In what would be a snoozer of a game any time before, say, Week 14, today’s matchup between the two teams with the worst records in the NFL held huge implications for each franchise’s future. With a loss today, the Giants could have all but locked up the No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft, but after New York blew out Las Vegas to the tune of 34-10, the Raiders now sit in the driver’s seat heading into the regular season finale. 
It seems only two teams remain eligible to secure the top pick in the league’s next draft, and it’s still the two who played each other today. According to ESPN’s Jordan Raanan, the Giants still hold a 20-percent chance to land the No. 1 overall pick by losing next week, when they host the Cowboys, and seeing Vegas beat the Chiefs. Raanan’s ESPN coworker, Adam Schefter, followed up Raanan’s report to point out the remaining 80 percent of probability belongs solely to the Raiders, who can secure the top pick with a Week 18 home loss to Kansas City.
A couple factors should give New York fans some hope behind their smaller odds. Todd Archer, another contributor at ESPN, reported shortly after the Cowboys’ Christmas Day game that quarterback Dak Prescott has “pride” in starting the final game of the 2025 season, giving the Giants a tougher matchup for the final week of the season. Additionally, the Chiefs offense will be led by QB3 Chris Oladokun after both Patrick Mahomes and Gardner Minshew suffered season-ending ACL injuries.
Working against the Giants’ odds is the fact that the Raiders appear to be self-handicapping their team for what could be an easy matchup against the ailing Chiefs to close out the year. All before the penultimate week of the regular season, the Raiders shut down the seasons of starting offensive guard Jordan Meredith, star tight end Brock Bowers, and starting safety Jeremy Chinn, not to mention star pass rusher Maxx Crosby. Additionally, after starting quarterback Geno Smith left today’s game with an injury, head coach Pete Carroll announced that Smith would miss the team’s regular season finale with a high ankle sprain, per Ian Rapoport of NFL Network.
The move to place Crosby on injured reserve seems especially blatant as Crosby has been banging the table, advocating for himself, wanting to play out the rest of the season. Crosby had started every game this year up until this week despite suffering a midseason knee injury that both player and team have known for a while would require a meniscus trim procedure to repair. Las Vegas made the move to place Crosby on IR yesterday and plan his surgery against the will of the star pass rusher, ending his season and causing him to walk out of the team facility.
Crosby spoke against the transaction, telling the media that he doesn’t care “about the pick” and that his “job is to be the best defensive end in the world.” Crosby even received two alternative medical opinions on his situation, both of which indicated that he could continue to play, provided he could handle any accompanying pain. Seemingly to speak out against his team’s decision and prove he could still play, Crosby posted videos to his Instagram story yesterday that showed him playing basketball and playing with his daughter on a trampoline, activities that would be difficult for someone with a season-ending knee injury.
Regardless, heading into the final week of the regular season, the Raiders will enter a winnable game against an injury-riddled Chiefs squad without Smith, Bowers, Meredith, Chinn, and Crosby, as well as earlier-injured starting offensive linemen Kolton Miller and Jackson Powers-Johnson. The Giants will head into a tough matchup against a favored Cowboys team, but their draft slot will likely be determined by the actions of the Raiders, who seem to unashamedly be aiming for the No. 1 overall pick.