The NFL schedule makers don’t expect much from the 2025 Giants.
They buried Commanders top five MVP candidate Jayden Daniels in a 1 p.m. ET time slot in Week 1 coming off an NFC Championship Game appearance in his rookie year because he’s playing the Giants. Washington is nearly a full touchdown favorite over New York.
And the league kept the Giants’ Week 1 visit to Dallas in the crowded early Sunday window, too, knowing that the Giants were 0-6 in the NFC East last season and haven’t beaten the Cowboys in Arlington, Tex., since 2016.
But Dallas’ trade of star pass rusher Micah Parsons to the Green Bay Packers suddenly has cast this early Giants schedule in a new light, as an opportunity with a potential reward on the other side:
Relevance.
That is something the Giants haven’t had since 2022. They can earn it by upsetting Daniels, one of the NFL’s new young stars, immediately in Week 1.
Daniels not playing in prime time to open the season is really something, considering he and the Commanders as primetime darlings for the NFL’s schedule makers this season after destroying the No. 1 seeded Detroit Lions on the road in last January’s playoffs.
Washington is peppered into all of football’s highest profile TV windows this season: twice on Monday Night Football in October alone, twice on Sunday Night Football, once on Thursday Night Football in Week 2, once on a December Saturday night and again on a Sunday morning from Spain.
In Week 1, however, Washington and Daniels are submarined into the 1 p.m. ET window because they’ve drawn the Giants, who are coming off a 3-14 season, have a head coach and GM on the hot seat and are slated for only three prime time games all year.
Although FOX has placed its lead broadcast team of Kevin Burkhardt and Tom Brady on Daniels’ first game to acknowledge some intrigue, the game is not being treated seriously as a big-time draw on the NFL’s Week 1 marquee.
The Commanders are the only one of the last year’s final four teams not in prime time on opening weekend: the reigning Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles, reigning AFC Champion Kansas City Chiefs and Buffalo Bills are all playing night games.
Washington is also the only one of last year’s final eight teams in the 1 p.m. ET window: the Detroit Lions, L.A. Rams and Houston Texans are all propped up into 4:25 p.m. ET starts.
From the Giants’ perspective, though, it doesn’t matter what time they play this game. What matters is winning it.
Because that won’t just upset the league’s predicted order of things in the NFC East. It will also generate legitimate excitement since the Cowboys just got worse.
Acquiring Green Bay defensive tackle Kenny Clark and two first-round picks does not negate shipping one of the NFL’s most dangerous pass rushers out of town.
What the Giants desperately need to improve is their ability to score points on offense. Parsons’ absence shouDallas elp that.
At the very least, offensive coordinator Mike Kafka doesn’t have to game plan around Parsons the entire afternoon.
And what this means is while the reigning Super Bowl champion Eagles return to the NFC East, this division looks a lot less predictable than it did even a week ago.
Washington has a Week 2 Thursday Night Football road trip to face Parsons and the Packers after hosting the Giants in the opener.
The Cowboys probably are going to be limping into their home opener against the Giants with an 0-1 record after taking on the Eagles in the NFL’s season opener this Thursday Night at Phillly’s Lincoln Financial Field. And Dallas has a rookie head coach in Brian Schottenheimer.
No, the NFL’s schedule makers don’t have high expectations for the Giants in these games. They’re so low, they’re keeping Daniels out of prime time in the league’s grand return to the national spotlight after Labor Day.
Then they’re running the Giants back in the 1 p.m. slot at Dallas in a ‘let’s get this over with’ kind of billing.
But the Giants have every opportunity to announce themselves as real players in their division immediately.
Beating Daniels will make everyone pay attention. And Parsons’ trade out of Dallas means the Giants maybe, just maybe, can upset the NFC East’s order early and turn this season on its head.
