The Washington Commanders travel up the East Coast on Sunday to face the New York Giants at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. Under the tutelage of head coach Dan Quinn, the 6-2 Commanders are sitting solidly at the top of the NFC East, and that’s not likely to change this weekend.
There are three reasons for optimism heading into Week 9 when the Commanders face the Giants.
The Giants are struggling this season
The Giants may be a division rival, but their season has not gone the way they’d hoped. At 2-6, they sit not just at the bottom of the NFC East but the bottom of the entire NFC. Those struggles have reached the boiling point, and the locker room leaders are expressing their frustration, which never translates well on the field.
Any time a team is losing, team morale drops, players lose faith in their own ability and the ability of the players around them, trust goes out the window and games break down. This bodes well for the Commanders.
Commanders have momentum
After losing Jayden Daniels early in the Carolina Panthers game with a rib injury, backup quarterback Marcus Mariota handled business in Daniels’ stead. Daniels returned in Week 8 to lead the Commanders to a last-second victory on a successful Hail Mary pass, and the team is still riding the high of that win.
The Commanders are united behind Jayden Daniels and Dan Quinn, and that unity shows on the field. Everyone is on the same page, everyone knows their role and trusts their teammates to execute the plays that are called, and everyone wants to continue this whole winning thing. The Commanders aren’t used to that, but they like it and want to keep it going. That kind of determination is hard to beat.
Jayden Daniels isn’t the only player on the field
While rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels has taken the league by storm, the Commanders do have other players on the field. Daniels doesn’t do it alone; he has some pretty talented players who can help him out. Terry McLaurin, Brian Robinson Jr., Noah Brown, Zach Ertz, Austin Ekeler, and more. Daniels does an excellent job leading these players down the field, but he doesn’t move the ball all on his own. He has a fantastic supporting cast, and the Giants simply won’t have answers for all of them.
