Brian Daboll greeted deliriously happy Giants fans waiting outside TIAA Bank Field this past Sunday afternoon as the team was starting to board buses to head to the airport. Daboll waved, signed a few autographs, thanked the crowd, all the while looking content and relaxed and not merely because he had a cigar sticking out of his mouth. 

Moments earlier, Daboll broke down the latest achievement by his team, a 23-17 victory over the Jaguars that turned out to be too close for the head coach’s liking. Glad we won. Shouldn’t have come down to the wire like it did. He struck the exact right notes for the leader of a team that is 6-1 and now believes it should no longer be branded as some upstart or nifty little story. 

The Giants went into Jacksonville with a three-game winning streak and yet the Jaguars, 2-4 heading into the game, were favored by three points. The Giants winning as underdogs is a theme that has been repeated over and over this season and it is not a theme many of the Giants have embraced with any gusto. 

When will the Giants be shown any respect? 

“I really don’t even care for that question anymore,’’ safety Xavier McKinney said. “I’m kind of tired of answering it because it’s the same thing every week. Obviously, we know that. I really don’t care. We don’t care as a team.’’ 

Go ahead and view the Giants as an overachieving team exceeding expectations. They are all that and they think they are more than that. This group has never carried itself as a novelty act. Daboll never painted his team with that brush. The turnaround he has fashioned is remarkable. If you loaded him up with truth serum he might actually admit he is surprised this has taken hold so quickly and that nearly all these close games are going the way of his team. 

This is part of the plan, though. Daboll dares the opponent to hang tough for the full 60 minutes. The Giants have a 58-22 scoring edge in the fourth quarter this season. Daboll has seen his team never get too far behind to where he has to make dramatic alterations to the game plan. Hall of Fame receiver Randy Moss used to say, “If we’re even, I’m leaving.’’ It is evolving into the same thing with the Giants. If they are even with you, before long they are leaving you behind. 

“That’s a [Daboll] thing,’’ safety Julian Love said. “Bring them to the deep end and see if they can swim. He’s been saying that all year. After those first few games we realized what we have to do. Bring them to the deep end. And then we drown them.’’ 

This was the approach the Giants took late in the game, wearing the Jaguars down with a rushing attack that started slowly (Saquon Barkley had 18 yards in the first half) and finished with a flourish (Barkley ended with 110 yards). Offensive coordinator Mike Kafka called the same power running play over and again in the fourth quarter and there is no greater show of force when the same play keeps working. 

“I don’t know if they realized that it was the same play until probably like the fifth or sixth time, to be completely honest,’’ Barkley said. “Was it demoralizing? I don’t know. Just I can tell when you lean on defense throughout the game, you can feel them starting to soften up, and take them to the deep water and drown.’’ 

Backup running back Matt Breida, who carried the ball one time in the same-play barrage, sensed the Giants were imposing their will on the Jaguars. 

“If it’s not broke you don’t even got to fix it,’’ Breida said. “I guess that play was working that whole drive, we decided to keep running with it and we got the results we wanted. 

“Any time you get to run the ball on a team I think it demoralizes a team when they know you’re gonna run the ball and it’s gonna be the same play, over and over and they can’t stop it. It’s a great feeling. You look at it, those guys were tired, in the fourth quarter when you’re able to run the ball like that and those guys got to get back up and do the same thing over and over and over.’’ 

This is what it is like to get drowned by the Giants: They ditched their passing game in the fourth quarter and tried to grind the Jaguars into the ground. They ran it 17 times for 130 yards. They had five runs of 10 or more yards. They grinded out eight first downs. 

Up next: The Seahawks (4-3) in Seattle. The Giants are already installed as 2.5-point underdogs as they try to take another opponent into the deep end.