Giants at Steelers, Week 8: What to expect when the Steelers have the ball

Can the Giants’ defense keep playing well against the Russell Wilson Steelers?

The New York Giants will travel to the City of Bridges to take on the Pittsburgh Steelers on Monday Night Football to cap Week 8.

The Giants enter this week as 6.5-point underdogs on the road in primetime after their 28-3 beat-down at the hands of the Philadelphia Eagles. The Steelers, meanwhile, are coming off a strong 37-15 win over the New York Jets. Steelers’ head coach threw the NFL a curveball last week with the surprise decision to replace Justin Fields with Russell Wilson at the quarterback position.

The decision to start Wilson changes the dynamic of the game considerably, and also changes how the Giants have to defend the Steelers. While Wilson doesn’t have Fields’ arm strength or raw athleticism, he does have a wealth of experience and (at his best) is better passer despite not having an elite arm.

Stats that matter

(It’s worth noting that much of the Steelers’ stats are with Justin Fields under center. They’re not useless after the change, but we have a limited sample size with Wilson at quarterback.)

Stop the run

The voice of Tom Coughlin still echos through Giants stadium. “We’re going to stop the run, and play great defense.”

The Giants have been playing great defense, but they need to work on stopping the run after the Eagles ran for 269 yards in Week 7. Even excepting Saquon Barkley’s 55-yard run, that’s still 214 rushing yards on the day and utterly unacceptable. The presence of Justin Fields (and therefore his rushing ability) has meant that the Steelers have been a more effective running team than passing team this year. However, their effectiveness on the ground remained after the switch to Russell Wilson.

In fact, the Steelers had an 84.2% success rate when starting their series with a run, as opposed to 55.6% when starting with a pass.

That’s a surprising outcome for a couple reasons. First and foremost, Pittsburgh has been dealing with injuries to starters on their offensive line, but we’ll get to that later. Second, while there’s certainly a time and place for leaning on the run, it tends to be most effective to throw early in drives and on earlier downs.

To flatten and simplify things, NFL offenses average 6.1 net yards per attempt and 10.8 yards per completion. By contrast, league-wide, the NFL is averaging 4.5 yards per carry and only one team — the Baltimore Ravens — average more than 6 yards per carry. Viewed through that lens, it makes sense to pass more than run on first down. On average, you’re in a better position for second and third down if you throw than if you run.

However, the Steelers’ offensive line tends to be better at run blocking than pass protecting, and they have a good lead back in Najee Harris.

The Giants’ best bet for slowing down the Steelers’ offense and preventing big plays will be to stop the run early in the series with neutral — or light — boxes. That will allow them to keep more players back in coverage to frustrate Wilson and prevent the Steelers’ receiving options from finding open field.

The Steelers don’t have many dynamic receiving threats, particularly outside of George Pickens and (occasionally) Cordarrelle Patterson. Preventing them from finding one-on-one matchups or the open field will help the Giants put Wilson in long down and distance situations, creating opportunities to rush the passer.

A methodical attack, setting up explosive plays

As mentioned above, the Steelers want to base their offense in the run. They back that up with a methodical passing attack that tries to synergize with the run.

11-personnel three receiver sets are the defacto base formation in the NFL, and the Steelers are no different. However, they also make heavy use of 13-personnel three tight end sets in their offense. Additionally, they iterate on those sets by motioning tight ends into the backfield to play as an H-back or fullback. But while those sets are traditionally thought of as running formations, the Steelers go heavy to run as well as to pass.

This run only goes for a 4-yard gain on the first play of the game. But it does show us how they use Pruitt as a backfield player, effectively morphing from a 13 to 22 personnel set, as well as using Pickens in motion. More importantly, it shows how the Jets react by stacking 8 defenders in the tackle box. This comes back again later in the game when the Steelers use a slightly different 13-personnel set to pass.

In this case, the Steelers use their personnel and formation to help sell the play action. That sucks in the Jets’ defenders as they honor their run fits to the offensive left, creating a huge void for TE Darnell Washington who makes the catch-and-run for 11 yards.

Methodical plays like that help to keep the Steelers’ offense on the field, as well as force the offense to defend the run as well as the short to intermediate area of the field. They also create uncertainty in the defense, because the offense can be throwing or running out of any given personnel set or formation.

That can lead to one-on-one opportunities down the field, which Wilson can exploit for explosive plays.

This play actually immediately preceded the previous play shown. This time the Steelers used a 12-personnel set with two receivers and two tight ends. They initially appear to only run 3-man route concept out of play-action, only to have the running back Jaylen Warren and both tight ends run routes when the Jets only send four rushers.

Wilson identifies the one-on-one matchup on Pickens, and gives one of the best contested catch receivers in the NFL a chance against Brandin Echols.

All told, the Steelers had five explosive plays against the Jets — four passes and a run — their most in a single game since 2015. First and foremost, the Giants need to keep the Steelers out of the end zone, because their own offense probably can’t keep up in a shootout. But they also need to limit those explosive plays and make Pittsburgh work for every inch. That will give their pass rush as many opportunities to create havoc as possible, and perhaps force Wilson to make bad decisions out of frustration.

Attack the interior

If there’s one area where the Giants have a clear and decisive advantage over the Steelers, it’s on the interior of the offensive line.

The presence of Dexter Lawrence gives the Giants an advantage over almost every interior offensive line they face, but a cohesive offensive line group can work together to mitigate a great defender. However, the Steelers don’t have a perfectly cohesive offensive line right now. They’re without rookie center Zach Frazier, who was playing at a very high level before he suffered an ankle injury in Week 6. The Steelers are also without guard Nate Herbig, who was set to be their starter before being lost for the season to a torn rotator cuff.

The Steelers are also starting 2024 fourth-round pick Mason McCormick at right guard.

The Steelers’ offensive line hasn’t played poorly, all things considered. They were able to (more or less) hold up against a talented Jets’ defensive front that boasts Quinnen Williams, Leonard Williams, Solomon Thomas, and Javon Kinlaw. But this is the kind of circumstances upon which the Giants have feasted all year long. Reserve center Ryan McCollum didn’t have a great game, but he played relatively well against elite competition in his first regular season action since 2021. He’s quick off the ball and is able to create movement when he gets to the second level.

That said, the Giants excel when mixing pressure, simulated pressure, and stunts along the line of scrimmage.

The Giants will attempt to use their post-snap coverage rotations and pattern match rules to slow down Russell Wilson’s process. That will give the Giants time for their pass rush to develop, and they need to prioritize attacking that inexperienced C/RG combination. As of this writing, we don’t know how much the Giants will get from Lawrence — or Brian Burns, for that matter. They can’t depend on Lawrence to be a one-man wrecking crew in the middle, and should have a plan in place to get Rakeem Nunez-Roches, Elijah Chatman, D.J. Davidson, and Jordon Riley into the act as well. Chatman, in particular, could be a very useful piece due to his compact frame and rare athleticism for the position. The Giants can use Davidson or Riley as an anvil while Nunez-Roches or Chatman attack into the backfield.

We should expect Wilson to process the Giants’ games along the line of scrimmage quickly, and for the Steelers to have answers built into their plays. However, disruption up front, when combined with swarming play from the secondary, and hustle from the defensive line and linebackers have been the key to the Giants’ defensive success.