Giants Beat Redskins on Late Touchdown Pass EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. - Giants quarterback Eli Manning let go of the ball and was immediately buried, his body disappearing beneath a white Washington Redskins jersey like a child slipping under a sheet. From ground level, Manning could not see where his pass had flown, but so many of them had gone to the wrong place Sunday - behind or in front of his receivers, or even to the other team - that it was hard to imagine that this one, the most important of the game, would be perfect. But it was. As receiver Victor Cruz ran under the ball, Manning stood up, stepped back and raised a hand in the air. The placid, unruffled, aw-shucks Manning dissolved, replaced for just a moment by raw emotion. Manning spun around and pumped his fist; down the field, Cruz sashayed into a most unlikely salsa dance celebration. The play, a 77-yard rainbow of a touchdown pass with a little more than a minute remaining, ultimately proved the difference in a taut, 27-23 victory over Washington (3-4). It was, all at once, thrilling, emotional and an utter relief as the Giants saved themselves from what just seconds earlier had shaped up as a brutal defeat. "Looking at the back of 80"s heels there - what a feeling that was," Giants Coach Tom Coughlin said, referring to Cruz by his uniform number. While defensive end Justin Tuck professed to be unmoved by the finish - "It's gotten old," he said, half-jokingly, of Manning's flair for the theatrical - certainly most of the fans at the sold-out MetLife Stadium were pleasantly surprised. Washington quarterback Robert Griffin III had tossed his own magical pass, hitting Santana Moss for a 30-yard touchdown catch just 19 seconds before Cruz's catch. That gave the Redskins a 3-point lead and seemed certain to drop the Giants (5-2) to a dispiriting 0-3 in the N.F.C. East. The Giants had played inconsistently to that point, with Manning struggling and the offense looking out of sync. Given that, it seemed improbable that Manning would muster the sort of late-game drive he led eight times last season. And in truth, he did not. This was not a drive so much as a flash: after David Wilson returned the kickoff to the 23, Manning threw one incompletion and then dropped back again on the second play. What he saw looked familiar. During the Giants" final drive at the end of the first half, Manning noticed the Redskins" safeties shading their coverage of Cruz to the outside edges of the field, essentially doing their best to keep the speedy receiver from breaking a big play down the sideline. Back in the hurry-up offense at the end of the game, Manning saw the same coverage. And so as Cruz took off running at the snap, Manning threw the pass toward the N.F.L. logo at midfield, not down the side, hoping that Cruz would detect the same hole he had. Cruz did. "I saw the middle of the field wide open," Cruz said afterward, his smile spreading wide. And I took it. The pass landed softly in Cruz's outstretched hands, and there was no one in front of him. As he did several times last season on breakaway catches, Cruz quickly glanced up at the large video boards in the end zones to help him gauge whether he could be caught. He liked what he saw. There was one defender trying to dive at him, so Cruz veered slightly to his right before sprinting into the end zone for his seventh touchdown in seven games this season. Manning said: "I didn't see the ball get caught. Just heard the cheer and thought that was probably a good thing. He shrugged and added, "I needed to make a play there." Manning had been, in his own words, "a little off" for most of the afternoon. While his numbers were not awful - he finished 26 of 40 for 337 passing yards - he threw several uncharacteristically poor passes, including a fourth-quarter interception just one play after the Giants had forced a fumble by Griffin. It looked as if that turnover might doom the Giants - Coughlin said it put "a lump in my throat" - but Griffin could not finish off what was a sterling performance in his first N.F.C. East game. Griffin passed for 258 yards and 2 touchdowns but did much of his dazzling with his legs. Griffin typically whizzes around the field as part of the Redskins" option offense, and Sunday was no different: he rushed for 89 yards and continually kept plays alive, coming up with two slithering scampers on the late drive that gave Washington its short-lived lead. On fourth-and-10 from his own 23, Griffin slipped in and out of trouble, scurrying away from Jason Pierre-Paul and completing a 19-yard pass for a first down. On the next snap, Griffin took off, running for 24 yards. Two plays later, he threw the scoring pass to Moss. "I'm mad at the football gods for putting him in the N.F.C. East," Tuck said, adding that facing Griffin twice a season "is going to be a headache." For all the superlatives Griffin drew from the Giants, however, there was still no doubt about which quarterback closed the game better. Griffin threw a third-quarter interception and lost a fumble in the fourth; Manning rebounded from his mistakes to complete his longest pass of the game, sealing his 27th career game-winning drive and 2nd this season. It is what the Giants have come to expect. Even on a day when he was not at his best, even from the bottom of a pile, Manning found a way. "We have the best quarterback in the league," linebacker Michael Boley said. So it's never over.