Are the New York Giants Really About to Do This?

The New York Giants entered the 2026 NFL campaign widely viewed as sleeper playoff contenders. Now, they can basically salt away the NFC East as early as Week 10.

The Giants will enter their Thursday night matchup with the Washington Commanders holding a two-and-a-half game lead over the Dallas Cowboys for first place in the division, and New York currently holds the tiebreaker over the Cowboys.

A win would improve the Giants to 6-2-1, and Dallas would then face an essential must-win scenario against the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday.

New York already buried the Philadelphia Eagles with its win at Lincoln Financial Field last weekend, dropping the Eagles to 2-7 and forcing them to sell at the NFL trade deadline.

Should the Giants beat the Commanders, Washington would fall to 2-6-1, and its season would be all but over.

Yes, New York has a brutal schedule the rest of the way, but so does the rest of the division, and it would take a monumental collapse on the part of the Giants to lose their grip on what would be their first NFC East title since 2011-12 — the last year New York won a Super Bowl.

The fact that the Giants are in this position without Jaxson Dart and Brian Burns is incredible. Dart went down with a season-ending knee injury five quarters into the campaign. Burns then suffered a year-ending knee injury the following week.

New York traded for J.J. McCarthy in late September, and now, the former top-10 pick is potentially going to be the quarterback to lead the Giants to their first home playoff game in 15 years.

What a wild, wild run it has been.

The John Harbaugh effect has been palpable in the Big Apple, and it is resulting in New York clearly overachieving. But the Giants will gladly take that.

It's pretty obvious that this team is still rife with holes. The running game is shaky, the wide receiver depth is lacking, the offensive line is not as good as expected, the interior defensive line is thin and the secondary feels like it's taped together.

Nevertheless, New York is finding a way to win games, something it has not done consistently for well over a decade.

And now, just across the halfway point of the 2026 season, the Giants can put so much distance between them and the rest of the division that you would need a Hubble telescope to see the other three teams.

Are the G-Men really about to do this?