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The New York Giants will take a trip down to the capital of the free world this Sunday to do battle with their divisional foes, the Washington Commanders. The Giants are riding high after a thrilling victory over the Arizona Cardinals in front of a raucous MetLife Stadium crowd last weekend, and look to carry their momentum into Northwest Stadium in order to tighten their grip on their lead in the NFC East.
With the Cowboy’s loss to Tampa Bay last night, the Giants remain as the only team with a winning record in the division at 3-1, while the Commanders limped back to the states this week after a 30-13 beating at the hands of the Indianapolis Colts in London to bring them at 1-3 as they circle the bottom of the barrel. Washington backup quarterback Marcus Mariota was taken out of the game in the first quarter after suffering an MCL sprain on a sack in the first quarter, and third string rookie signal caller Athan Kaliakmanis was unable to perform damage control in his relief.
In the wake of the loss, star QB Jayden Daniels looks to suit up for the Commanders for the first time since week 2 after dealing with an elbow injury suffered in their contest against the Cowboys. Daniels will need to play at his absolute best this weekend, as starting wideouts Terry McLaurin and Stefon Diggs both haven’t practiced this week (as of Thursday night) due to injuries. This might be the worst news imaginable for Washington, who are in desperate need of their top weapons as they rank 30th in the NFL in yards per pass attempt with an average of 5.7 as they’ll have to deal with what has been an unexpectedly stellar New York secondary who rank ninth in the league in opponent pass yards per attempt at 6.2 and second in turnover percentage at 4.41 percent.
The Giants will need to perform better than they have in recent weeks in run stopping as Washington is one of the better teams on the ground so far this season. The Commanders rank ninth in rushing yards per game at 124 on an average of 4.2 yards per rush, mostly off of the back of the trio of RB’s Jacory Croskey-Merritt, Rachaad White, and the aforementioned Daniels.
The Giants, meanwhile, are one of the worst teams in the NFL on average yards per rush allowed at 4.7. Although Croskey-Merritt shouldn’t provide a massive challenge (he only averages 2.8 per attempt), Daniels is a completely separate beast. The young star out of LSU boasts a 3-0 record against Big Blue, and in those games he’s averaged 49 rushing yards per game and an average of five yards per carry. New York may have to run a plethora of containment plays on defense or place a spy within the linebackers to keep an eye on the talented scrambler.
The General Consensus
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This should be the most clear cut victory for the Giants since the absence of Jaxson Dart. Washington’s injury list takes almost as long to read as War and Peace at the moment, and New York has no shortage of momentum stored over the last two weeks, at least on defense. Daniels’s participation will be the big question mark here, as we should find out early on how much rust he shows in his first game back since mid-September. The g-men should be able to take this one handily on paper, but divisional rivalries always tend to bring out the best in both teams, and as long as we get another episode of ‘The Jameis Winston Experience’ we won’t have a clue what to expect.
Final Score Prediction: Giants-20 Commanders-14
-Jack Barber
Work Cited
https://www.teamrankings.com/nfl/team/washington-commanders/stats
https://www.teamrankings.com/nfl/team/new-york-giants/stats
https://www.espn.com/nfl/team/stats/_/name/wsh/washington-commanders
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