Game Preview: Giants host Commanders in Week 9

Despite that, the Giants’ first objective will be stopping Washington’s ground game, which they didn’t do in Week 2. The Commanders ran for 215 yards on 35 carries, led by running back Brian Robinson Jr.’s 17 carries for 133 yards. Washington held the ball for 37:32 and never punted.

To improve those numbers, the Giants’ defense likely must reduce the league-high 5.4 yards a carry it is allowing.

“We know what they are offensively,” Bowen said. “They’ve rushed for over 200 yards four times. And it’s not just the quarterback doing that. They’ve had some big, big rushing games. You see all the explosive runs that they’ve had throughout the season. That’s a big emphasis for us.

“They’re going to get their yards, because they hand the ball off. It’s just making sure that we’re not giving up the explosive ones and we’re able to get them on the ground and hopefully keep them 10 or less and not 30 or 40 on a third and one play when we got him bottled up in the backfield and he fights for yards, and he skates off the edge and breaks one on you. I think there’s an intensity of focus that comes with it because of how much success they had week two against us.”

Daniels, of course, is an integral component of the Commanders’ rushing attack. He is just behind Robinson and is second among NFL quarterbacks with 424 yards and four touchdowns. Daniels is particularly proficient on third down, when he improvises and picks up a first down, demoralizing the defense.

“It puts stress on every down when you play a guy like that,” Daboll said. “It’s a challenge because he can do it. I think he can do it with three things. I think he can do it with his mind. He’s a very instinctive player who has good anticipation, touch and accuracy. For a young quarterback, that’s always a challenge, but you can see that he can do that. He can do it with his arm, arm angles, arc and pace, drive throws, and obviously he can do it with his legs.

“When you have a quarterback that can do all those three things and do it in critical situations – the play that he made to McLaurin against Cincinnati at the end of the game, and there’s a free runner in his face and he throws the ball before McLaurin’s four yards off the line of scrimmage and drops a dime in the end zone, that’s hard to do. Or the play he makes to McLaurin when he scrambles out to the right, there’s three guys on him, he lofts up a 40-yarder in stride and hits him. Those are tough players to defend. He’s got all the traits of being an excellent quarterback.”

That won’t change tomorrow. The Giants hope their streak against rookie quarterbacks doesn’t, either.

*A good omen for the Giants?

Washington defeated Chicago last week on Daniels’ stunning 52-yard “Hail Mary” touchdown pass to Noah Brown as time expired.

Each of the last four teams to win on a last play touchdown pass – either a Hail Mary or a similarly unlikely score pulled off by Miami and Minnesota – lost their next game.

The list includes the 2017 Vikings (beat New Orleans but lost the NFC Championship Game a week later), 2018 Dolphins (defeated New England, lost at Minnesota), 2020 Cardinals (beat Buffalo, lost to Seattle) and 2020 Raiders (defeated the Jets, lost to Indianapolis).

The last team to win the week after pulling out a victory with a Hail Mary was the 2015 Green Bay Packers, who won in Detroit on Aaron Rodgers’ 61-yard pass to Richard Rodgers on the game’s last play and followed that with a 28-7 victory in Dallas.