Week 10 arrives with the New York Giants sitting in a spot they can’t ignore. Thursday night against the Washington Commanders won’t decide the NFC East, but it could tilt the whole race in a hurry.
The Giants enter at 5-2-1, and Team Rankings gives them a 69.5% chance to win the division. Dallas is next at 24.0%, with Washington way back at 6.4%.
That gap could grow fast depending on what happens this week. New York is a 1.5-point favorite over Washington, while the Cowboys are 4.5-point underdogs at home against the 7-1 San Francisco 49ers.
If the Giants take care of business and Dallas falls, the standings would open up in a major way. New York would move to 6-2-1, Dallas would drop to 4-6, and Washington would sit at 2-6-1.
That would give the Giants a 3½-game cushion. From there, even a 3-5 finish would put them at 9-7-1, and Dallas would need to go 6-1 just to reach 10 wins - the number they’d need to pass New York because the Giants’ tie with Washington counts as half a victory.
If that sounds like a long shot, that’s because it is.
The flip side is just as important. If the Giants lose Thursday and Dallas pulls the upset over San Francisco, the division tightens right back up.
Dallas would be only 1.5 games behind, and Washington would still be in the mix with eight games left. In other words, this week can swing the race dramatically in either direction.
Giants head coach John Harbaugh put the stakes in plain terms when he said this about Washington: “This is for all the marbles. It’s a tie right now.
This is the tiebreaker. It’s like going to the second half tied, you have a chance to go win the game right now and be one up on these guys for the rest of the season.
So, it’s a big game.”
The schedule after Week 10 only adds to the pressure. The Giants get Jacksonville in Week 11, then go to Indianapolis in Week 12.
After that comes San Francisco at home, a trip to Seattle, Cleveland at home, Detroit on the road, Dallas on the road in Week 17, and Philadelphia at home in Week 18. Dallas, meanwhile, gets Tennessee, Philadelphia, Seattle, a bye, the Rams, Jacksonville, the Giants, and Washington.
A big part of Thursday night will be about handling Jayden Daniels. The Giants have already been burned by unscripted quarterback runs, and it was especially painful in Week 5 against Washington when Daniels ripped off 38- and 26-yard touchdowns. After that game, defensive coordinator Dennard Wilson said those runs “should never have happened.”
The challenge for New York is tied to how it has been playing defense lately. With Wilson bringing pressure as often as he has, the Giants have leaned heavily on man coverage, which leaves defensive backs without eyes on the quarterback.
They’ve also used a spy only sparingly. Whether that changes Thursday night is one of the more interesting questions going into the game.
The weather may make everything messier. The Week 5 meeting in Landover was already a sloppy one in rainy conditions on grass, and this one is set up to be another ugly night, only this time on Field Turf in East Rutherford.
The National Weather Service forecast calls for rain, a low around 40, north wind at 9 to 11 mph with gusts as high as 23 mph, and an 80% chance of precipitation. Between a wet football and a cold, windy night, ball security is going to matter.
That’s not exactly a strength the Giants have shown. They’ve fumbled 14 times this season and lost six of them.
Four teams have more fumbles: the Packers, Patriots, Chargers, and Saints, each with 15. The last meeting with Washington also featured a costly mistake, when a glove-less Skattebo fumbled away a scoring chance in overtime.
Special teams could matter too. Rookie kicker Dominic Zvada went just 2 of 5 on field goals against Washington the first time around, missing from 50, 57, and 46 yards.
And then there’s Cam Skattebo, who has his own reasons to be fired up. He reacted Wednesday to the trade chatter surrounding Jonathan Taylor, and he’s the kind of player who feeds off emotion. The Giants could use that energy to help spark a run game that clearly missed his presence against the Eagles on Sunday.
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