In the Week 10 edition of "Thursday Night Football," the New York Giants play host to the division rival Washington Commanders.

New York enters this game riding high atop the NFC East, having won each of its last two games sandwiching a Week 8 bye. The Giants are surprisingly in the playoff picture in the first year of the John Harbaugh era despite losing starting quarterback Jaxson Dart in Week 2. They recently turned to J.J. McCarthy in place of Jameis Winston but kept on winning.

Washington climbed out of last place in the NFC East thanks to a Week 8 win over the lowly Philadelphia Eagles but still has the second-worst record in the conference. The Commanders missed an opportunity for a win the last time these two teams played by mismanaging the clock as poorly as any team ever has, and they will surely be looking to atone for that mistake here.

Will the Giants keep rolling, or will the Commanders capture a rare victory? We'll find out soon enough. Before we break down the matchup, here's a look at how you can watch the game.

Where to watch Giants vs. Commanders live

  • Date: Thursday, Nov. 12 | Time: 8:20 p.m. ET
  • Location: MetLife Stadium (East Rutherford, New Jersey)
  • Streaming: Amazon Prime
  • Follow: CBS Sports App
  • Odds: Giants -2.5, O/U 40.5 via DraftKings Sportsbook

When the Commanders have the ball

The Commanders are not particularly effective either passing or running the football. They rank 21st in the NFL in net yards per pass attempt (which accounts for yards lost to sacks), and they're 23rd in designed rushing yards per carry, which eliminates scrambling from the picture. Their most effective form of offense is scrambling, where Jayden Daniels and Marcus Mariota have run 29 times for 274 yards — the most scramble yards in the NFL, per Tru Media. But that's not something that you can lean on down-to-down.

Daniels has completed only 63.9% of his passes at an average of 6.9 yards per attempt. While he has seven passing touchdowns and has yet to be intercepted, he has a low passing success rate (43.9%, according to Tru Media), has generated explosives at only an average rate (7.8%) and has struggled on third downs (30.9%). Again, his most effective way of moving the ball has been via the scramble.

The Giants are actually second in the NFL in passing success rate allowed and third in explosives per dropback, according to Tru Media. So Daniels, with his limited receiving corps in the absence of Terry McLaurin, might find it difficult to move the ball through the air. The Giants, though, have been vulnerable to opponent scrambles, allowing quarterbacks to take off downfield on a league-high 23.9% of pressured dropbacks and yielding 225 scramble yards to date. So Daniels could have some room to run.

In the absence of Jacory Croskey-Merritt, the Commies have turned to Rachaad White and Austin Ekeler in the backfield. They have not been particularly effective on the ground, but they're each capable outlet receivers for Daniels, who has targeted backs on 14.4% of his passes, a slightly higher rate than last year (12.8%). Doing so against the Giants may not be the most advisable strategy, though, because it means testing rookie linebacker Arvell Reese in space, and Reese has been a space-eating demon so far this season. 

Daniels' other pass-catchers at the moment are Stefon Diggs, Antonio Williams, Van Jefferson and Chig Okonkwo. The Giants have been good at limiting tight ends over the middle (there's Reese showing up again), so the passing game might run through the perimeter receivers, who will face off with an improved Deonte Banks and the recently-extended Greg Newsome II on the outside. 

Look for Daniels to at least try to test those guys deep down the field, given he has the seventh-highest deep throw rate among qualified quarterbacks. The Giants have faced deep passes at essentially an average rate so far this season, and they've been excellent at defending them, checking in second in EPA per dropback on those plays. Still, dinking and dunking hasn't been all that effective for Daniels and the Commanders, so they're going to have to try to hit on a few big plays.

When the Giants have the ball

The Giants turned to J.J. McCarthy as their quarterback in garbage time of their loss to the Saints back in Week 6, and they have stuck with him over the last two games. 

They've been a somewhat unusual offense with McCarthy under center. McCarthy himself has not been efficient on a down-to-down basis. He's completed only 63.2% of his passes, and he has one touchdown pass and one interception. He checks in 31st in success rate among 37 quarterbacks with at least 75 dropbacks this season, according to Tru Media. 

But McCarthy is averaging 9.1 (!!!!) yards per attempt, and he's 15th among the same group of 37 quarterbacks in EPA per dropback. That's because when he does complete passes, they're basically all going for big gains in big situations. He's throwing the ball farther downfield than anyone in the league (10.6-yard average depth of target), and he's leading the NFL in explosive plays per dropback at 16.0%, per Tru Media. 

The Commanders' defense is essentially the opposite of what McCarthy has done so far. They yield a high passing success rate (21st in the league) but a low explosive rate (11th). The tension between those two poles will be interesting to watch play out on Monday night. 

When McCarthy drops back to pass, he is looking most often to Malik Nabers, who has been the intended receiver on 31.7% of McCarthy's throws. Malachi Fields, not Isaiah Likely, has been the secondary target, with a 20.6% target share compared to Likely's 17.5% rate. Before McCarthy took over at quarterback, Likely tied Nabers for the team lead in target share at 29.4%, compared to just 11.2% for Fields.

Nabers and Fields will do most of their work against Rasul Douglas and Amik Robertson on the outside, while Likely will see a lot of rookie linebacker Sonny Styles, slot corner Mike Sainristil and safeties Jeremy Reaves and Nick Cross. 

The Commanders have not generated very much pressure this season (33.5% of opponent dropbacks, per Tru Media, 25th in the league), while McCarthy has been one of the league's most-pressured quarterbacks since taking over. He tends to hold the ball for a while as he looks to push it down the field. Whether the Commanders can get after him will go a long way toward determining whether he can complete any big plays. 

Cam Skattebo is back for the Giants in this game, and he's likely to take over the lead role from Devin Singletary, who struggled last week and is more suited to being a passing-down back. Skattebo hasn't been very effective as a rusher this season, averaging 4.3 yards per carry with a 45.9% success rate, but he had his best game of the year before sitting out last week after the bye. The Commanders have been solid against the run, yielding only 3.9 yards per carry, with below-average marks both before (1.09) and after contact (2.83). This might be a game where the Giants lean on those big plays from McCarthy.

Prediction

I don't feel particularly comfortable predicting that this Giants team will improve to 6-2-1, but I just don't have much faith this version of Washington can be all that competitive either. The Commanders can't run the ball right now and have to lean on a passing game that hasn't been all that efficient. The Giants haven't exactly looked like world beaters this year (four of their five wins have come in one-score games), and they definitely didn't look great against the Eagles last week, but I think they can get it done on Thursday night. 

Prediction: Giants 20, Commanders 14