Chicago Bears quarterback Chase Daniel is sacked by Giants DE BJ Hill. The former Eagles backup QB was sacked five times and hit six more times by Big Blue defenders. Photo from giants.com

The Giants are starting to get that winning attitude back and it is obvious they like it. It wasn’t eas y Sunday against the NFC North leading Chicago Bears.

Big Blue collapsed in the final minutes letting a 27-17 lead evaporate over the last 1:49 left in regulation.

The Giants defense seem helpless as former Eagles quarterback Chase Daniel, who started in place of Mitch Trubisky, who was sidelined with a shoulder injury – led the Bears on a seven-play, 72-yard drive that stalled at the Giants three-yard line. The Bears kicked a 21-yard field goal by former Eagle Cody Parkey to make the score 27-20.

Parkey followed that with a textbook on-sides kick that Bears tight end Daniel Brown recovered at the Bears 47-yard line.

The next drive must have seemed like a Stephen King script as Daniel led the Bears on a seven-play, 53-yard drive that ended with a double-reverse play that saw running back Tarik Cohen throw a one-yard touchdown pass to Anthony Miller with no time on the clock.

But Eli Manning rallied his team and led the Giants on an eight-play 49-yard drive that ended with an Aldrick Rosas 44-yard field goal giving New York a dramatic 30-27 overtime win raising their record to 4-8 on the season after a 1-7 start.

“Obviously that was a big drive for the offense right there,” said Manning who was 19 of 35 for 170 yards, one touchdown pass and an interception. “We were moving the ball and had a good game. We just had to keep doing it. Let’s go get one more drive and end this thing. I thought we were going to have a walk-off touchdown to Shep when I let the ball go. I said I got him and I put it right where I wanted it. He said he lost it in the lights a little bit. Unfortunately, we didn’t get the TD but we got the field goal and the defense did a great job getting the stop.”

Sequon Barkely was outstanding again, rushing 24 times for 124 yards and coming down with two receptions for 21 yards.

The rookie talked about how much the win means to this young team.

“It just put everything in perspective from all the hard work that we’ve been putting in all season to go out there and beat a really good team and who was playing lights out up to that game or even in that game, they played really well, too,” Barkley said on his Monday morning conference call. “Definitely gives you confidence and even though the season hasn’t been going how we want it to go, getting a win like that is big for your confidence and continuing to try to keep this thing going.”

Giants linebacker Alec Ogletree set the tone when he intercepted Bears Daniel’s first pass of the game and returned it eight yards for a touchdown giving the Giants a 7-0 lead before their offense ever hit the field.

Ogletree would have another first half interception of Daniel, who was in the game for injured starter Mitch Trubisky.

But New York’s offense was not able to produce much until the waning seconds of the first half when Rosas drilled a 57-yard walk-off field goal.

New York’s offense did get on the board on the first drive of second half on a trick play when Odell Beckham Jr. took a toss from Eli Manning and heaved it 49 yards for a touchdown to Russell Shepard who was all alone at about the five-yard line when he caught it.

The Giants followed up with a nice 13-play, 60-yard drive highlighted by an play by Barkley who leapfrogged a Bears defender to set up a first and ten at the Bears 13-yard line.
Four plays later, Manning hit Odell Beckham Jr. to the left for one-yard touchdown.

The Giants defense did just enough, Daniel was 26 of 39 for 285 yards and a touchdown. Daniel was intercepted twice and sacked five times ending with a quarterback rating of 75.3.

Head coach Pat Shurmur was asked what he sees in his team that has won three of four games with little chance of earning a playoff spot.

“The takeaway is, and I told the team this – I’ll keep the swear words out of it – some people are fond of talented people, some people are fond of smart people, I’m fond of tough, resilient people,” Shurmur said. “When you’re trying to flip culture, when you’re trying to build something, you’ve got to really dig in on that. There was some toughness and some resiliency. It would have been easy to cave when they came back, an 8-3 team, came back and tied us up, they had a little bit of juice, a little bit of mojo, but our guys found a way to put points on the board and then stop them at the end. I’m fond of toughness and resiliency, and our team showed that today.”