New York, New York

It came down to the NFL’s only perfect kicker launching the most imperfect field goal attempt of his season, trying to save another nightmare collapse in overtime.

And that’s because long before that, the Giants had handed this game away, bumbling a 10-point fourth-quarter lead behind a longtime head coach who can no longer do anything right.

Again.

On Sunday afternoon at MetLife Stadium, it was deja Blue all over again — this time, with the entire Big Apple watching their embarrassing 23-20 collapse against the Jets. With 6:38 left in overtime, Josh Brown was shanking a 48-yard field goal barely wide left, sealing a collapse that hadn’t seemed possible in the fourth quarter, a collapse that offensive lineman Justin Pugh called “disheartening.”

There the Giants were, starting the fourth quarter of the Battle of New York up 10, methodically driving downfield all the way to the Jet 2 with 8:50 to play, set to go up by 13 on a Josh Brown chip shot.

But no lead is safe in the hands of these Giants, and the hands of the strategically challenged Tom Coughlin, who opted for a desperation Eli Manning dropback on fourth down. And when Manning was picked off by Rontez Miles, the Giants were unraveling again, surrendering 13 straight Jet points on their way to their third straight loss and fifth loss in six games. “It’s tough,” said receiver Odell Beckham. “Losing sucks. Not finishing sucks, but that was the case today and all we can do is move forward.”

Not that Coughlin would have changed the call, pointing out he’s been “very aggressive at the end of games.”

“I thought that was the play,” Coughlin said of his call. “If we scored there on fourth and 2, then we push the score up to where maybe they can’t beat us with whatever. So we’re up 17. I stand by it . . . I’ve done it all year long. I don’t have a lot to show for it.”

He just has another lose-from-ahead debacle, a game that wasted a potentially Cruz-ian moment from Beckham Jr. and saw Manning require X-rays afterwards, although he said “everything’s good.” In this one, the Giants had a 20-10 edge at halftime, on the strength of Beckham’s 72-yard catch-and-run with 2:13 to go in the second quarter, a play that conjured images of Victor Cruz’s 99-yard demolition of the Jets four years earlier, with 2:12 to play in the second quarter.

Except Beckham’s score wouldn’t catapult the Giants to anything as they continued transforming into a league-wide, late-game punchline.

“People probably say, ‘You get a game close, the Giants are going to do something,’” said a frustrated Justin Pugh. “ ‘They’re going to cost themselves the game.’ ”

“We just keep hurting ourselves,” added corner Prince Amukamara. “And that’s been our storyline for the year so far.”

It was the Jets with the storybook finish after Coughlin’s call. First, Ryan Fitzpatrick piloted Gang Green on a 12-play, 80-yard drive that ended with a 24-yard Randy Bullock field goal with 4:33 to play. That field goal that would have been useless if the Giants had held a 13-point lead, but it closed the Jets to 20-13 instead. And then, after a Giants three-and-out, Fitzpatrick led the Jets on a frantic, 10-play 71-yard drive, hitting a leaping Brandon Marshall from nine yards out to tie the game with 27 seconds to play. And after the Jets opened overtime with a Bullock field goal, the Giants were giving away a game they’d led in the fourth for the fifth time this season.

“We’ve got a whole second half to put that game away,” said defensive tackle Cullen Jenkins. “You step up and make plays.”

Instead, the Giants let another halftime lead slip away. They’d owned the first half, even if after a lackluster first quarter, thanks to Beckham’s TD, and thanks to the spark of Dwayne Harris, who opened the second quarter with an 80-yard punt return touchdown.

And they’d held that momentum throughout so much of the second half, chewing 11:21 off the clock and squeezing off 17 plays on a drive that stretched from third quarter into fourth, and seemed set to end with that game-sealing field goal.

Except that drive — and this game — just ended in disappointment and embarrassment, and the only reason this Giants’ season hasn’t slipped away is because of football’s worst division. If Dallas beats Washington Monday, Coughlin’s sloppy crew will remain tiebreakers away from the NFC East lead.