Time is a crazy, amazing thing.

The wait for Sunday night felt like it took forever to get and simultaneously happened in the snap of a finger. "I don't know how that works," John Harbaugh said after last Wednesday's practice.

Hours earlier, the head coach reflected on how two things can be true at once during the team meeting that kicked off the first game week. Eight months of culture-building, roster-setting and game-planning were about to be tested.

His team passed with flying blue colors in a 28-20 victory over the Cowboys at MetLife Stadium.

"It was more than I expected, in all honesty," Harbaugh said. "It was incredible."

The game will long be remembered for the launch of the Harbaugh era in Giants history.

Knowing that would be the case, Giants.com chronicled the night minute by minute from the time the head coach arrived at the stadium with his family to the lasting image of their departure with a prized game ball.

PART I: PREGAME

4:36 p.m. – Harbaugh arrived at MetLife Stadium with his wife of 35 years, Ingrid, parents Jackie and Jack, and longtime friend and play-by-play broadcaster Sean McDonough. On the drive in the four-door pickup, they marveled at the tailgating scene before them. "This crowd, I'm telling you, man, the parking lot," Harbaugh said. "The parking lot was off the chain driving in here."

4:37 p.m. – The Cowboys' team buses arrived at the same loading zone and followed Harbaugh's route. Dak Prescott walked into the stadium wearing a pinstripe suit and holding a 14-3 record against New York.

4:40 p.m. – Harbaugh peeled off to the Giants' locker room with his family. He would not emerge again until one hour before kickoff.

5:20 p.m. – The equipment staff performed their usual test of coach-to-player communications, walking up and down the field systematically with the green dot helmets. Offensive coordinator Matt Nagy called plays from the booth. Senior offensive assistant Greg Roman sat to his left. Defensive coordinator Dennard Wilson orchestrated his unit from the field.

5:32 p.m. – Dominic Zvada was the first player on the field and went through his kicking motion on air while wearing noise-canceling headphones. The undrafted rookie from the University of Michigan won the Giants' kicker competition that stretched from the first spring practice to the preseason finale. It was no small feat under a head coach who made a name for himself as a special teams coordinator.

5:44 p.m. – A laser-focused Cam Skattebo walked out for pregame warmups 323 days after suffereing a gruesome ankle injury that required emergency surgery at a hospital in Philadelphia.

6:16 p.m. – Harbaugh's parents joined the growing congregation on the sideline and talked with running backs coach Willie Taggart and assistant special teams coach T.J. Weist.

A standout quarterback for Western Kentucky from 1995-98, Taggart was recruited by Jim Harbaugh to play for his father, Jack, who was the head coach from 1989-2002. His jersey number (1) was retired by the school in 1999. Weist spent eight seasons (2002–09) at Western Kentucky in a variety of roles. He was initially hired by Jack as the running backs and wide receivers coach in 2002, the year the Hilltoppers captured the Division I-AA National Championship. Prior to his time there, Weist spent five seasons coaching receivers at Indiana. In his first season (1997), he overlapped with John Harbaugh, who was the special teams coordinator and defensive backs coach for the Hoosiers.

6:24 p.m. – Gates opened to the public, the music turned on, and quarterbacks Jaxson Dart and Jameis Winston ran onto the field.

6:27 p.m. – Twenty-three minutes before the inactive list had to be submitted by both teams, wide receiver Malik Nabers went through his much-anticipated pregame workout with Allison Boudreau, the Giants' coordinator of rehabilitation and return to play. Nabers, who had not played since suffering a season-ending knee injury on Sept. 28, 2025, practiced fully all week but was listed as questionable on the final injury report of the week.

6:30 p.m. – A familiar blonde Odell Beckham Jr. sprinted out of the tunnel and over to the spot where he made the catch 12 years earlier. He proceeded straight up the Giants' sideline and looped around the entire field.

6:50 p.m. – Inactives were submitted. Nabers was not on the list.

7 p.m. –  The Harbaugh parents walked over to see team president and chief executive officer John Mara in front of the Giants' bench. Mike Tirico, the lead play-by-play announcer for Sunday Night Football, also joined the conversation.

7:21 – The sideline continued to fill up to maximum capacity. Giants legends in attendance included Eli Manning, Victor Cruz, Lawrence Taylor and Antrel Rolle (in a Lawrence Taylor jersey). Meanwhile, current players emerged from the tunnel in their full pads for warmups. A month earlier, John Harbaugh didn't leave any stone unturned and had the Giants rehearse the entire pregame routine to end a training camp practice.

7:26 p.m. – Harbaugh walked onto the sideline for the first time as fireworks shot off the top of MetLife Stadium to mark one hour to kickoff. Harbaugh wore a Port Authority Police Department ("PAPD") hat. Throughout the night, he represented each group of first responders to honor the 25^th anniversary of Sept. 11. He switched to an NYPD hat for the first half and the FDNY for the second half.

7:31 p.m. – Harbaugh took his first steps on the field and met assistant head coach/special teams coordinator Chris Horton at midfield for a hug and high-fives with players. Harbaugh also met with Nagy and Roman before they ascended to the booth until the halftime sprint to the locker room.

7:38 p.m. – Harbaugh met with Jerry and Stephen Jones. Shortly after, Jerry Jones voiced his respect for Harbaugh on 105.3 The Fan’s pregame show. "When I saw that he had gone to New York, my heart sank because I have that kind of respect for him and his lineage in football. It's obviously highly respected, but boy the job he did in Baltimore and what he's done, how he competes, how he puts those teams together, all of that. I guess I wish he were someplace else."

7:51 p.m. – The team huddled and funneled back to locker room.

8:08 p.m. – The New York City Police Department Highway Patrol rode their motorcycles in position to lead the team out of the tunnel. First responders in full dress uniform created a lane, and then the stadium lights went out for pregame introductions and national anthem.​

8:13 p.m. – In a synchronized chain of events, Harbaugh emerged from behind the bench as fireworks erupted. "I don't lead teams out of the tunnel," Harbaugh was sure to point out after the game. "I'm already on the sideline when they come out of the tunnel."

The head coach soaked up the atmosphere as Beckham was the first player introduced. Dart was the last.

8:17 p.m. – The full-field flag was unfurled and the Twin Tower lights beamed up from the end zone to Harbaugh's right. The first "USA! USA! USA!" chants broke out as the team lined up for the anthem. Deonte Banks stood on Harbaugh's right. Rookie Colton Hood, another cornerback, stood on his left. Harbaugh is still a defensive back at heart.

8:21 p.m. – With the flag furled, it was time for the coin toss. Andrew Thomas, Brian Burns, Jordan Stout and former Cowboy Chauncey Golston represented the Giants as their gameday captains. Prescott, Brandon Aubrey, Kenny Clark, and former Jet Quinnen Williams represented Dallas. The Giants won the toss and elected to defer, which would play a key role in the second half.

PART II: KICKOFF

8:20 p.m. – Tiki Barber, Jason Sehorn and Kerry Collins represented the 2001 Giants and started the "Go Big Blue" chant along with first responders. Zvada kicked off.

8:28 p.m. – The Giants quickly forced a fourth-and-short decision for the Cowboys, whose offense stayed on the field as the play clock ticked down. It became clear they were looking to draw the defense offside for an easy first down, and the Giants' coaches alerted the players. The stadium crescendoed into one of the loudest moments of the night, perhaps the loudest, as the clock ran out for a delay of game penalty.

8:32 p.m. – Nabers touched the ball on the Giants' fourth offensive play for a nine-yard reception on first down. DaRon Bland wrapped him up on the sideline as Nabers reached for the sticks. Knowing the mental hurdle that his wide receiver just cleared, Harbaugh ran over and pumped his fist four times while yelling words of encouragement. It was perhaps the most animated that Harbaugh was during the course of the entire game, underscoring the importance of the moment.

8:35 p.m. – Dart rushed to the left for 22 yards before he was hit out of bounds by DeMarvion Overshown, leading to a skirmish in the Giants' bench area. Winston came in to protect his fellow quarterback. The staff, including Harbaugh, separated the players. The result was a 15-yard penalty on the Cowboys defender.

8:40 p.m. – Six-time Pro Bowl fullback Patrick Ricard, a former Raven, sealed the left edge for Skattebo to run three yards into the end zone untouched. The running back put an exclamation point on the first points of the Harbaugh era with his patented flip. Harbaugh simply put one finger up to signal an extra point. The Giants never trailed on Sunday night.​

9:22 p.m. – Knicks point guard Jose Alvarado got the hero treatment and was shown on the video board during a TV timeout to a loud applause. During the NBA Finals, Harbaugh wore a Knicks hat at practice and spoke about the eventual champions. "It's been exciting because obviously you envision that," he said at the time. "Kind of get a little selfish, you want to see that for the Giants. That's what you want to see. It would be something that we're working for. We'd like to get there, too. That would be our goal."

9:30 p.m. – Two-minute warning. Longtime Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin, who joined the Sunday night broadcast crew in his first season away from coaching, walked behind the Giants' bench to give his first-half takeaways with Maria Taylor.

"It looks like the game is unfolding in the manner in which they wanted to," Tomlin said. "They're running the ball. They've got 80 yards rushing. It's put them in manageable third downs. They're four for five on third-down conversions. But equally as important as that, they're controlling the pace of the play. They're playing Princeton basketball like we talked about pregame. They're reducing the number of possessions, and that gives them a chance."

Only George Halas and Curly Lambeau faced each other more times as head coaches than Harbaugh and Tomlin.

9:40 p.m. – Momentum swung back in the Giants' favor when safety Jevón Holland made a diving interception on the sideline with less than a minute left in the first half. It came on the heels of a game-tying touchdown for the Cowboys and a fumble by Giants running back Tyrone Tracy Jr. The reserved Harbaugh allowed himself to give one, quiet fist pump.

"We chased [Prescott] out of the pocket, had him on his back foot, tried to throw it out of bounds, couldn't quite get it there," Harbaugh recalled after the game. "And here comes Jevón Holland out of nowhere like a lightning bolt. He has great hands, makes the play on the ball. Now we got the ball back with a little bit of time."

9:48 p.m. – Nabers converted a third-and-nine with a 16-yard reception. It was followed by another chunk play from Darnell Mooney for 18 yards. Dart then found Isaiah Likely, who spent four years behind Mark Adrews in Baltimore, for a five-yard gain. Likely smartly got out of bounds to preserve the Giants' final timeout. On the next play, he got open for a 15-yard touchdown to retake the lead before halftime. Harbaugh pumped his fist again, high-fived everyone and quickly reverted to head coach mode to remind players there was still 20 seconds left.

9:53 p.m. – Halftime. Harbaugh filed into the locker room with defensive run game coordinator/outside linebackers coach Charlie Bullen behind him. Bullen is one of three position coaches retained from the previous staff. The others are wide receivers coach Chad Hall and tight ends coach Tim Kelly.

The halftime show featured a performance by the cast of the Broadway musical Hamilton, accompanied by a marching band collaboration with Morgan State University's Magnificent Marching Machine and Penn State's Blue Band.

10:00 p.m. – Golf carts honked and whizzed the assistant coaches through the bowels of MetLife Stadium to get them back to the press box in time for the second half kickoff.

10:05 p.m. – Harbaugh emerged on the sideline, this time in his FDNY hat. Dallas kicked off to the Giants, who had an opportunity to score on both sides of the break. Harbaugh spoke to sideline reporter Melissa Stark about Dart's performance thus far. "I saw a lot of poise," he said. "I saw him operating the offense. There's a lot of complexity to what we're doing as far as at the line of scrimmage. He's done a great job with that."

On the defense: "We'll, we've got to get to [Prescott]. He's moving around there pretty well. He got some throws off. We've got to get him to the ground."

10:15 p.m. – Fullback Patrick Ricard motioned to the left. Dallas didn't like the look and was forced to use its first timeout with 9:13 remaining in the third quarter.

10:18 p.m. – Likely became the first tight end to catch two touchdown passes in his first game as a Giant.

PART III: FINISH

10:42 p.m. – Frank Sinatra's "New York, New York" played at the break between the third and fourth quarters. The Giants, who led 21-14 and possessed the ball at the time, put four fingers up to signal crunch time. But some players sang through the nerves, including Winston and Zvada, who was warming up at the kicking net. Ricard, all 300 pounds of him, even got into it and briefly did his best Rockettes kicking impression. They wanted to be a part of it.

10:57 p.m. – After the first screen pass to the running back Devin Singletary failed and lost seven yards, the Giants tried and tried again…and again…and again. The veteran running back touched the ball on four consecutive plays to the left side, capped by a nine-yard catch-and-run into the end zone. The Giants extended their lead to 14 points at 28-14 with 7:26 left in the game.

"It was like watching a movie that I've seen a thousand times," Tomlin said postgame. "I knew what was going to happen next. I couldn't believe that nobody else did. But I've been in that circumstance a lot against Harbs. We're in the same category of Halas and Lambeau in terms of the number of times that we competed against each other. So, I certainly understand his mode of operation, but kudos to him and the rest of the Giants because to have a plan, that's just one component of it. They executed it almost flawlessly. Other than lack of ball security at times, it's not in vogue with what they do … but other than that, they played Harbs Ball. It looked very familiar."

11:00 p.m. – Harbaugh approached the bench and talked up the offensive line, which had been imposing its will.

11:22 p.m. – On the first play after the two-minute warning, Skattebo ran for eight yards when the Giants needed seven for a fresh set of downs to seal the game. The Giants had taken over with 5:16 left to play and never gave the ball back.

11:24 p.m. – Flanked by Ricard and Skattebo to his side and rookie wide receiver Malachi Fields behind him, Dart took the victory formation for the first of three kneel-downs. Harbaugh took off his headset, and the celebration was on. After hugging his players, he met with Cowboys coach Brian Schottenheimer at midfield.

"Just give Harbaugh and his team a bunch of credit," Schottenheimer said in his postgame press conference. "They were the more physical team tonight. That's certainly not our standard. That's certainly not how we see our identity playing. They shoved us around in the running game. We couldn't get the running game going on offense. Situationally, they were outstanding. They did a really good job of keeping the ball away from us in the second half."

11:29 p.m. – Beckham and Harbaugh embraced, bringing their journey together full circle. Harbaugh then walked off the field, arms linked with Golston and signaled a No. 1 to the crowd.

PART IV: GAME BALL

11:36 p.m. – Harbaugh handed out game balls to Dart, linebacker Tremaine Edmunds, Likely and acknowledged Skattebo for closing the game out.

When you get a game ball, you have to say a word.

"I think the word is that the work got us here, man, the extra hours," said Dart, who became the first quarterback in NFL history to open a season with at least three passing touchdowns, 50 rushing yards and a passer rating of 130. "One of my favorite things of this whole week was the QBs were up studying extra with the receivers and tight ends. I walked by the DB room, and I see Jevón and all those guys all together watching tape, Tremaine in there too. That's what's going to separate us, bro. That extra time, that extra effort, is going to put us over the top. And tonight is who we are. This is the expectation day in, day out, week in, week out."

John Mara had one more game ball to hand out. That, of course, went to Harbaugh for his first win as head coach of the New York Football Giants.

"It meant a lot," Harbaugh said. "It meant so much. And the guys, you can see the respect the guys have for Mr. Mara. And when he steps into the middle of the circle there and said what he said, they, man, it gets quiet real fast. He's a presence. He's a titan in this industry. I'm very grateful that he's our owner."

11:49 p.m. -- Harbaugh made his way to the postgame press conference and stepped up to the podium.

"Appreciate you all being here. Heck of a win. I'm really proud of our players and everybody in the organization, but first of all, we talked to our guys about being humble and about giving credit where credit is due. Faith is a big component of what we do, however guys define that, and for me, it's our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and our faith in our Creator. And you start with that, heart is in the right place, and I think that kind of epitomizes a little bit about the way the guys played. It was a team effort. It was a hard-fought game against an opponent in an unbelievable environment. This crowd, I'm telling you, man, the parking lot. The parking lot was off the chain driving in here. It was packed. I'm talking like four and half hours before the game. I get here early now, and I'm thinking it's going to be easy to get in here and it wasn't. And then the stadium was just absolutely electric from beginning to end. The sideline was electric before the game. I mean the whole thing was just quite an environment. It was really great to be a part of it and to see our guys step up in that environment, to handle all that and to focus on the football. It wasn't perfect, there is a lot of things we can do a lot better, but it was a winning effort and when they had to make the plays, they made those plays and that's what ended up winning the game. Seeing them finish the way we did on offense was tremendous."

Midnight – Harbaugh finished his media obligations as the calendar turned to Sept. 14, but he had one more thing to do. And then the day would be complete. He brought his parents into the locker room and presented them with a special painted game ball from Jack's 2002 national championship as head coach of Western Kentucky. Weist, the longtime assistant with deep ties to the family, had the ball all these years.

"It was supposed to come to me and he took it," Jack said with a laugh.

"It's yours now, yours and mom's," John said before ending with their famed motto. "Who's got it better than us?

"Nobody," they exclaimed in unison.

The 87-year-old Jack Harbaugh spoke to the Giants team multiple times in the buildup to the game, first after Friday's practice and again in the Saturday night meeting at the team facility. He used the boxing story of when Ernie Terrell refused to call Muhammad Ali by his name. Instead, Terrell kept calling him Cassius Clay. Ali pummeled him over the course of 15 rounds, never letting him off the hook and asking him, "What's my name?" It was a story that Jack Harbaugh has used throughout his coaching tenure and once upon a time told it to the Ravens.

It is a story of demanding respect. The message was received.

12:20 a.m. – Harbaugh left the stadium from the same place he entered eight hours earlier. He put his arm around his mother and walked her down the ramp. Jack held the ball.

Sunday night was Harbaugh's 318^th game as head coach, including postseason. He has now won 194 of them. Where did this one stack up?

"It's funny, it's number one," Harbaugh said. "It's number one because it's the one right now. My dad always says that. He'll say this in the car on the way home, he'll say, John, you've never had a better win than that. He says it every time, you know, and I'm going to tell you, I think this time it might be true."