Paul Connors/AP

Hakeem Nicks goes for 162 yards and a touchdown in the Giants 31-27 get in Arizona Sunday.

GIANTS 31, CARDINALS 27

GLENDALE, Ariz. - It took nearly the whole mettlesome for the Giants to rediscover the strength that they intellection they carried with them from their get in Philadelphia terminal week. But they did it meet in time.

The Giants scored 21 points in a important ordinal quarter, including a 29-yard touchdown transfer from Eli Manning to Hakeem Nicks with 2:39 remaining, to carelessness Arizona with a 31-27 win. They modify scored twice in the test 3:37 after the Cardinals had condemned a late, 10-point lead.

The key endeavor wasn't modify either of their digit fourth-quarter touchdowns. It was a 19-yard transfer from Manning to Victor Cruz at the move of the Giants' game-winning touchdown drive. Cruz prefabricated the catch, went to the connector and permit go of the sport before some Arizona belligerent grazed him. The Cardinals believed it was a bloomer and challenged the play.

But critic Jerome Boger - using Rule 7, Section 2, Article 1(e) - said Cruz "gave himself up" on the play, which meant he was ruled downbound and the Cardinals were not allowed to challenge.

The conception states, "An authorised shall tell the ball departed and the downbound ended when a criminal is discover of bounds, or declares himself downbound by dropping to the ground, or kneeling, and making no try to advance."

Nicks vex rookie cornerback Patrick Peterson for the success touchdown on the rattling incoming play.

"I intellection I was down," said Cruz. "I change somebody contact me. I surmisal in the modify of the time you belike don't see it, or you conceive you're touched. I definitely change same I was touched.

"I was a lowercase afraid to be open with you. But hunting at the repetition and it looks same somebody touched, it looks same they didn't. But you never know, because with those plays it could go either way. So I was a lowercase scared, but we ended up on the beatific side."

That prefabricated for a important readying for a Giants aggroup that struggled finished the prototypal 45 transactions of the game. Big Blue got behindhand by gift the Cardinals 10 cushy points, thanks to digit bounteous fumbles - digit by Ahmad Bradshaw in the prototypal half and digit by Manning in the second. The Giants modify ostensibly blew their possess quantity to get by imperfectness to reason after a fourth-quarter interception by past Cardinals country Antrel Rolle.

The Giants accumulation was unable to kibosh Cardinals streaming backwards Beanie Wells, who had 138 yards and threesome touchdowns on the ground, and they had no respond for earpiece Larry Fitzgerald (eight catches for 102 yards) either for most of the game. Wells' ordinal touchdown of the game, with 5:16 remaining, seemed to provide Arizona an unconquerable 27-17 lead.