Three Keys to a NY Giants Week 15 Win vs Washington Commanders

Here are the three areas that the Giants need to improve upon if they want to gain revenge and defeat the Commanders in their second meeting of the season.

Dec 7, 2025; Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA; Washington Commanders quarterback Marcus Mariota (8) practices before the game at U.S. Bank Stadium. | Brad Rempel-Imagn Images

The New York Giants are reaching the fateful conclusion of their disappointing 2025 season, and, on the heels of a seven-game losing streak, are running out of opportunities to deliver a winning effort for themselves and their exhausted fanbase.

At the forefront of their remaining slate is a rematch with their division rivals, the Washington Commanders, who got off to a strong start by beating the Giants, 21-6, in their season opener, only to see the rest of their campaign fall off a cliff due to relentless injuries to key players.

Since that meeting in early September, both franchises have lost a combined 15 games. They are desperate to regain that sense of victory before their focus shifts to another long offseason of roster retooling for a better run in 2026.

For the Giants, the stakes just feel a little higher, as they still have a roster with a fair share of talented players who need to prove themselves and help the team establish an identity heading into next year.

That can start against a Washington squad that they’ve had some positive history with in recent seasons, and is dealing with shortened depth at important positions. 

The Giants will need to clean up some things from their last meeting with the Commanders if they want to get the job done, and these are our three main improvements to focus on ahead of Sunday’s NFC East battle.

Stopping the Run

Nov 2, 2025; Landover, Maryland, USA; Washington Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels (5) hands off the ball to running back Jacory Croskey-Merritt (22) during the second half against the Seattle Seahawks at Northwest Stadium. | Amber Searls-Imagn Images

It’s been well documented that the Giants' defense has failed miserably in its mission to address its weakness against the run game, and they certainly didn’t do themselves any favors to start the season when they first faced the Commanders. 

Back in Week 1, the Giants were outweighed from the jump in the trenches by five different ball carriers for Washington. They allowed that group to collect 220 yards on 32 total rushing attempts for the Commanders, including an average of 6.9 yards per carry and two touchdowns that helped the home team control the pace of the game and limit the Giants' offense’s ability to stage a proper comeback. 

That game marked the first of three this season where the Giants' front seven has allowed their opponent to surpass the 200-yard rushing mark, and in those games, they’ve been outscored by a combined 40 points, which were partly gained on a fourth-quarter comeback where the run was a critical component.

In terms of the Commanders' game, another aspect of their success in executing on the ground was the dual-threat abilities of quarterback Jayden Daniels, who had 11 carries for 68 yards and is always a threat to take off and make defenders miss with his footwork and lanky physique that makes him tough to bring down. 

However, Daniels, along with Austin Ekeler, who is out for the season with an Achilles injury, will miss Sunday’s game with a reaggravation of an elbow injury he has been dealing with for most of the year. 

That takes two quality options out of the Commanders' backfield, but they still have three capable running backs who have tallied at least 278 yards and added two touchdowns to their resumes, and will look to attack the Giants early to then open up their passing attack.

The Giants must find a way not to get bullied in the run game and let Washington set the tone in this matchup if they want to steer themselves towards a win. One thing we’ve suggested before the Patriots game was to go with a four-man front to help add some extra beef on the line of scrimmage to serve as a greater buffer for their opposing ball carrier. 

More than schematics, the Giants simply have to be better in their fundamentals when it comes to tackling and not sliding right off the rusher. They did a pretty good job of this in the first game against the Commanders with only four missed tackles, but they have allowed more in the other two contests, where they gave up 200+ yards on the ground. 

We saw a little bit of both those things against the Patriots two weeks ago. However, they still gave up 119 yards to their backfield, which went run-heavy until they were able to open up the score with their passing game, which exploded for another 276 yards against the Giants' porous secondary. 

So far this season, New York is giving up an average of 5.8 yards per carry to their first 13 opponents, which is ranked dead last in the NFL and has been the largest anchor dragging their entire unit into the basement. It has empowered them to convert late downs at a top-10 rate and earn the third-most yards per drive (35.8). 

If they can clean it up just a bit more in this second duel with the Commanders, who are missing some key contributors to their receiving corps, they’ll be forced to scramble for answers in that realm, which hasn’t been the same without the arm of Daniels commanding it. 

Finishing Drives

Sep 7, 2025; Landover, Maryland, USA; New York Giants quarterback Russell Wilson (3) makes a pass during the third quarter against the Washington Commanders at Northwest Stadium. | Amber Searls-Imagn Images

Although the Commanders had success at keeping the Giants' offense at bay for most of their first game, it wasn’t like the Giants didn’t have a couple of chances to strike the painted area and put more than their six final points on the scoreboard. 

The exact opposite was the case for the Giants, who Russell Wilson led in his first start with the organization. While the Commanders took advantage of their redzone visits with a sharp 3-for-4 rate, the Giants were shut out twice within the opponents’ 20-yard line with a 0-for-2 score in that category.

Both instances came on very good long drives for New York that spanned 16 and 12 plays, respectively, and were moving efficiently downfield behind careful passing from Wilson despite his lackluster 17-of-37 for 168 yards stat line for the entire game as he got adjusted to playing with his new arsenal of playmakers.  

Where the problem arose, and continues to occur for the Giants this season, is when they get within a stone’s throw of the goal line and their offense suddenly stalls for one reason or another. The most common answer that reared its ugly head against Washington was the poor execution that took over like a dark spell as soon as they were about to knock on the door. 

On the first drive, the Giants got down to the Commanders’ 8-yard line behind Wilson’s generous arm that found multiple pass catchers and a couple of beneficial penalties. Then, the mishaps kicked in with two negative plays, three incompletions, and a nearly lost fumble that stopped them at the Commanders’ 2-yard line and forced them to settle for one of two field goals by Graham Gano on the day. 

The second drive came in the fourth quarter with the Giants already down 21-6 and running out of time to catch up with the Commanders’ offensive efforts. They moved the football 62 yards in softer coverage and drew another huge penalty on Washington, but stalled once again with four straight incomplete passes that finished off the defeat. 

On the season, the Giants own the league’s 23rd-ranked scoring offense despite scoring 34 total touchdowns. However, the element that is weighing that number down is their red-zone scoring percentage, which sits No. 29 in the NFL through 13 games at 47.6% of their trips ending in an end-zone finish. 

It hasn’t helped that they’ve also struggled to convert third- and fourth-down plays similarly, but the Commanders’ defense has grown softer in that area as the season has progressed and injuries have piled on. They join the bottom third of teams and have let opponents find the endzone at the fifth-best clip in the league in recent weeks. 

Hitting the scoreboard on big plays is always a great thing, and we’ve seen it from the Giants' offense lately. That said, being among the best football teams requires playing one’s best when the defense has its back against the wall, and the Giants need to show they can do that against a weak Commanders defense.

Force Turnovers 

Sep 28, 2025; East Rutherford, New Jersey, USA; New York Giants cornerback Dru Phillips (22) returns an interception as New York Giants safety Dane Belton (24) blocks during the third quarter against the Los Angeles Chargers at MetLife Stadium. | Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images

The Giants' defense might have entered the 2025 season brandishing their newly established “turnover chest,” a concept former defensive coordinator Shane Bowen developed to motivate his unit to get after the football and change the momentum of games with takeaways. 

Since its inception, the Giants’ ballhawks haven’t been able to stuff that chest with too many pigskins this fall. Entering Week 15, the Giants hold just five interceptions, the most owned by slot corner Dru Phillips, and four forced fumbles, with only two turning into a successful recovery. 

To be fair, the Giants have been screwed out of a couple of turnovers in that total by some questionable officiating in some of their recent games. Nevertheless, they spent good money this offseason to bring in some pass disruptors, only to be the 30th-ranked defense in forced turnovers for a slight drop from their 28th standing in 2024. 

With a lack of extra turnovers to help lift the offense with better field position, it’s made the prospect of creating more scoring opportunities more difficult, and that is partly why the Giants, whose defense has a 5.0% turnover rate, also own the 11th-lowest scoring percentage at 9.8% on the season. 

When the Giants have been able to force at least one turnover in the first 13 games, they’ve scored at least 21 points in those games. Two of those five contests saw them force two turnovers, and those two games resulted in their two lonely wins against the Chargers and Eagles, which were also their lowest opponent total yardage outings allowed this season.

In the other three games, the Giants used their turnovers to remain close enough to their opponents that those matchups were interesting in the fourth quarter and only finished as three-point and 10-point defeats, respectively. 

Meanwhile, the visiting Washington Commanders have been among the most generous teams in the league in giving away their offensive possessions. They rank 30th in total turnovers (18) this year, with 10 of them coming in the air on interceptions, and had a streak of seven straight games with at least one mishap, and five of them ended up as at least two-score wins for the enemy. 

A change at the quarterback position hasn’t made their ball protection any better, either. Last Sunday, Marcus Mariota and the Washington offense coughed up the football three times, with two of them coming from the backup signal caller’s arm, in their brutal 31-0 shutout loss to the Minnesota Vikings, who entered that game off the heels of their own shutout defeat in Week 14. 

As the Commanders have to dig deeper into their depth charts, there could be a deficit of experience that leads to miscommunications and opportunities for the Giants to make plays on the rock that take it the other direction. 

It shouldn’t be a problem moving the ball on a softer secondary, but going off positive field position will only help New York run away with the elusive victory they’ve been missing since Week 6 in their first meeting with the Eagles. 

So, it would be a nice reprieve to the constant criticism that the Giants' defense has been taking for several weeks if they can hunker down at the most important times of the game and perhaps silence the Commanders’ efforts to sweep them with a couple of forced turnovers. 

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