Week 10 doesn’t decide the NFC East, but it can tilt the whole race hard in the Giants’ favor.
Thursday night’s matchup with the Washington Commanders is the kind of game that can redraw the division picture in one shot. The Giants enter at 5-2-1, and Team Rankings gives them a 69.5% chance to win the NFC East. Dallas sits at 24.0%, while Washington is down at 6.4%.
The betting line says the Giants should handle business, too. FanDuel Sportsbook has New York as 1.5-point favorites against Washington. Meanwhile, the Cowboys are 4.5-point underdogs at home against the 7-1 San Francisco 49ers.
If the Giants take care of the Commanders and Dallas stumbles, the standings would suddenly look a lot more comfortable for New York:
Giants 6-2-1
Cowboys 4-6
Commanders 2-6-1
That would give the Giants a 3½-game cushion. From there, even a fairly ordinary 3-5 finish would leave them at 9-7-1. Dallas, on the other hand, would need to go 6-1 just to get to 10 wins, which would be enough to win the division because the Giants’ tie with Washington counts as half a victory.
That’s a steep climb, and it’s why this week matters so much. If the Giants lose and Dallas pulls the upset against San Francisco, the race tightens fast. In that version of the standings, Dallas would be only 1.5 games back, and Washington would still be alive with eight games left.
Giants head coach John Harbaugh put it plainly when talking about the Commanders, and the point stretches beyond just one opponent:
“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 still have Jacksonville, Indianapolis, San Francisco, Seattle, Cleveland, Detroit, Dallas, and Philadelphia ahead. The Cowboys’ path includes Tennessee, Philadelphia, Seattle, a bye, the Rams, Jacksonville, the Giants, and Washington.
There are a few other things worth watching when these teams meet again.
The Giants have already seen how dangerous Jayden Daniels can be when he takes off on his own. In Week 5, he ran for touchdowns of 38 and 26 yards, and those unscripted quarterback runs were a huge problem for New York. After that game, defensive coordinator Dennard Wilson said those runs “should never have happened.”
That issue gets trickier because 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 they change that approach Thursday night will be one of the more interesting tactical questions of the game.
Then there’s the weather. The first meeting in Landover was a mess on grass in rainy, miserable conditions. This one is shaping up to be another ugly night, only this time on Field Turf in rainy, miserable, cold conditions.
The National Weather Service forecast for East Rutherford, N.J. 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 the weather and the conditions, ball security should be a major issue.
That matters for a Giants team that has already put the ball on the ground too often. They’ve fumbled 14 times this season and lost six of them. Four teams have more fumbles: the Packers, Patriots, Chargers and Saints, all with 15.
It also brings back memories of the first Commanders game, when a glove-less Skattebo fumbled away a scoring chance in overtime. The Giants also know their kicking game was shaky that day, with rookie placekicker Dominic Zvada going just 2 of 5 on field-goal tries against Washington, missing from 50, 57 and 46 yards.
Skattebo is another player to keep an eye on. He thrives on emotion, and he has plenty to feed off Thursday night.
There’s the failed Jonathan Taylor trade chatter, the reality that the Giants have been searching for an upgrade at RB1 for a while, and the fact that the NFL world has known about that pursuit for some time. The Giants were in on Kenneth Walker in free agency, were connected to Jeremiyah Love in the draft, aggressively pursued Taylor, and even made a call about Bijan Robinson.
He also missed Sunday’s game against the Philadelphia Eagles, which would have marked his return to the place where he suffered his dislocated ankle in 2025. And there’s still the memory of his costly fumble against Washington in Week 5, which led to his pseudo-benching in Week 6.
The Giants could use that edge to show up in a big way, especially with the running game needing a spark. Thursday night offers him the chance to provide it.
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