Giants team flight delayed three hours after brutal loss

It was bad enough that the New York Giants knew a somber four-hour flight back to New Jersey Sunday night would feel like an eternity, but imagine the added misery of prolonging the pain for another few hours waiting around for it.

While the team definitely didn't expect to get much sleep after the gut-wrenching loss to the Cowboys, their long night of heartbreak got a lot more unbearable.

Their charter flight from Dallas home to Newark was delayed 21/2 hours because of mechanical problems and did not take off until 4:30 a.m. ET, arriving in New Jersey on Monday around 7:30 a.m..

"There was not much sleep, nobody got any sleep,'' Tom Coughlin said of the team's disposition Monday. "The guys were tired, and they were sad, they were disappointed . . . It was a different kind of day, let's put it that way.''

It was the kind of experience that even a visit from Pro Football Hall of Famer Michael Strahan couldn't fully erase.

"Some of the coaches helped pick my spirits up,'' said Cullen Jenkins about Strahan's attempted morale boost. "Strahan was in the building and he talked to us and that helped a lot. It’s things like when we just have to rally together, stay behind each other, and get through this together."

Easier said than done.