Jacory Croskey-Merritt enters Week 5 with a simple job: help Washington take some of the heat off Jayden Daniels.
That’s the assignment against a Giants defense that has started squeezing quarterbacks with pressure up front and real punch at linebacker. The Commanders are bringing Daniels back into the mix, and if they want to keep him clean, the ground game has to show up. Croskey-Merritt is the back most capable of making that happen.
The matchup also comes with some history. Croskey-Merritt, known as “Bill,” flashed against New York twice during his rookie season in 2025.
In Week 1, he carried 10 times for 82 rushing yards and scored his first NFL touchdown. In the Week 14 rematch, he handled 18 more carries for 96 yards and another touchdown.
That’s the version Washington needs again.
Through four games of the 2026 season, Croskey-Merritt has not looked like the kind of lead runner the Commanders want him to be. But this is the kind of opponent that can get him rolling.
The Giants are sturdy inside, with 335-pound nose tackle D.J. Reader anchoring the middle and inside linebackers Tremaine Edmunds and rookie Arvell Reese behind him.
That makes life difficult between the tackles, which is why Washington should lean toward the edges.
That’s where the opportunity lives.
The Giants’ run defense has shown a soft spot outside, and there’s a blueprint for how to attack it. The Arizona Cardinals found early success in Week 4 by widening the game and forcing New York to adjust. John Harbaugh said the Giants had to alter their approach:
"We were playing a little more for inside runs, probably, and we changed it up and we got a little more secure on the edge runs, the D-gap runs, the outside runs. That was a good changeup by (Defensive Coordinator) Dennard (Wilson).
"I thought the coaches did a great job with that, (Outside Linebackers coach) Charlie (Bullen) and those guys, (Defensive Line Coach) Dennis (Johnson). But mainly, our DB's got up in there a little tighter on some of those crack splits.
They got up in there and played those blocks a little bit better. So, probably all those things contributed to it, I would say."
Washington has the tools to stress those same edges. Tight ends John Bates and Ben Sinnott can help seal the perimeter, and Treylon Burks brings real value as a blocker in this spot. With injuries thinning the top of the receiver depth chart, Burks should see more opportunities as a pass catcher, but his size - 6-foot-2, 225 pounds - makes him especially useful on crack-back blocks and in stacked looks that can pin defenders inside.
Mix that with wrap-around blocking from Sinnott and Bates, and the Commanders can create cleaner lanes for Croskey-Merritt on outside-zone runs. If those plays start hitting, Washington can stay ahead of the sticks and open up chunk gains on the ground.
The Giants have shown they can create pressure, too. Against the Cardinals, they pressured Jacoby Brissett on 38.5 percent of his throws, according to Pat Leonard of the New York Daily News, citing Next Gen Stats. That only raises the value of a run game that can keep Daniels out of obvious passing situations.
For Washington, the formula is there. Give Croskey-Merritt 20-25 carries, work the edges, and let the back who once burned New York do it again.
In Other News...
Commanders Let Another Division Win Slip Away In Brutal Finish
The ending of the Giants-Commanders game drew plenty of attention beyond Washingtons locker room, and not for any of the right reasons. Mike Tomlin, now an NBC analyst after his long run coaching the Steelers, was especially blunt about the closing sequence, while the game itself turned on a pair of late mistakes that left both sides kicking themselves.
For the Commanders, the frustration came from letting a chance to leave the division race in better shape slip away at the finish. Dan Quinn and Jayden Daniels both owned the miscue on Washingtons final snap, a sequence that never got cleanly sorted before the clock ran out and the game ended in a tie, leaving the Commanders to sort through what should have been a winnable moment. [Read more 🡒]
Commanders Let A Wild Chance Slip Away In Frustrating Giants Tie
The Commanders and Giants wound up in a 27-27 tie after overtime in a game that never fully escaped the kind of mistakes that can swing a divisional matchup. Washington had its opening to finish it after New York put the ball on the ground in the extra period, a turnover that should have put the Commanders in position to walk off with a much-needed win.
Instead, Washington came away with a result that feels like a missed opportunity more than a rescue, especially with a 1-3-1 record now attached to the season. The Giants leave with a 3-1-1 mark, and the tie will linger for the Commanders because they had the chance to end it and could not quite turn the break into the finish they needed. [Read more 🡒]
Dan Quinn Just Turned Commanders Mistakes Into A Bigger Problem
The Commanders loss to the Giants stung for more than the final score, because it turned a promising afternoon into another reminder of how fragile things can get when a game starts slipping away. Washington had built a 14-point lead, only to see the margin disappear amid the kind of breakdowns that have followed this team at different points of the season, from defensive lapses to penalties to issues up front.
Dan Quinn owned the mistakes afterward, which only added to the pressure around a team already trying to steady itself. The overtime finish brought the frustration into sharper focus, and the bigger concern for Washington is that a loss like this does not live in one phase of the game, it spills into every conversation about the season, including the coachs job status and whether the Commanders can clean up the details fast enough to matter. [Read more 🡒]