Four days after a win in Philadelphia, the New York Giants fell to Washington Commanders, 24-21, at MetLife Stadium.

While the Giants remain atop the NFC East at 5-3-1, Thursday night was a missed opportunity to extend their lead in the race. The Commanders are now 3-5-1, and the Cowboys will look to improve to 5-5 on Sunday against the 49ers.

"It's disappointing, yeah," coach John Harbaugh said. "I mean, I think that's the best word. It's just disappointing. We worked hard for this, and we put a hard week in. And we were prepared. The guys came out with, I thought, tremendous energy. We played very hard. Plays were made. Plays were missed. But it wasn't good enough to win the game. And that's the disappointment of it. So it's disappointing, but you can't let it bring you down."

The Giants now have an extended break heading into next Sunday's matchup against the Jacksonville Jaguars, who also lead their division in the AFC South.

Here is everything you need to know from the head coach's postgame press conference:

📰 The Commanders played a "very good" football game. The Giants played "pretty good" but "not good enough" to win. "We're pointing toward our next opportunity. I think our guys are tough. We have a good spirit. It's not one of fear. It's one of power and courage. We will continue fighting."

📰 On the last two throws by J.J. McCarthy at the end of the game: "Zero blitzes, zero blitzes, and those are the routes that end up getting open."

📰 The loss was a missed opportunity, but Harbaugh told the players it doesn't change their goals or opportunities going forward. "It's the National Football League. You're going to lose some games. And everybody in this league is good. The Commanders are good. Everybody's good. So, I mean, we have a really good team coming in here next Sunday. A team that we can beat, so, we've just got to get back to work."

📰 McCarthy played "very well" with his throws and scrambling, but the team collectively didn't play "quite well enough."

Harbaugh added, "We had a false start in a critical situation. We didn't finish on plays. We didn't always tackle. There were some leaky yards in tackling. Although, there were good tacklers, too. There was a couple of runs that got a little more than they needed to. They got in the third-and-short too often. And they weren't in the third-and-long enough. So, credit them for that."

📰 Dominic Zvada missed his lone field goal attempt from 33 yards. It came four days after he made all four tries, including a 53-yarder, in Philadelphia. "We're confident. You can't, as soon as a guy doesn't make a play, start firing people left and right. Especially your kicker who's a rookie. So, I'm confident he's going to become a good kicker. I mean, at some point in time, if it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen. But I'm not going to panic halfway through the season when a guy's made a bunch of kicks, if that's what you're inferring we should be doing. So, you know, I mean, we're just not going to knee jerk it like that. He's going to make kicks. He's going to make a lot of kicks. I believe in him. I think he's really good and really talented. We're going to give him an opportunity to do it, and it's up to him to do it."

📰 The Giants "felt right to the end" they were going to find a way to win the game – just like they had done for most of the season. "I mean, (safety) Jevón (Holland) makes an interception there. We think we got a shot. It'd be great to close that thing out on offense. We weren't able to do it. That's disappointing. You know, when you get into a blitz and you get beat on an inside breaking route, you don't really want that to happen. It happened. I mean, that's football. It happens. So we can be better in so many ways, but there's a lot of plays that, that's how football goes. There's a lot of plays that they didn't make either that we made. So I think it's just you keep chasing improvement, keep chasing all the little details of the game and try to improve as the course of the season goes along. And then hopefully we'll win these games going forward."

📰 The Giants aren't going to "curl up" after this loss. They're going to "come out fighting."

📰 On his postgame message to the locker room: "Just the same I gave you in terms of what our opportunity is to do the things that we want to do. I don't really remember the exact words, but it was an excellent message, I can tell you that. It was a very good message. (laughter) It's a message of common sense. It would have been nice to open up a lead in the division. We didn't open it up as much as we could have if we had got the win. We've got a lot of tough games. What do we have, seven games left? So it's going to be seven dogfights. That's what it's going to be. It's National Football League. I'd like to say we're going to win all seven of them. But it's probably not very likely. You're probably not going to be putting any money down on that. So we've got to win enough. And this was one that got away. We've got to find a way to get the next one. And the next one after that. And the next one after that. And get as many as we need to win the division. That's what we've got to find a way to do. So just try to keep it in perspective is very important."

📰 The Giants couldn't generate much pressure on Jayden Daniels because the Commanders were gaining too many yards on first down. They couldn't get him in third-and-long situations.

📰 It was an "excellent game" from Cam Skattebo, who had two touchdowns. "I thought our offensive line was much better. More of what was at Houston. It was good to see. Guys made plays downfield at times. It was good to see a lot of good things. We just didn't do what we needed to do to win. And that's the bottom line."

📰 Harbaugh was unaware that McCarthy threw for a career-high 293 yards. "That's interesting. A lot of chunk passes. He threw some dimes out there. He made some great throws. The throw to (tight end) Isaiah Likely with the blitz. I mean, the touchdown pass was just crazy good. Isaiah obviously housed it. But that's probably as good a play as you're going to see in the National Football League all season, honestly. So I'm just not too disappointed. I feel bad about the loss. It's going to be a long weekend. It's going to be tough to watch all these games without the win. But you can't overthink it. You've got to just play for play. We'll go to work tomorrow afternoon. We'll study the plays. We'll look at all the things that we can do. That's always going to be an ongoing process. It's never going to stop. It's just the way it works. It's kind of an ongoing deal throughout the course of the season."