SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Eli Manning threw a 3-yard touchdown pass to Sterling Shepard with 53 seconds left, and the New York Giants snapped a five-game losing streak by beating the San Francisco 49ers 27-23 on Monday night.
“It means a lot,” Manning said. “That’s what I told the guys this week. We’ve worked too hard not to be rewarded with wins. We just weren’t able to get some of the outcomes or make the plays we needed to win. Today we were able to do that.”
Manning threw two TD passes to Odell Beckham Jr., then engineered the game-winning drive with help from a pair of third-down penalties against Malcolm Smith and Ahkello Witherspoon.
Saquon Barkley had a 23- ard catch to get the ball into the red zone, and Manning connected with Shepard on third down to give the Giants (2-7) the victory.
“I just saw man-to-man coverage,” Shepard said. “That’s something we’ve been practicing. I was able to capture the outside edge, and Eli put the ball in a perfect place.”
Matt Breida ran for 101 yards and scored two touchdowns for the 49ers (2-8), who were unable to win consecutive games under third-string quarterback Nick Mullens. Breida’s 23-yard run set up a 30-yard field goal by Robbie Gould that gave the 49ers a 23-20 lead with 2:46 to play.
But the 49ers allowed the go-ahead score and couldn’t pull it out at the end as Mullens’ pass from the Giants 20 sailed out of the end zone on the final play.
Mullens wasn’t nearly as sharp as he was in his NFL debut against the Raiders on Nov. 1 when he joined Hall of Famers Jim Kelly and Fran Tarkenton as the only players with at least 250 yards passing, three touchdown passes and no interceptions in their first career game.
Mullens threw for 250 yards and had an 11-yard TD pass to Breida that made it 20-10 early in the third quarter. But Mullens also threw two interceptions, with the first setting up a 10-yard TD pass from Manning to Beckham.
Those two connected again on a 20-yard score in the third quarter as New York rallied from 10 points down to tie the game in the second half.