Only suddenly, it was not a fumble. And nearly four years after the Giants made magic in the desert here with a fourth-quarter Super Bowl rally, they did it again Sunday, beating the Cardinals, 31-27, in dramatic, if controversial, fashion.  In the locker rooms afterward, the focus was not on Manning’s 16th career fourth-quarter comeback (steady as it was) nor on Hakeem Nicks’s 29-yard go-ahead touchdown catch (graceful as it appeared). Rather, the talking point was Cruz and a 19-yard reception that was critical and, for a moment at least, an absolute disaster.  At first, the sequence seemed nondescript: Trailing by 3 points with just over three minutes remaining, the Giants had first-and-10 from the Cardinals’ 48-yard line. Manning dropped back, scrambled away from pressure and found Cruz near the left sideline. Cruz, a second-year receiver, caught the ball, shucked off a tackle attempt by cornerback Michael Adams and cut across the 30-yard line.  Then things got strange. With two Arizona players near — but not touching — him, Cruz fell forward, sprawling on his stomach. Cruz said later that he wanted to give himself up, that he “just wanted to get down” so the Giants could go on to the next play.  But Cruz left the ball on the ground, and cornerback Richard Marshall picked it up as Cardinals players swarmed.  Because no Arizona player had touched Cruz down, the Cardinals believed they had recovered a fumble; Campbell and Rhodes signaled as if Arizona had possession, and on the Cardinals’ sideline, players jumped with glee. Near the line of scrimmage, Manning stared in disbelief.  Amid the chaos, however, several officials waved their arms and pointed in the Giants’ direction. As Manning rushed to try and snap the ball, Cardinals Coach Ken Whisenhunt tossed his red challenge flag on to the field, but, after a huddle by the officials, Jerome Boger, the referee, announced that the play could not be challenged.  Given a reprieve, Manning promptly found Nicks streaking toward the left corner of the end zone on the very next play — the same corner where Plaxico Burress caught the winning touchdown pass in Super Bowl XLII — and the Giants’ comeback from a 10-point fourth-quarter deficit was complete.  “I’m very relieved,” said Cruz, who was in the spotlight again one week after catching his first two N.F.L. touchdown passes in a victory against the Philadelphia Eagles.  Asked about the few moments while the officials were deliberating, Cruz shook his head. “I was a little scared, to be honest,” he said.  It seemed he had reason to be. While the N.F.L. rulebook contains a provision by which an official can whistle a play over if a player “declares himself down by falling to the ground, or kneeling, and making no effort to advance,” that clause is generally invoked when a player slides feet-first or takes a knee. Cruz did neither.  Whisenhunt was diplomatic in his comments on the play, and a spokesman for the league, Greg Aiello, said on Twitter that the decision was “in the judgment call category, like holding, pass interference, etc.,” and could not be challenged.  But Mike Pereira, the former vice president for officiating of the N.F.L., was blunt in his comments on Twitter regarding the play.  “In my opinion, it should have been ruled a fumble,” he said.  Of course, Manning, who said “we got a break on that one,” still had to finish the job once the Giants retained possession. His pass to Nicks was his second touchdown pass of the game (and sixth in two weeks), and it completed a rally in which the Giants’ no-huddle offense scored two touchdowns in 58 seconds.  The first, a 2-yard pass to tight end Jake Ballard, brought the Giants close after Beanie Wells, who ran for 138 yards, had scored his third rushing touchdown of the game for Arizona.  The pass to Nicks capped a performance by Manning in which he passed for 321 yards and left Giants running back Brandon Jacobs struggling to describe the quarterback’s poise.  “I’m at a loss for words really because he threw the ball so well,” said Jacobs, who rushed for 18 yards on 9 carries and scored the Giants’ first fourth-quarter touchdown.  Nicks, who caught 10 passes for 162 yards, referred to Manning when he said: “It all starts with 10. He got hot and we fed off his adrenaline.”  The Giants are now tied with Washington for the N.F.C. East lead at 3-1. But the game had not always looked so rosy for them.  The offense totaled 32 yards in the first quarter, and the defense, buoyed by Osi Umenyiora’s debut but without end Justin Tuck because of neck and groin injuries, was inconsistent early on.  Still, the Cardinals could not capitalize and the Giants led at halftime, 10-6, before Arizona appeared to take control of the game in the third quarter.  With Giants center David Baas out because of an injury, Cardinals nose tackle David Carter stormed past the backup center Kevin Boothe, bursting into the backfield and stripping Manning at the Giants’ 9. Two plays later, Wells — who did not play last week because of a hamstring injury — pushed in from the 1 to give the Cardinals (1-3) a 20-10 lead.  Against the Giants in the desert, though, it was not enough.  Jacobs scored with 12 minutes remaining and, after Cruz’s controversy and Nicks’s catch, the defense stiffened as Cardinals quarterback Kevin Kolb tried a rally of his own.  Umenyiora sacked Kolb for a 10-yard loss with just over a minute remaining, and Corey Webster knocked away Arizona’s final pass, on fourth-and-2 from the Giants’ 30, to finish it.  On the Giants’ sideline, no one exhaled any louder than Cruz.  “I just wanted to make a play,” he said. “I’m glad it turned out in the end that I did.”
The talk after the Giantsâ comeback victory centered on Victor Cruzâs actions after his 19-yard catch that set up the winning pass.