson on a 14-yard touchdown pass with 3:31 left to give Washington its 17-10 lead. The drive would have been stopped near midfield on a third-down sack, but Ross Cockrell was flagged for holding to give Washington an automatic first down. Cockrell was also in coverage against Jamison Crowder when he caught a 17-yard pass on third-and-6 two plays before the touchdown.
With the Giants' offense sputtering, it was up to the defense to find a way to score. Janoris Jenkins took care of that. The cornerback grabbed a tipped pass and returned it 53 yards for a touchdown to tie the score at 10 with 2:52 left in the third quarter. Cousins' pass for Byron Marshall was a bit high, and the running back batted it in the air before Jenkins picked it off. It was his seventh career touchdown on a return and his second this season.
There wasn't a lot of scoring from either team in the first half, but what little there was came tied to a very long and very short Giants drive.
The Giants were the first to reach the scoreboard on a possession that started with a first-and-20 at the 18 after a pair of penalties. They converted a third-and-14 from the 24 with a 19-yard completion to Roger Lewis Jr., converted a third-and-2 from the Washington 35 on a 5-yard run by Wayne Gallman, and converted a fourth-and-1 from the 21 when fullback Shane Smith drove linebacker Zach Brown backward and Orleans Darkwa gained 2 yards.
On third-and-3 from the 12, though, the Giants ran out of conversions. Manning floated a screen pass to a wide-open Shane Vereen that was just off the running back's fingertips and fell for an incompletion. The Giants had to settle for a 30-yard field goal by Aldrick Rosas and a 3-0 lead with 4:00 left in the second quarter. The grinding drive covered 60 yards in 16 plays in 8:29.
The Giants forced Washington to punt on the ensuing possession, and the Giants had the ball at their own 3 with 1:30 remaining. This time, when a lengthy possession was needed even more, the Giants did not have one in them. They ran the ball twice for a total of 3 yards _ each carry punctuated by a Washington timeout _ and Manning threw an incompletion for Tavarres King before the Giants punted the ball back to Washington. They ran only 26 seconds off the clock.
That left Washington with enough time to tie the score. On the first play, a 37-yard penalty on Cockrell for pass interference against Doctson brought the ball to the 11. Four plays later, Washington kicked a 28-yard field goal with 13 seconds left in the half to tie it at 3.
Washington scored the game's first touchdown _ the first against the Giants in more than a game and a half _ when Cousins scrambled and found Crowder on a 15-yard pass with 6:32 left in the third to make it 10-3. Crowder had a 33-yard reception earlier in the drive to bring the ball to the 7.
