The debate that John Harbaugh said he and the New York Giants were having a week ago over who to start at quarterback between Jameis Winston and J.J. McCarthy may not have been as heated or extensive as the coach initially tried to portray.
The choice seemingly always was McCarthy.
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New York Giants head coach John Harbaugh, right, celebrates with safety Tyler Nubin (27), and quarterback J.J. McCarthy, center, following an overtime win over the Houston Texans in an NFL football game in Houston, Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Eric Smith)
New York Giants quarterback J.J. McCarthy talks with reporters following an NFL football game against the Houston Texans in Houston, Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
New York Giants quarterback J.J. McCarthy (18) looks to throw a pass during the second half of an NFL football game against the Houston Texans in Houston, Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Eric Smith)
New York Giants quarterback J.J. McCarthy (18) tosses a shuttle pass to running back Tyrone Tracy Jr., front left, during the first half of an NFL football game against the Houston Texans in Houston, Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Eric Smith)
“It just wasn’t even a question to me,” Harbaugh said after McCarthy led a victory at Houston on Sunday. “Just was an obvious choice just for the circumstances that we were in and all things considered.”
McCarthy rewarded Harbaugh and the Giants for that decision by sending them into the bye week at 4-2-1 and in sole possession of first place in the NFC East. The running game shouldered the load, but the No. 10 pick in the 2024 draft made the throws when it mattered most and validated the call to make the change less than a month since he was acquired in a trade from Minnesota.
Crediting Winston, third-stringer Jake Haener, injured Jaxson Dart and coaches for getting him prepared, McCarthy had a lot of people to thank. He also leaned on his own experience to get him through a 20-of-28, 252-yard performance.
“Football is football," McCarthy said. “At the end of the day, there’s a lot of similar concepts in every single scheme in the NFL and even going (back) to college.”
McCarthy made his first Giants start at the same stadium where he won the national title at Michigan. Similar to that day in January 2024, he did what he needed to get the job done without throwing a touchdown pass.
“All that matters is getting that victory,” McCarthy said. “You want to perform well. You want to execute well. It’s one of those things where if the running backs are getting their touches and getting their touchdowns, I’m as happy as I can be.”
Finally, the rushing attack. Cam Skattebo — back from his benching that Harbaugh refuses to call a benching — Devin Singletary and Tyrone Tracy each ran for a touchdown, as did Winston on a Tush Push.
Skattebo had a career-best 124 yards on the ground, busting one for 42 in overtime, after having zero carries the previous game against New Orleans as punishment for fumbling at Washington earlier this month. Singletary ended the game by scoring from 30 yards out after being buried on the depth chart much of the season. Tracy had six carries for 15 yards before getting hurt, long after being in Harbaugh's doghouse for a series of preseason mistakes.
“It says so much about them and who they are: the type of men they are, the type of mindset they have, the attitude, the approach to just doing everything possible to be successful, understanding that if things aren’t working out for you, that’s not the final say,” Harbaugh said Monday on a video call with reporters. “You have the final say on everything, ultimately, and they just do that.”
The offensive line also bounced back and showed it is capable of paving the way.
It's nit-picking, but New York was 5 of 13 on third down. That is something to work on when back on the field following some time off.
Cornerback Deonte Banks locked down elite Texans receiver Nico Collins, who made just one catch for 4 yards when the two were matched up.
“Deonte was all over it,” Harbaugh said. “He had so many tight coverages. You have to cover these guys tight, especially in breaking routes, man and zone because his quarterback (C.J. Stroud) is really accurate, especially when he moves in the pocket.”
Banks has been a revelation with this coaching staff and in new defensive coordinator Dennard Wilson's system. He has started every game after falling out of favor last season and struggling in 2024, and Banks made his thoughts clear by posting to social media a photo of Harbaugh's arm around him on the sideline.
Rookie kicker Dominic Zvada was wide right on field-goal attempts from 56 and 44 yards out and is 4 of 9 over the past three games since starting his NFL career 9 of 9. Those five misses are tied for the most in the league.
Still, Harbaugh said the Giants are not working out potential replacements. At least for now, they're sticking with Zvada.
Tracy limped off with a hamstring injury. Starting left tackle Andrew Thomas has been playing through a groin injury and right tackle Jermaine Eluemunor a calf injury. Half of the starting secondary did not play because of concussions to safety Jevon Holland and cornerback Greg Newsome.
Safe to say the bye has come at the right time.
76 — Years since the Giants last had four players run for a TD in the same game, dating to when Eddie Price, Gene Roberts, Charlie Conerly and Bob Jackson did so in a 51-7 rout of the New York Yanks on Dec. 3, 1950.
Rest up before visiting Philadelphia on Nov. 8.
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New York Giants head coach John Harbaugh, right, celebrates with safety Tyler Nubin (27), and quarterback J.J. McCarthy, center, following an overtime win over the Houston Texans in an NFL football game in Houston, Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Eric Smith)
New York Giants quarterback J.J. McCarthy talks with reporters following an NFL football game against the Houston Texans in Houston, Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
New York Giants quarterback J.J. McCarthy (18) looks to throw a pass during the second half of an NFL football game against the Houston Texans in Houston, Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Eric Smith)
New York Giants quarterback J.J. McCarthy (18) tosses a shuttle pass to running back Tyrone Tracy Jr., front left, during the first half of an NFL football game against the Houston Texans in Houston, Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Eric Smith)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is attempting to prosecute James Comey for what it calls a decade-old leak of classified information, an effort the former FBI director's lawyers immediately dismissed as invalid and outside the legal time limit for when the Justice Department can file a criminal indictment.
The allegations from the Justice Department were revealed Monday in newly unsealed court documents that shed light on a closed-door fight that represents an unmistakable escalation in the administration's targeting of Comey, a longtime critic and foe of President Donald Trump who has faced two other criminal cases since the Republican returned to the White House last year.
The effort to prosecute Comey is also part of a series of politically charged investigative actions the department has undertaken in the run-up to next week's midterm elections.
“Well, they’re back — again,” Comey said in a video statement Monday. “It would almost be funny if it weren't such an appalling abuse of the Department of Justice — one that we cannot become numb to. Nothing’s changed with me; I’m still innocent, I’m still not afraid of these people — and I still believe in the independent federal judiciary.”
The Justice Department said it had filed what's known as a “criminal information” to extend the statute of limitations for when it can permissibly bring an indictment.
"Filing a criminal information to toll the statute of limitations is a widely recognized practice in federal court and has been approved by multiple Circuit Courts of Appeals. This is an ongoing criminal investigation, and we will not comment further,” a department spokesperson said.
An information can be filed without the approval of a judge or a grand jury's finding of probable cause to a court. Comey’s lawyers made clear that they intend to fight the charges as invalid and barred by a 10-year statute of limitations.
“For the third time in little more than one year, the Department of Justice has attempted to charge Mr. Comey with a federal crime. Mr. Comey steadfastly maintains his innocence,” his attorney, Patrick Fitzgerald, said in a statement.
The latest allegation concerns an October 2016 New York Times story related to a secret court order that required Yahoo to scan emails for messages potentially linked to a foreign terrorist organization. The story cited two government officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity about the order from a judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that Yahoo was barred from publicly disclosing.
Federal authorities, including prosecutor John Durham, began investigating the disclosure in early 2017. Durham, who later investigated the FBI's conduct as it scrutinized potential ties between Russia and Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, wrote a classified memo in December 2018 recommending no criminal charges against anyone in connection with the disclosure, Comey’s attorneys said in a recent court filing.
In January 2019, the U.S. Attorney’s office for the District of Columbia opened a second investigation of the same matter under the code name “Tropical Vortex.” But that investigation was closed without any charges filed in February 2020.
“Both times the Government determined that no charges should be brought against anyone. Now, ten years after the article was published, the Government filed an “Information” against Mr. Comey that was not approved by a judge nor issued by a grand jury. It purports to charge Mr. Comey with crimes that he did not commit,” Fitzgerald said.
Prosecutors in a newly unsealed filing said investigators found evidence that Comey “sought to correct misinformation which had appeared in the press by way of Reuters the day before” that New York Times story was published, directed his staff to speak to a journalist at the newspaper related to accuracy concerns “and thereby illegally transferred classified information.”
The criminal information was filed under seal on Oct. 5, 10 years after the 2016 story was published. “But,” Comey's lawyers said, “the applicable statute of limitations explicitly demands an indictment within 10 years of the offense; an information does not suffice.”
They have asked a judge to dismiss the information, a request that is still pending.
The first criminal case against Comey, filed in federal court in Virginia, accused him of having lied to Congress in 2020 but was dismissed by a judge who concluded that the prosecutor who brought the charges was illegally appointed. A separate pending indictment charges the former FBI director with threatening Trump through an Instagram photo of seashells in the numerical arrangement of “86 47,” a case Comey has sought to dismiss.
The prosecutions are part of a Trump retribution campaign that has even extended to Comey's daughter, Maurene, who was fired from her job as a Justice Department prosecutor in New York last year in a termination that a federal judge on Monday ruled was illegal.
Comey was the FBI director when Trump took office in 2017, having been appointed by then-President Barack Obama, a Democrat, and serving before that as a senior Justice Department official in President George W. Bush’s Republican administration.
But the relationship was strained from the start, including after Comey resisted a request by Trump at a private dinner to pledge his personal loyalty to the president -- an overture that so unnerved the FBI director that he documented it in a contemporaneous memorandum.
Trump fired Comey in May 2017 amid an FBI investigation into potential ties between Russia and Trump’s campaign. That inquiry, later taken over by special counsel Robert Mueller, found that while Russia interfered in the 2016 election and the Trump team welcomed the help, there was insufficient evidence to prove a criminal collaboration.
The two men have been bitterly at odds ever since Comey's firing.
Comey in 2018 published a memoir, “A Higher Loyalty,” that painted Trump in deeply unflattering ways, likening him to a mafia don and characterizing him as “untethered to truth.” Trump, for his part, has repeatedly claimed that Comey should face charges for “treason” — an accusation Comey dismissed as “dumb lies” — and called him an “untruthful slime ball.”
The Justice Department has made a series of splashy moves in recent weeks , including a criminal complaint last Friday charging two former FBI officials with lying to Congress about their participation in investigations concerning Hunter Biden.
FILE - Former FBI Director James Comey speaks during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill, Thursday, June 8, 2017, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
FILE - The U.S. Department of Justice logo is seen on a podium before a press conference, May 6, 2025, at the Justice Department in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)
