Giants stun Seahawks as Isaiah Simmons blocks Seattle's late field-goal attempt and Bryce Ford-Wheaton returns it for a TD

SEATTLE — The Giants beat the Seahawks on Sunday. They won the game on Tuesday.

That was when special teams coordinator Michael Ghobrial spotted a flaw in Seattle’s field-goal protection and began fiddling around with a play design that called for someone to leap over the middle of the blocking scheme and smother a potential kick. Giants coach Brian Daboll liked the idea . . . so much so that he kept asking Ghobrial to run it throughout the game.

“Ghobi was like, ‘I just want to set it up, wait one more, one more,’ ” Daboll said. “Then he called it at the perfect time.”

With about a minute left in the game and Seattle lining up for a potential tying 47-yard kick, the play was unleashed.

Isaiah Simmons, the linebacker-turned-defensive back who hadn’t truly found a role on this year’s team, was commissioned to perform the aerial stunt of leaping the line of scrimmage and blocking the kick. He executed it perfectly and Bryce Ford-Wheaton scooped it up, returning it for a 60-yard touchdown that gave the Giants a season-saving 29-20 victory.

The Giants improved to 2-3 and face the 1-4 Bengals on Sunday night at MetLife Stadium, a building where they have not won and have not scored a touchdown this season. Seattle fell to 3-2.

“I knew I was going to be able to get up high enough,” Simmons said of clearing the first obstacle. “My biggest thing was being able to double-bounce. So land, and go right back up. There’s no time for anything else. Once I felt myself clear, the only thing in my mind is touch and go, touch and go, touch and go. I guess my long-jump skills came into play there.”

Simmons was a two-time state champion in that event in high school.

In a game in which the Giants were without their best receiver (Malik Nabers) and starting running back (Devin Singletary) because of injuries, it was Simmons who came to the rescue. It not only preserved the win but finally gave the former first-round pick of the Cardinals an opportunity to feel as if he is contributing.

“I gave Simmons a game ball,” Daboll said. “He’s a high-profile pick. He’s been on a couple different teams. There’s certain roles he plays, and not everyone can be starting for you. Whatever that role is, that’s what good teammates do . . . I applaud the young man for that. He made a heck of a play to seal it.”

“How my season has gone so far hasn’t been at all what I wanted,” Simmons said. “Just to show them I’m capable of making those game-changing plays . . . I believe that I’m the type of player that can help the team make plays like that often.”

The block capped a game in which the Giants dominated statistically but never could quite pull away. Most of that was due to another long, dramatic touchdown on a turnover.

That one came in the first quarter when the Giants drove inside the 1 and handed off to running back Eric Gray on fourth-and-goal. He fumbled into the end zone, though, and Rayshawn Jenkins scooped it up and returned it 102 yards to give Seattle a 7-0 lead.

This was the second win of the season for the Giants and the second time Gray has fumbled early to put them in a hole they recovered from. He lost the opening kickoff in the win in Cleveland in Week 3.

The Giants never blinked this time, though. Daniel Jones was 23-for-34 for 257 yards and two touchdowns, to Wan’Dale Robinson and Darius Slayton. Rookie running back Tyrone Tracy ran for 129 yards on 18 carries. Slayton, who moved across the field to run the routes Nabers usually does, finished with 122 yards on eight catches.

The defense, meanwhile, was able to keep the Seahawks in check for most of the game. They allowed only two field goals into the fourth quarter but then let Seattle drive 95 yards for a touchdown that made it 23-20 with 2:09 left.

The Giants had an untimely three-and-out and punted it back to Seattle with 1:40 left, and the Seahawks used a 32-yard scramble by Geno Smith to get into field-goal range. Their attempt at those tying points was thwarted by Simmons.

Daboll said he was impressed by the fortitude the Giants showed after that early deficit, even if he wasn’t pleased with the reason it was required. He said he had no message to the players at that point about keeping their heads up or anything trite like that.

“Say what?” Daboll asked about what his message should have been. “I said we should have profanity scored. That’s the expectation. No more wishy shoulda coulda woulda. Do it.”

That’s what the Giants did.

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.