NY Giants Open as Surprising Week 15 Favorites vs Washington Commanders

It’s not very often in recent seasons that the New York Giants can say they own this distinction heading into a regular-season game, but one of those weeks has arrived in Week 15 as they come back for the final four games of their 2025 slate.

Throughout the first 13 games of the season, the Giants have gotten used to being the usual underdog in just about every matchup, though they have kept many of those games very close. The lone exception was the meeting with the Saints in Week 4, where the opening odds started in New York’s favor until their luck flipped on the field in a gut-wrenching loss.

As the team returns to the facilities in East Rutherford after a late bye week to begin preparing for their next game, they are receiving a surprising dose of optimism from the oddsmakers in an upcoming NFC East divisional matchup.

According to FanDuel’s opening lines for Week 15, the Giants are a 2.5-point home favorite as they get ready to welcome the Washington Commanders to MetLife Stadium for round two of their biannual divisional rivalry.

In addition to the spread, the sportsbook has set the over/under points total for the game at 46.5 points, marking the second straight week that the Giants and their opponent have received that number and one that they covered once again in New England two Mondays ago in their 33-15 primetime defeat.

The first time these two franchises faced off was the season opener in Landover, when the Commanders kept the strong wave from their 2024 campaign going, with their defense keeping the Giants' new offense, led by quarterback Russell Wilson, fairly silent in a 21-18 win for the home side.

With that strong effort that also featured a whopping 220 yards on the ground, there was a belief that the refueled Commanders might go back on an insane run after falling just shy of making the Super Bowl last season.

One of the biggest keys in that incredible journey was rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels, who quickly made a name for himself with an astounding 3,568 passing yards and 31 combined touchdowns that finished second among the 2024 draft class.

The Giants struggled to contain his dual-threat athleticism and allowed him to complete nearly 80% of his throws in the second meeting.

However, a lot has changed regarding the health of Daniels, who has missed six games this year with multiple injuries, and the most recent being an elbow ailment that the Commanders have said has no “long-term concerns” yet will likely keep him out of this new meeting with the Giants.

Daniels has given the Commanders 1,540 total yards and a 10-3 touchdown-to-interception ratio in his seven starts, but without his talents, Washington has fallen to a 3-10 record and out of the postseason picture for the seventh time in the last ten seasons.

Along with their starting gunslinger, the Commanders' roster has sustained more notable injuries to some of their most important playmakers on both sides of the ball.

The offensive end has taken the biggest decline from that, going from a top-five scoring unit in 2024 to 24th and coughing up the football at the ninth-worst rate in the league.

Then, add in the defensive absences that have also taken some of the edge off of their pass rush, and it creates an opportunity for a Giants team that still believes they can compete to avenge their loss earlier in the season and get at least one more taste of victory at home before the season reaches its fateful end.

Even with their losing streak holding steady for now, the Giants' offense has given fans at least some reason to cheer for three quarters of their recent stretch. They’ve scored at least 20 points in four of their last five contests and have done a pretty solid job of protecting the quarterback to get more creative under the interim direction of head coach Mike Kafka.

It’s been the defense, whose lack of an effective pass rush and porous coverage, that has hurt their chances to steal a couple of wins against quality opponents. It has them where they currently sit atop the 2026 draft order with the No. 1 overall pick, which figures to be highly coveted if they manage to maintain it.

With the leaders that they still have in that locker room, the Giants aren’t concerned with their draft position when there are still four games left to be played, and could help determine the futures of many critical players within the organization.

They will go out and try to split the season series with Washington while putting together that complete game that has evaded them for the past couple of months and could finally happen in a game with a banged-up foe whose final four games don’t carry the same weight as before.

Odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.

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