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Baltimore Ravens fans are waiting for John Harbaugh to break the New York Giants’ young players mentally and physically.
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But it isn’t going to happen to the Giants yet.
The Giants proved their buy-in with an impressive 28-20 win over the rival Dallas Cowboys in the first-year coach’s first game then continued to rave about Harbaugh after the game.
Harbaugh, of course, was let go by the Ravens after 18 seasons, and the Giants didn’t hesitate to make the Super Bowl champion their head coach in January. He preached discipline and physicality throughout the preseason, but it worked for New York’s first Week 1 win since 2022.
The Giants Gushed About John Harbaugh After Their Upset Win Over Dallas
The Giants have struggled with an identity, either on offense or defense, since Tom Coughlin left in 2015. They have been wandering in the NFL’s abyss, with eight double-digit-loss seasons, just two playoff appearances and only one postseason win in that span.
However Ravens fans feel about Harbaugh, the Giants’ players have a new energy under him that wasn’t there last year under Brian Daboll and Mike Kafka.
“He wants me to be who I am,” Giants running back Cam Skattebo said of Harbaugh after posting 81 yards and a touchdown, completed by a backflip, in his first game back after a lower-leg injury. “He wants me to be confident [and] be me. When I’m me, I’m able to be like that on the field.
“If [the coaches] try to take me out of who I am, they know that you might not get the full me. They allow me to be me.”
Aside from bringing out the personality, and discipline in the Giants, he also is bringing out the expectation to win. The Giants dictated the terms in their upset win over Dallas, which caught the league off guard, even though the Giants believed they would win.
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“We got guys in here that expect to win,” Giants wide receiver Malik Nabers said. “I could tell that everybody was ready to play. It was no doubt in anybody’s mind that we [were] coming out here to give our best foot forward and to win this game.”
John Harbaugh Called the Win Over Dallas His Best Win to Date
Harbaugh endured a season’s worth of blown leads in his final year in Baltimore. The Ravens went 8-9, despite a plus-26-point differential after going 2-5 in one-possession games a season ago.
So it’s clear Harbaugh is ecstatic in his new role as Giants head coach, especially to see his hard work pay off in their first Week 1 win since 2022.
“It’s No. 1, because it’s the one right now,” Harbaugh said when asked where he’d rank the win Sunday night on his favorite wins. “My dad always says that, he says ‘John, you’ve never had a better win than that,’ and this time I think it might be true.”
The Giants’ win was far from perfect. They committed 10 penalties for 114 yards and fumbled four times, losing one. But to Harbaugh, it represented tangible proof that the hard work the Giants put in in the offseason was worth it.
“This was really special,” Harbaugh said. “These guys, who have belief from the beginning, who don’t bat an eye, who just try to do the right thing every single day, who try to be on point, and even when they’re not on point they’re willing to bounce back and make it right.
“Buying into that in practice and just seeing it happen in the game, that’s what as a coach you feel so good about.”
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This story was originally published September 14, 2026 at 5:10 AM.