What Changes Can Giants Defense Expect with Marcus Mariota at QB?

The New York Giants defense is gearing up to have (hopefully) a strong outing against a Marcus Mariota-led Washington Commanders offense that was shut out last week. Can they finally do their part to help the team secure a win?

Personnel

The Commanders got starting quarterback Jayden Daniels back last week against the Minnesota Vikings. Unfortunately, he re-aggravated his elbow injury and has been ruled out for this weekend.

The 2025 season has been an injury-riddled season for Daniels, and the Commanders should opt to protect his long-term health and end his season now. That said, veteran Marcus Mariota will once again take over in Daniels’ absence.

Mariota has been solid in his time filling in for Daniels. Still, he’s been far from spectacular, and he doesn’t really elevate this offense more than any other serviceable backup would.

So far in the 2025 season, Mariota has 1,389 passing yards, 255 rushing yards, nine passing touchdowns, 1 rushing touchdown, and seven interceptions.

The Commanders' run game has been solid with Mariota at the helm, with over 100 rushing yards in every game except for three, two of which the team didn’t even bother trying to run.

The running back room is made up of Bill Croskey-Merritt, Chris Rodriguez, and Jeremy McNichols, but there doesn’t seem to be a legitimate rhyme or reason to how the carries have been divided.

In any given week, one back could be used as a bellcow, and the next week could get just one carry.

Against the Vikings, tight end Zach Ertz suffered a brutal knee injury that’s going to cost him the remainder of the season and will likely cut into the 2026 season for him, if he doesn’t retire.

John Bates and Ben Sinnott will likely both see an uptick in snaps that they see with Ertz out, which should benefit the run game further.

At receiver, nothing has really changed for this offense other than them figuring out more creative ways to use Deebo Samuel and committing to taking shots downfield with Terry McLaurin.

Scheme

A Kliff Kingsbury offense will always be a Kliff Kingsbury offense. He’s an Air Raid coach who’s going to live and die throwing the football.

Kingsbury deserves credit for making the offense somewhat respectable despite the injuries the team has had at multiple positions.

The personnel isn’t very dynamic, so the screen game hasn’t been as effective as the run game. Kingsbury has adapted to reduce screen time.

Kingsbury has done a good job of making sure Mariota’s legs are a consistent threat that defenses need to prepare for to help offset the lack of dynamic playmakers throughout.

The Commanders use play-action on 32.6% of Mariota’s dropbacks, the fourth-highest rate in the NFL, a significant jump from the 23% of dropbacks when Daniels is available.

The offense needs to be much more reliant on the run game without Daniels, so the value of play-action increases significantly with Mariota.

Overview

With Mariota at quarterback, the Commanders become a much less explosive offense, more focused on grinding out drives with consistent gains.

Of course, with Mariota at quarterback, this offense isn’t very good at sustaining drives, but that’s the only way they’re really capable of attacking.

Considering how poorly the Commanders have handled blitz-heavy defenses over the past month, the Giants should try to rev up their pass rush and attack.

In theory, the Giants should be able to contain this rather lackluster offense of the Commanders.

However, in practice, this Giants defense hasn’t been able to stop anybody from doing anything all season.

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Personnel

Scheme

Overview

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