What started as a promising 2026 season with a Week 1 win over the Cowboys has quickly turned into a nightmare for the Giants. Jaxson Dart, coming off an encouraging start to a big second season, left the game on Monday night following a knee injury after just seven snaps. It turns out it was worse than initially expected, and he’ll now miss the rest of 2026.
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This not only makes the Giants’ outlook murky for the rest of the season, but it also clouds next offseason. Has Dart shown enough in what’s ultimately a limited sample to no-doubt walk into 2027 with him as your unquestioned starter? I’m generally Dart-positive but I’m not sure we have a clear answer on that, and I’d be shocked if a coaching staff that didn’t draft him doesn’t feel some uncertainty, now and in the future.
As for the rest of this season, the Giants are in big trouble. Fantasy gamers will likely remember Jameis Winston’s various scam production moments as a relief starter, most recently with the 2024 Cleveland Browns. I’m not sure if this version of Winston or the Giants offense can be one of those units. Winston looked like a player who spent all offseason as a content creator, not preparing to be a 15-game starter in the NFL. He completed zero passes of 20-plus air yards in Week 2 and had the ball die on him in the air. To be fair, he wasn’t prepared to play significant snaps — not a savory note for a backup — and the Rams provide a tough defensive challenge. Yet, we should still be skeptical about Winston captaining a run-first, bully-ball offense that John Harbaugh and co. likely want to operate with in New York.
I’d feel more confident about the proceedings if Malik Nabers was 100% healthy; he’s objectively not right now. Not only is Nabers clearly still working his way back from his knee injury, he also had his shoulder act up on Monday night.
The contact looked quite mild in the moment against a Rams defender but this is an issue Nabers has been dealing with dating back to his early collegiate days. It’s not the first time this has flared up at the NFL level. This is merely reckless speculation on my part but you have to wonder: if the season goes south in New York with Winston at quarterback, does Nabers eventually shut it down to fix this long-term shoulder irritation, rehab from his knee injury and just return as his best self in 2027?
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Nabers being compromised is a significant issue for the Giants because not only is he a near-elite player at his best, the dropoff from him to WR2 is steep. Darnell Mooney leads the team in routes run but has only been targeted on 8.8% of those patterns. I like rookie Malachi Fields but he’s a blend between a dirty work power slot and downfield ball-winner, not a true high-volume option just yet.
Tight end Isaiah Likely has 18 targets through two weeks and, with the lowest air yards per target figure (6.4) among the main pass-catchers, is the most likely option to be able to survive inevitable volatility with Winston starting. I’d posit that he’s still a fringe TE1 given the current landscape. Even on plays with Nabers on the field, Likely has been targeted on 33% of his routes — that jumps to 35% on plays with Winston in Week 2.
In the backfield, Skattebo has become a bit less secure as a fantasy play even before the Dart injury, and I can’t convince myself this helps matters. While Skattebo holds a 67% share of the running back touches, he only maintains a narrow lead on Devin Singletary (31 to 25) in routes run and has one fewer target. He also lost some touches inside the five-yard line to Najee Harris. Skattebo needs to be a true workhorse to be anything more than a boom-or-bust RB2 on a suddenly shaky offense. So far, he’s not.
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For the second consecutive season, Jayden Daniels has now dislocated his left elbow. The team is still weighing its options when it comes to the length of his absence but he will miss multiple weeks, at best. It’s an unbelievably bad break for a team that once had all the hope in the world thanks to Daniels amid an NFC Championship Game run during his rookie season.
The good news for those invested in the offense is that Marcus Mariota is one of the league’s best backup quarterbacks. Since 2024, Mariota’s 7.51 adjusted yards per attempt ranks top-15 at the position, sandwiched between Justin Herbert and Dak Prescott. His 48% dropback success rate is just a tick off Jayden Daniels’ 48.8%. This is a new offensive attack, in theory, under David Blough, but they still rank 29th in under-center rate and fifth in rate of plays with three or more wide receivers on the field. Washington remains in the shotgun spread world that Mariota has always functioned well within.
Mariota starting isn’t the worst news in the world for the playmakers and he even has good history with Terry McLaurin. However, McLaurin has been ceding priority looks to Stefon Diggs. McLaurin has been targeted on 18.8% of his routes to 31% for Diggs. Rookie Antonio Williams has also been eating into the passing distribution, with 43% of snaps to date. He needs more reps, not less, based on his tape. That makes McLaurin’s weekly volume difficult to trust.
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McLaurin was a hair away from a monster game in Week 2 with a few narrow misses at the catch point. He may be a buy-low at some point, but with a matchup against the Seahawks, who run cover-six at a league-high rate of 36% of their defensive dropbacks, per Fantasy Points Data, it’s hard to imagine McLaurin getting the vertical targets he needs.
At this point, given their usage and the way Diggs is playing in isolation, he should be the odds-on favorite to lead the team in receiving. I offered this possibility when he was signed, too. Diggs’ Reception Perception charting has been quite consistent from 2024 to 2025 and he’s still operating at that level in Washington. He also runs his routes underneath, in the areas where you can at least access throws against Seattle. I’d bet he gets off to a better start with Mariota under center.
Overall, while Mariota can hold down the fort for the pass-catchers’ value in fantasy, the Commanders offensive line is a mess and the scheme hasn’t quite gelled just yet. I doubt we’ll see the absence of Daniels make any of that better over the course of the next month or so.
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Of the three quarterback injuries we saw in Week 2, it sounds like Caleb Williams’ will be the one that comes with the least amount of games missed. If I were to guess, Williams misses at least Week 3 against the Eagles on Monday night. The big hurdle is that backup Tyson Bagent also entered concussion protocol this week, so QB3 Case Keenum could be in line to start.
The last time we saw Keenum play in the regular season was when he started for the Houston Texans on Christmas Eve in 2023, averaging 3.6 yards per attempt against the Browns. I don’t have to tell you that the 38-year-old veteran drawing a start against the Vic Fangio-constructed Eagles defense would not be ideal.
We already have some usage- and results-questions regarding the Bears’ pass-catchers as it is. Rome Odunze returned to a full-time role after playing sparingly in Week 1, but Colston Loveland was used as a blocker to help out against Brian Flores’ defenses in Week 2 and Luther Burden III isn’t playing enough outside of three-receiver looks.
I am still quite high on this Bears offense over the course of the season and generally believe in all three of these young players. Burden’s usage is the most troubling at the present moment but for now, I’m willing to chalk that up to a training camp groin injury forcing a slow start.
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In a few weeks, I’ll want to buy low on the pieces of this unit. For Week 3, with a backup quarterback one way or another, I’m not sure any of these guys will be anything more than a volatile FLEX option.
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