TAMPA, Fla. — Nothing was going to spill mud on the splendid final chapter of the storybook. Not this time. Not this week. Not even the Giants’ defense could do that, although it surely tried.

No, not this day. Not this game. This belonged to Daniel Jones, beginning to end.

Especially the end.

“You guys tell me,” head coach Pat Shurmur said when this remarkable 32-31 Giants win was complete. “I thought he did a pretty good job.”

Shurmur was smiling as he said it, and for the first time in his 19 games at the Giants’ helm, it looked like his game-day ritual hadn’t included a pregame root canal and a halftime kidney stone. Peeking at the future will do that to a coach, especially when the future looks as it did Sunday: bright, hopeful, brimming with buoyancy.

When’s the last time you felt this good about the Giants?

“We showed a lot of fight,” Jones said. “We battled back.”

That skirmish culminated with a 7-yard run on fourth down from Jones, his fourth score of the day — two with his legs, two with his arm. He was 23-for-36, he was 336 passing yards, he was the engine that helped erase an 18-point halftime deficit. He gathered his teammates around him with 3 minutes and 16 seconds left in the game — 22-year-old kid, first NFL start — and delivered a simple message.

“Let’s go win the game,” he told them.

Then they won the game. Jones completed four straight passes and then the Bucs stiffened, and on fourth down, with the hometown fans trying to drown out the desperate Giants fans who had made the trip and lent their voices to the cause — a most amazing thing happened: The middle of the field opened wide, like a fault in the turf.

“I saw the grass,” Jones said, “and I took it.”

You wondered if he would rise to the occasion, could rise to the job, be equal to the moment. He rose. He delivered. Welcome to the future. Welcome to today.

“Part of his charm,” Shurmur said, “is he’s mature beyond all of our years.”

The thing about watching Jones was seeing how much the rest of the team assumed their better selves, too. You can call this coincidence, if you like, or you can look over the last 100 years of the NFL. When teams believe in their quarterback, they want to perform for him.

At Eli Manning’s very best, that was his greatest gift. Linemen kept their blocks for an extra beat. Receivers made catches that had to be seen to be believed (or don’t you remember David Tyree and Mario Manningham?).

Jones?

During the third quarter, he completed 5 of 8 passes for 142 yards, threw a couple of touchdown passes and generally looked as comfortable as the position allows, and a funny thing happened: He had as much time as he needed in the pocket. His receivers made every play. Saquon Barkley was on the sidelines, on crutches, meaning Jones was virtually on his own, and it didn’t impede the kid a bit.

And even the defense, which for 10 quarters had looked as if it were careening toward some kind of historic abyss, which at the end tried to heave it all into the Gulf, threw a shutout that quarter. It sacked Jameis Winston twice. It made the Buccaneers, who looked like they might reach 50, look utterly toothless and punchless.

Jones didn’t make one tackle. But if you don’t think the entire team wasn’t lifted by that 75-yard toss-and-run to Evan Engram that began the second half, then you weren’t paying attention.

If you didn’t see the way the Giants’ sideline reacted just over six minutes later, when Jones threw one of the most gorgeous balls you’ll ever see, a 7-yard scoring pass to Sterling Shepherd, then you missed one of the most fired-up sidelines you’ll ever see, players punching the sky with their fists and looking like they were having the time of their lives.

And in the locker room after, they chanted: “Go, DJ! Go DJ! Go DJ!”

That’s what Jones was.

“There were some mistakes,” Shurmur said, and there were, plenty of them. He held the ball too long, which twice cost him fumbles, and a few sacks, which could cost him his health if he isn’t careful. He missed a few throws. The Bucs dropped an easy interception. He wasn’t perfect. And that’s partly the point.

“He was calm, and he was poised,” Engram said. “And what else do you want from your quarterback than that?”

Added guard Kevin Zeitler: “Nothing rattled him.”

Mostly, he affords belief. There seemed no chance the Giants could survive at the end, with the Bucs in position to break their hearts at the gun. Again: Jones didn’t block the kick. He didn’t pressure Matt Gay, the Tampa Bay kicker, to nudge it wide. But he sure instilled something in his team, beginning to end.

Especially at the end.