Just last weekend, the New York Giants allowed 33 fourth-quarter points against the Denver Broncos to lose a game in which it seemed impossible for them to do anything other than win. How wild was it? In the 1,602 previous instances of an NFL team leading by 18 or more points with six minutes left, all 1,602 teams that were ahead finished with a victory. The Giants, who had a 26-8 lead late, somehow didn’t.

It was stunning, astounding, confounding. It seemed unprecedented. Sadly, Giants fans knew it wasn’t.

“This ranks up there with the ’02 [playoff] loss to San Francisco,” Bob Papa, the Giants’ longtime radio announcer, said afterward. “And of course,” he added, “with 2010.”

Of course — 2010.

Now, as the Giants attempt to recover from the Broncos disaster and prepare to face the rival Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday (1 p.m. ET, Fox), it seems fitting (albeit a little cruel) to commemorate the 15-year anniversary of what many who live for the Giants or work for the Giants or love the Giants consider to be the absolute biggest gut punch in franchise history.

Dec. 19, 2010. A game that meant, and still means, so much to so many. This is the oral history of a moment known to some as “The Miracle at the New Meadowlands.” And to others, more simply, as “The Punt.”

Part 1: The buildup

The 2010 Giants had high expectations for their first season in the new Meadowlands Stadium: In addition to quarterback Eli Manning, the team had stars such as Osi Umenyiora and Justin Tuck anchoring the defense, as well as Ahmad Bradshaw, Brandon Jacobs, Mario Manningham and Hakeem Nicks on offense. Tom Coughlin was in his seventh season as the coach.

After losing two of their first three games, the Giants reeled off eight wins in their next 10. With a victory in Week 15 against Michael Vick and the Eagles, the Giants would be in a commanding position to claim the NFC East and set up a playoff run.

On a cold day in New Jersey, they couldn’t have looked any better, either. For most of the afternoon, the stadium felt like a party as the Giants dominated the Eagles.

DeSean Jackson, Eagles wide receiver/kick returner: I could remember that like it was yesterday, man. It was a game where we were struggling in the first half. (Laughs.) Nothing could seem to go our way. I think it was, you know, 3-24 when we went into halftime.

Tom Coughlin, Giants coach: They were excited at halftime. Everybody was talking about just finishing the game — [as if it were] nothing-nothing, 30 minutes to go.

Kobe Bryant, Los Angeles Lakers guard/Lower Merion High School (Pa.) basketball legend (in 2019 to NFL Films): We’d just finished a game [against the Toronto Raptors]. I had a team that was pretty much full of Cowboys fans, and they liked to enjoy the Eagles’ misery. And that was looking like one of them. We’re on the bus and we’re trying to watch it.

Michael Vick, Eagles quarterback: We got down … whatever number of points we were down. I lost track.

Andy Reid, Eagles coach: We weren’t very good that first half. But nobody was down. They were frustrated, but they weren’t down.

Bob Papa, Giants radio announcer: Eli Manning throws the short touchdown pass to Kevin Boss six minutes into the fourth quarter, and it’s 31-10. And I remember just watching people in green get up and start walking out of the stadium. I’ll never forget turning to [analyst] Carl Banks — we were talking during the commercial break, and he’s like, “This is what Bill Belichick would always preach to us: Just keep everything in front of you. Keep everything in front of you.” And, you know, that’s exactly what they didn’t do.

The unspooling happened in a flash. First, Vick hit Brent Celek for a 65-yard touchdown pass to make it 31-17 with 7:28 remaining. Then the Eagles recovered a surprise onside kick and scored again, with Vick scrambling 35 yards to set up a sneak into the end zone. Suddenly, it was 31-24 with 5:28 to go.

Coughlin: I think there was very much a concern on my part as to how fast they went down the field. That’s not what the intent was.

Vick: I think once we made some plays downfield, I seen the momentum shift.

Jackson: It was just a few plays that clicked our way.

Papa: The team that was leading felt like they were trailing.

The Giants’ offense stalled again, and the Eagles surged once more. Vick to Jeremy Maclin from 13 yards out tied the game at 31 with 76 seconds left. The Giants were reeling, but bad as it had been, they still had a shot at a winning field goal or, worst case (they imagined), they’d go to overtime.

Matt Dodge, Giants punter: I thought we were going to get the ball back, drive down, kick a field goal. If we got a first down, we’re either going to go to overtime or go kick a field goal. But we had a couple incompletions and we weren’t moving the ball. I’m, like, “Oh man, we’re going to have to kick. We’re going to have to punt.” Which is fine. I mean, that’s what you practice for.

Bryant (in 2019): I was in shock watching it and just hoping.

Jackson: I knew in any situation where we needed a big return or we were losing that I was going to get my number called. And that’s kind of what happened. Coach was like, “How you feelin’? You ready?” I’m like, “Man, don’t ask me that. You know I’m ready. I’m always ready for the moment.”

Part 2: The play

Jeff Feagles, a two-time Pro Bowler, had punted for the Giants for the previous seven seasons. But after Feagles retired in the spring of 2010, the Giants drafted Dodge in the seventh round out of East Carolina.

Dodge’s rookie season had been admittedly up-and-down, but as he said, “That’s kind of how I was as a punter. I always had pretty high averages — I could average 40 [yards] for a game and that might include a 60-yarder and 20-yard shank.” As he jogged onto the field against the Eagles with 14 seconds left and the game tied, his task seemed as straightforward as it comes.

Coughlin: You’re going to punt the ball out of bounds, you’re going to get one play, and you defend the one play, and you go into overtime.

Jackson: And they purposely called timeout. It was like, “Man, do not punt this ball to this man.” I thought he was going to, like, punt it out the stadium.

Dodge: They called the play “Kick It Out of Bounds.” (Laughs.) That’s probably the name of the play. And if I forgot, like, the guy selling hot dogs told me to kick it out of bounds. Everyone knew. So, yes, to answer the question: I was trying to kick it out of bounds. But I caught it a little bit inside. And it just wasn’t close enough to the sideline.

Papa: Unfortunately for Matt Dodge, he choked in a big moment. I mean, before [Jackson] even caught it, I was expecting doom.

Vick: When he first kicked it and I seen the low trajectory on the kick, I was saying to myself, “Why would he kick it to DeSean?” And they was on their own from there. I knew what he could do.

Reid: I think it went off his foot wrong. Because I saw it was a line drive, which is double-trouble: If you’re going to kick it to [Jackson], you definitely want some hang time. I’m thinking, “This is a beautiful thing.”

Jackson: It was really one of those things where I was shocked and I was like, “Wow, he did kick it to me.” I dropped the ball, which, you know, I tell people was on purpose, right? (Smiling.) I dropped the ball on purpose.

Papa: People kind of got out of their lanes because now they see the ball is on the ground. I always wonder if he caught it cleanly, like, would everybody have kind of just kept their lanes and would he have been tackled?

Josh Shapiro, Pennsylvania House of Representatives (153rd District)/”Josh from Juniata” as a caller to Philly sports radio: How did he keep his wits about him? You got these guys streaking down the field ready to smash you as hard as they can, and you managed to drop the ball, stay calm, pick it up, get your head up and then just took off. Like, how did he keep his wits about him through all that?

Jackson: When I go down and get the ball, I just see, like, a huge void in their punt team. And I just stuck my foot in the ground and like a bat out of you-know-what, man, I just shot right through that hole. There was a few guys I had to make miss.

Dodge: I dove and I missed him. I think there’s a picture of me, like, with all the rubber pellets shooting up in my mouth and stuff.

Jason Avant, Eagles receiver/punt return team (in 2023 podcast): I couldn’t get to the punt block, but I saw him drop the ball. And as soon as he dropped the ball, Omar Gaither knocks down three dudes with one block. So, DeSean hits that hole and I see one dude left, and it’s me and the snapper.

Jackson: [Long-snapper Zak DeOssie] was, like, the last line of defense, and then Jason Avant just came and de-cleated the guy.

Zak DeOssie, Giants long-snapper: I thought I had a great angle, thought I was going to stop him, but I don’t have eyes in the back of my head. I got there and got blindsided, got me in the side of the helmet pretty good. I couldn’t move after that.

Avant: I tried to go in with good technique, but I was so excited I went in high and knocked both of us out. Worst technique ever, but it was the game-winning block. I’ll take it.

After bursting into the clear, Jackson broke off and ran parallel to the goal line for several steps — as if to extend the play a bit longer — before completing his 65-yard game-winning return and firing the ball up into the stands.

Bryant (in 2019): Holy s—! Ridiculous.

Jackson: I was just holding the ball up and kind of showboating at the end, just making sure the time ran out.

Papa: I did say something [on the broadcast] about rubbing it in as he was running along the 1-yard line. Older DeSean Jackson may tell you that he was doing it to finish out the clock, but if you go back in time to that DeSean Jackson, my guess is he was also making every Giants fan feel the knife twist even more.

Jackson: I regret throwing that football in the stands. I always ask people, man, if somebody got that ball, I would love to get it back.

Dodge: I would say it was more shock. Not fear or anything, but it’s kind of like if someone’s been in a car accident and they walk out of it and they’re like, “What the hell just happened?” That’s how it felt. I immediately got up, ran straight to Coach Coughlin. You know, if you’re going to get your ass chewed, you might as well get it out of the way early.

Jackson: I seen [Coughlin] throw his playcall sheet down. He threw his headset down. Came on the field and probably cussed out Matt Dodge. He was frightening. He was pissed off.

Dodge: There’s not much he can say at that point. It’s not, like, “All right, next time make sure you get it out of bounds.” I mean, there was no next time.

Reid: My heart’s a little weaker after this one.

Jackson: I remember [hearing that] Kobe Bryant was watching it, I think, on his phone and he was, like, mesmerized about that punt return. I couldn’t believe Kobe Bryant was talking about DeSean Jackson.

Bryant (in 2019): Best. Bus ride. Ever.

Part 3: The aftermath

To his credit, Dodge faced up to all the hard questions after the game, blaming nobody but himself. The New York media was merciless, but with Christmas only a week away, Dodge had family and friends in town to see the game, meaning that he didn’t go back to an empty apartment once he finished at the stadium.

Dodge: I was in a bad place, you know? Just kind of pissed at the world. But I remember they jumped in the car with me. And so that night was actually one of the best nights ever. We opened gifts. I was in a weird head space ’cause part of me wanted to go turn emo real quick in my room, you know? But the other half was like, I got people that have traveled here that are excited. They haven’t even talked about the game. They’re like, “Man, pizza’s here, let’s get some pizza.” So, it was a weird kind of dichotomy, I guess you could say.

Dodge spent that evening with his guests, not on his phone, which was very much a good thing. Death threats, insults and all kinds of vitriol were directed at him on Twitter and other social platforms, though not all the hate actually reached its intended target.

Matt Dodge, writer, Portland (Maine) Sun: I was pretty freshly out of college. I was going to a lot of shows, writing about a lot of local culture, arts and stuff like that. [A friend] pretty much forced me to get on Twitter. Everyone was into FourSquare and I never got into that, but Twitter, he was like, “Listen, you’ve got to do it,” and I was very active on it. And because I was adopting it so early, I was able to land that handle: @MattDodge.

Matt Dodge, punter: That was a tough night to have that name.

Matt Dodge, writer: I think I had the BlackBerry still. I just remember I’m, like, sitting in my room and my phone starts buzzing with notifications, just like a flurry of notifications coming in. And, you know, I thought there had been some emergency, like a bunch of friends were texting me about something, and I go to pull it up and it’s just, you know, more mentions on Twitter in the course of four minutes than I’d had in the 18 months I had been on Twitter before that, basically. So I knew something was up and pretty quickly managed to figure out what was going on.

Matt Dodge, punter: I was telling people, “No, that actually is him! He’s lying! He’s scared!” (Laughs.)

Dodge the writer wrote a humorous essay for The Awl titled, “An Open Letter to Matt Dodge (From Matt Dodge)” in which he called out some of the more printable comments he received, including one from a user who said he was organizing a “lynching mob” and another who said Dodge better “go into witness protection” immediately. Dodge the writer also offered to sell Dodge the punter his Twitter handle for “a fair price.”

Matt Dodge, punter: I read the piece — it was good. You learn how common a name Matt Dodge is, apparently.

Matt Dodge, writer: On a serious note, I do realize there’s, like, a real person on the other end of this. And my heart goes out to the man. I cannot imagine having such a career-imploding moment on such a public stage like that.

Dodge the punter wasn’t cut immediately; he kicked in the final two games as the Giants missed the playoffs, then was waived during training camp ahead of the 2011 season. Dodge remembers then-GM Jerry Reese telling him, “We’re probably going to be playing [against] you for years to come” in the process of releasing him, and while Dodge did go on to have numerous tryouts with other teams, none signed him. Dodge’s rookie season was his only one in the NFL.

Dodge: It’s like you dated a supermodel, like, the hottest chick ever for a summer, and then she broke up with you. And then everyone you talk to is like, “Man, what was she like? She’s beautiful.” And she’s only getting hotter and hotter, but now she’s not with you anymore, but that’s still what you’re known for.

Jackson: It was the end of his football career, man. It’s just unfortunate that one play could, you know, determine your career.

Papa: I guess that whole thing probably scarred him, and it probably made teams nervous. This guy was told to kick the ball out of bounds, and instead he shanks it down the middle. Like, “Can we ever really trust this guy?”

Dodge: I know to the outside looking in, that’s how I’m remembered. That’s not going away. And as I’ve gotten older, you know, I used to curse it, I’d be pissed. But I’ve made peace with it.

Dodge moved back home to eastern North Carolina and has worked for years as a financial planner — most recently, in an odd twist, for a company named Market Street Wealth Management, which is based outside Philadelphia. Jackson played 12 more years in the NFL, retiring in 2022. He is now the coach of Delaware State, an FCS program filled with players from New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania — many of whom remember watching him pull off a certain play on television.

Jackson: They always talk about it. They ask, “Coach, why did you run along the goal line?” One of my players actually did it this past week when he scored a touchdown. He was like, “Coach, I studied!”

Dodge: We actually have an office up West Chester, Pa., which is Philly territory. It’s just Eagles everywhere. And you know, I kind of found myself rooting for the Eagles a little bit. I’m meeting with clients that are all Eagles fans, and they’re usually more likely to invest when they’re happy.

Jackson: There’s nowhere I go where people don’t say, “Oh, the punt return against the New York Giants!” I get the most feedback from that punt return.

Shapiro: Six months ago or so, I saw DeSean at the NFC Championship Game and we were chatting about the Miracle at the Meadowlands. It goes down in Eagles lore. Anytime you’re beating the Cowboys or the Giants, there’s something special about it.

Dodge: A punter that they remember? It’s not usually for a good thing. But it taught me something: That was, essentially, a really bad day at work. It just happened to have 80,000 people watching, untold millions watching on TV, not to mention the clip getting millions and millions of views. So, if I can make it through that and I didn’t spontaneously combust or get shot and killed, I mean, I’m probably going to be fine, right? Yeah, I’m probably going to be fine.

Some interviews have been lightly edited for clarity. Titles and descriptors are based on a person’s position at the time of the game in 2010.