The Commanders and Giants open Week 10 on Thursday night, and Jayden Daniels sits at the center of the DraftKings showdown puzzle.
In a single-game contest, every roster spot has to pull its weight. You get a $50,000 salary cap, one captain whose salary and points count 1.5 times, and five flex plays to round things out. With full-PPR scoring in play, the best lineup usually comes from finding the right mix of ceiling and salary relief.
Daniels brings the biggest ceiling on the slate, and the Week 5 meeting between these teams showed exactly why. In that tie, he ran for 103 yards and two touchdowns on nine carries and finished with a season-high 35.3 DraftKings points.
He hasn’t been running as much lately, but he still gives Washington a dangerous rushing element. New York’s defense is allowing the 12th-most schedule-adjusted fantasy points per game to quarterbacks at +1.6, which keeps Daniels in a strong spot.
Malik Nabers also belongs in the conversation after a quiet Week 9 by his standards. Before that, he had gone over 21 DraftKings points in four straight games, including a 32.1-point outing against Washington.
Nabers leads the Giants with a 30.0% target share and ranks 11th in yards per route run at 2.39 among 27 receivers with at least 50 targets in 2026. Washington’s defense has been vulnerable to wideouts, giving up the ninth-most schedule-adjusted fantasy points per game to the position at +3.0.
The Giants’ passing game runs heavily through Nabers and Isaiah Likely. Likely owns the second-highest target share on the team at 26.5%, and his six receiving touchdowns are tied with Brock Bowers for the most among tight ends this season. That lines up well with a Washington defense that has been even softer against tight ends, allowing the second-most schedule-adjusted fantasy points per game to the position behind only the Lions at +7.5.
Chig Okonkwo is another name worth circling. He has seen at least six targets in three of his last four games and has posted double-digit DraftKings points in three of his last four starts.
In Washington’s Week 9 loss to the Rams, he played the second-most snaps on the team at 46 and ran the second-most routes at 35. While Stefon Diggs and Antonio Williams remain the primary options for Daniels, Okonkwo has been involved enough to matter in showdown builds.
At kicker, Dominic Zvada gets the edge over Drew Stevens. Zvada has had his issues in his first season with the Giants, missing five of 22 field-goal attempts, but he has still reached 12-plus DraftKings points in four of his last six games. With New York favored at home, he gets the slight nod.
The Washington backfield is also in play after the absence of Jacory Croskey-Merritt pushed the team into a two-man committee with Rachaad White and Austin Ekeler. In Week 9 against the Rams, Ekeler played just seven fewer snaps than White and ran five more routes. His ceiling is limited with White involved, but at this salary, Ekeler only needs a handful of catches or a trip to the end zone to pay off.
In Other News...
Dan Quinn Finally Addressed A Costly Commanders Problem
Late-game trouble has become a familiar and frustrating theme around the Commanders, and Dan Quinn finally acknowledged it after the recent loss to the Rams. With two first-year coordinators in David Blough on offense and Daronte Jones on defense, Quinn suggested there are bound to be some growing pains as the staff and roster continue to sort out how to finish games cleanly.
The ending against Los Angeles only sharpened the issue, with Jayden Daniels involved in a controversial play call that ended in a fumble and a loss. Daniels and Quinn both declined to go into much detail afterward, leaving the Commanders with the same lingering question they have been trying to answer all season: how to avoid letting games slip away in the final moments. [Read more 🡒]
Jayden Daniels Faces A Week 10 Test The Giants Just Complicated
Jayden Daniels is heading into another one of those early-season checkpoints that can say a lot about where a young quarterback and his team really stand. The Commanders have already seen what Daniels can do at the helm after his electric rookie year, when he pushed Washington all the way to the NFC championship game and earned Offensive Rookie of the Year honors. Now he is working through a new offensive coordinator and a different system, which makes every week feel a little more revealing than the last.
Week 10 adds another layer because it brings Daniels back across from J.J. McCarthy, another member of the 2024 rookie quarterback class who has taken a far different path. McCarthy missed his rookie season because of injury, then wound up with the Giants after losing the starting job in Minnesota, and he is now settling in as New York's starter following a midseason trade. Their second meeting as starters has the feel of a familiar matchup with a very different backdrop, and for Washington, the Giants have just made the test a little more complicated. [Read more 🡒]
Dan Quinn Faces A Bigger Commanders Debate As Losses Keep Mounting
The losses have piled up enough in Washington that Dan Quinn is no longer being judged only on game plans and injury luck. The Commanders coach has drawn sharper criticism this season for a team that has struggled to find traction in 2025 and 2026, with the conversation around him widening beyond the usual weekly frustrations and into a more basic question about whether the program is headed in the right direction.
Steve Smith added to that pressure during an ESPN appearance, saying he has doubts about Quinns fit in the top job. The former NFL wide receiver pointed to what he sees as a troubling pattern of mismanagement, and his comments have only fed a debate that is getting louder as the Commanders keep searching for answers. For now, there has been no formal word on Quinns status, but the scrutiny around him is clearly building. [Read more 🡒]