As has been the case in recent weeks, the Giants find themselves in another situation with playoff implications on Sunday night in Washington D.C. Unlike in recent matchups, maybe Big Blue can avoid another loss (or tie). To do that, quarterback Daniel Jones will have to do something he’s never done as a pro football player.
That’s right — the signal-caller will have to win a prime-time game.
New York will face the Commanders at FedEx Field on Sunday Night Football. It’ll be a rematch of their Week 13 game at MetLife Stadium, which ended in a 20-20 tie.
Jones has played in 51 NFL games since getting drafted in 2019. He’s 19-21-1 on Sundays, 0-6 on Mondays, and 0-4 on Thursdays. However, since one of those Thursday games was New York’s recent Thanksgiving afternoon loss to the Dallas Cowboys, Jones’ career record in prime-time games stands at 0-9.
Sunday night will be the second time the Giants get this special treatment in 2022. The first one came in Week 3 at home against the Cowboys on Monday Night Football. Obviously, that ended in a loss.
Big Blue surprised everyone with a fast start this season, winning six of its first seven games. But the second-half tailspin has been in full effect so far. Coming out of a Week 9 bye — which was the start of Xavier McKinney’s absence — New York beat the Houston Texans. It was a lot closer than it needed to be, though (the final score was 24-16). Brian Daboll’s club has gone winless over the next four games (three losses and that one tie).
Similar to the Giants’ first matchup with the Commanders, this is another good spot for Jones. If there’s any NFC East opponent the signal-caller enjoys facing the most, it’d probably be Washington. Even with the Week 13 tie, Jones is 4-1-1 all-time against the Commanders.
He completed 25-of-31 passes for 200 yards and one touchdown through the air, while adding another 71 yards via 12 rushing attempts a couple of weeks ago. This improved his career numbers against the club to a 70.37% completion percentage on 189 pass attempts, yielding 1,350 yards, 10 touchdowns, and three interceptions.
Can Jones get off the prime-time schneid en route to helping get the Giants back on track? We’ll see.
Matt Musico can be reached at matt.musico@xlmedia.com and you can follow him on Twitter: @mmusico8.
