The Cowboys Returned A Blocked Field Goal For Their First Touchdown Of The Season

The New York Giants first drive of the 2023 NFL season was a dominant one, as they leaned on the Cowboys for nearly seven minutes, running it down the field deep into Dallas territory. Daniel Jones and Saquon Barkley were able to gash Dallas for big runs over and over, but once they got into the red zone, the drive stalled out.

After a bad snap on third down pushed the Giants back to their own 27, they had to settle for a field goal that got blocked clean by Juanyeh Thomas and scooped up by Noah Igbinoghene and returned all the way for a touchdown.

It was an incredible job by Thomas to leap between two Giants blockers to get a free run into the backfield and easily block the ball off of the foot of Graham Gano, and then it bounced perfectly up to Igbinoghene, who had nothing but open turf in front of him, working his way down the sideline for the score. After such a beautifully executed drive by the Giants, it had to be extremely deflating seeing it end not only without them putting points on the board, but giving Dallas a 6-point lead themselves — the Cowboys would have their own kicking issue, missing the extra point.

New York’s second drive did not go nearly as well, as they went 3-and-out, with a Micah Parsons sack punctuating things on third down, leading to some serious frustration from the Giants faithful at MetLife Stadium.

The third drive got even worse, as a checkdown on 3rd and 19 to Saquon Barkley resulted in a pick-six after Trevon Diggs put his helmet on the ball as Barkley pulled the ball in and it popped up directly to Daron Bland, who jogged in for the Cowboys second non-offensive touchdown of the first quarter