John Harbaugh proclaimed himself “day-to-day” Monday after the head coach was tackled by Devin Singletary following Singletary’s game-winning touchdown in the Giants’ 27-21 overtime win in Houston on Sunday.
Harbaugh was able to laugh off the mishap in part because it came immediately following another victory for the NFC East-leading Giants as they head into a bye week, but the coach, in his first year with the Giants, acknowledged it was not his finest moment on the field.
“It’s so terrible,” Harbaugh said with a smile on a Monday Zoom call. “As I was going down, all I could think was I just felt like a total non-athlete, over the hill [and] washed up. I don’t know. I just felt so weak, so pathetic.”
That embarrassment didn’t last long, as Harbaugh will take any win, no matter how it looks or what happens in the aftermath — including getting pulled to the ground by Singletary, whose 30-yard scoring run ended the game and moved them to 4-2-1.
“Once we were on the ground, laughing and enjoying the moment and celebrating the football joy moment of a touchdown run, it made all the sense in the world,” Harbaugh said of the tackle. “It was just a great moment… We talked with our team about football joy. We talked about playing with joy. What is football joy? It’s different than other kinds of joy… Football joy is kind of gritty, kind of tough. That was a football joy moment. That’s why we do it. That’s why the fans love it.”
And Harbaugh joked that with the bye week coming up, he’ll have plenty of time to recover.
“It’s a good thing we’re not [practicing] full speed tomorrow,” Harbaugh said. “No pads.”
