Giants vs. Washington 2017 live results: The top highlights from the Thanksgiving night game

This NFC East matchup probably looked a lot better when it was first scheduled, back when half the players on both teams weren’t injured. Alas, it’s football and we watched, so catch up on everything that happened while you were playing a way-too-intense game of Monopoly with your family.

Washington 20, Giants 10: With terrific field position, Washington added a field goal. Whatever, we’re just waiting for the Turkey Leg now.

Eli Manning threw a pick on his last throw of the game, which was also his 100th regular season loss as a starter.

Washington 17, Giants 10: How did the Giants respond? I’ll let Al Michaels take it away: “Sacked, penalty, lost the ball, Giants have it, going to lose it on downs.”

Washington 17, Giants 10: Jamison Crowder came back into the game and immediately caught a 17-yard pass over the middle. He now has seven catches for 141 yards.

Kirk Cousins then hit Josh Doctson, who beat Janoris Jenkins, for a nice-looking 14-yard touchdown.

Washington 10, Giants 10: Bad pass, sack, punt. More brutal to watch football. And Washington continues to run out of players:

Washington 10, Giants 10: Oh dear. At midfield, Washington faced fourth-and-1 and was going to go for it, but then:

Yep.

Washington 10, Giants 10: Washington’s drive stalled when Jason Pierre-Paul sacked Kirk Cousins — and the NBC bumper music played “You down with JPP” going into commercial. Seriously.

Washington 10, Giants 10: Samaje Perine returned, but now Washington is running out of OL (again):

Washington 10, Giants 10: Oh, now these two teams are just showing off. Both are in double digits! So how did the Giants do it? About like you’d expect: a pick-six. Janoris Jenkins made an incredible play to intercept Kirk Cousins and then ran it back for 53 yards. The call was reviewed, but upheld.

Unfortunately for Cousins, he was a victim of FedEx Field’s poopy (and poopy-looking) grass:

WE’VE GOT A BARNBURNER.

Washington 10, Giants 3: Does Washington have any running backs left?

Washington 10, Giants 3: YEAH, YOU READ THAT SCORE RIGHT. A TOUCHDOWN!

The big play of the drive was Kirk Cousins’ 33-yard dart to Jamison Crowder that got Washington into the red zone. After a 1-yard gain, then a Cousins sack, it looked like we were dangerously close to not seeing a touchdown. But Cousins found Crowder once again for the 15-yard score. TOUCHDOWN, score that is.

Giants 3, Washington 3: If you thought both teams found some motivation at halftime, I’ve got some bad news: Washington started it with a five-play, 10-yard drive.

The Giants answered with a four-play drive where they lost a yard.

FEEL THE EXCITEMENT.

Giants 3, Washington 3: Washington got a lucky break when Josh Doctson drew a pass-interference flag at the Giants’ 11-yard line. That set them up for a 28-yard field goal, tying it up at the end of the half.

A 38-yard pass from Cousins to Jamison Crowder was by far the biggest play of the game at that point, setting up Washington at the Giants’ 39-yard line at the two-minute warning. However, a series of drops stalled the drive and Washington punted from that position.

Giants 3, Washington 0: New York got back into Washington’s side of the field as linebacker Zach Brown went down with an injury. They moved further into scoring position and we finally got the first points of the game when the Giants nailed a 30-yard field goal.

The Giants nearly got a massive break when Samaje Perine appeared to fumble the ball deep in Washington territory, but it was overturned on review. Washington punted again.

Manning got sacked out of field goal range and the Giants punted again.

The Giants responded by getting in enemy territory for the first time themselves before the quarter ended.

Washington finally converted a first down and got into Giants territory for the first time in the game. However, a Cousins sack drove them back and they failed a fourth-and-1 conversion, giving the ball back to the Giants.

Both teams spent the quarter trading punts, with nothing notable really happening. Good news for football fans in the middle of a turkey coma.

Washington also went three-and-out on its first drive.

The Giants’ offense went three-and-out on their opening drive, showing little signs of life again.

Coming off a short week in which both the New York Giants and Washington fought their way in overtime matchups, the NFC East division rivals will now face off on Thanksgiving night at 8:30 p.m. ET on NBC (live stream it on NBCSports.com).

The Giants are coming off a very surprising win over Kansas City last weekend, and despite a pretty ugly performance by both teams, New York came away with their third win of the season. After putting up a head-scratching 12-9 score, the Giants were lucky that their defense forced three interceptions against Alex Smith and the Chiefs, or they’d probably still be sitting with only two-wins on the year.

Washington was thiiiiis close to leaving New Orleans with a win in Week 11, and almost prevented the push to overtime that eventually sealed the team’s fate. The Saints have been one of the upward trending teams throughout the season, and have gone on an eight game win-steak, and proved to be too much for Washington to keep up with. Kirk Cousins will need to figure out a way for his offense to score points when he’s down to two minutes left in the half, and again at the end of games, if Washington wants to start avoiding the type of momentum-shifting plays they saw last weekend.

The NFC East is out of reach for both teams, but ultimately, this is still a rivalry game and should include plenty of chippy moments and smack talk.

“It started last night when we had our team meeting about everything, about the adversity, about playing with heart, playing with passion. It started last night. It started right there and next thing was like ‘let’s go get a win.’

“Came in this morning, guys were already stretching, music playing, guys hyped in the locker room. You want to see that. That’s passion for the game.”

Gruden called a great offensive game on the road against one of the best teams in the NFL. The offense was balanced and efficient, and moved the ball with ease throughout the game. The team came out ready to play early on, and if not for a defensive meltdown in the final four minutes, this would have been a season-changing victory.

“We were short-handed today, but that’s no excuse. We have enough talented players to go out there and play well. Eli (Manning) took his shots when he had a chance to take his shots. We had some receivers, you know, Tavarres King and Roger Lewis made some plays for us today.”

Washington will have just days for a gut check before they face an embattled NFC East opponent, the New York Giants, at home on Thanksgiving night. The team’s flashes and bright spots, like Samaje Perine and Josh Doctson, are promising, but until they can manage to put together a complete 60-minute effort, not a 56-minute attempt that ignores the final two minutes of each half, they’ll continue to be in trouble.

I’m not sure how many of Manning’s passes were catchable but dropped, but it was a lot. Both Orleans Darkwa and Wayne Gallman had the ball hit them in the hands multiple times only to see it bounce off.

Manning finished regulation completing 19-of-35 for 205 yards. Those numbers would look a fair bit better if the Giants’ receivers — particularly his running backs — had caught more passes.