The Giants keep talking about run fits and other technicalities for why they don’t defend the run well. The biggest issue, though, is that they don’t have enough good defensive linemen.
With the bumbling New York Giants on their bye week, this is a good time to go through a position-by-position assessment of the roster. Where have they been good? Where have they been bad? Where do they obviously need help going into 2025?
Some of the answers to where they need help going forward are obvious. Quarterback, defensive line, cornerback, youth on the offensive line roll off the fingertips.
I don’t want this to be a high-level exercise, though. I am often asked to assess Joe Schoen’s job as general manager. We now have three years of evidence with which to try and answer the question “What kind of job has Schoen done as Giants GM?”
I am going to try and provide as much context to that as I can. As such, I will be doing separate posts on each position. I am not only going to look at what each position is this year. I am going to look at the decisions Schoen has made throughout his tenure — good and bad — that have led to each position group being in whatever state it is currently in.
Because I have written a ton about Daniel Jones and the quarterback situation recently, I am going to let the offense marinate for a bit and start on the defensive side of the ball.
Defensive line
Current roster: Dexter Lawrence, Rakeem Nunez-Roches, Armon Watts, D.J. Davidson, Elijah Chatman, Jordon Riley
Players drafted since 2022: Davidson (Round 5, 147th, 2022); Riley (Round 7, 243rd, 2023)
Biggest free agent acquisitions: Nunez-Roches (2023); A’Shawn Robinson (2023)
Biggest losses: Leonard Williams (2023 trade to Seattle Seahawks); Robinson (2024 free agency)
Dexter Lawrence, through his own talent and hard work along with the coaching genius of the great defensive line coach Andre Patterson, has become a monster who terrorizes quarterbacks and offensive linemen like no other interior defensive lineman in the game.
The players around Lawrence, the other hand-in-the-ground interior defensive linemen, have not done much to help him in 2024.
The Giants have had the league’s most porous defense against the run this season, giving up a league-worst 5.3 yards per attempt. The New Orleans Saints (5.1) are the only other team giving up at least 5.0 yards per rush.
The Giants have never been good defending the run during the Schoen era, as neither the defenses coordinated by Wink Martindale for two seasons nor Shane Bowen this year have been even average in that department.
In 2023, the Giants allowed 4.7 yards per rushing attempt, 31st. In 2022, the 5.3 yards per attempt they surrendered was also 31st.
Run defense requires a team effort. It requires the support of the edge defenders, off ball linebackers, cornerbacks, and safeties. It starts, though, with the ability or inability of the hand-in-the-ground interior defensive linemen to control the line of scrimmage.
Schoen has not put many resources into the defensive line.
He traded Leonard Williams in 2023, knowing that he did not want to sign a 30-year-old defensive lineman to the kind of rich contract the Seattle Seahawks gave Williams (three year, $64 million, $43.85 million guaranteed).
On its face, that was a good decision. Schoen took the second-round pick he got as part of the Williams trade — and the financial savings — and turned that into edge defender Brians Burns. Thus, he turned a 30-year-old lineman past or nearly past his best seasons into a 26-year-old edge defender in his prime.
That’s the good part.
The bad part is that Williams had been Lawrence’s defensive line running mate for several seasons. Schoen has done nothing to supplement the losses of Williams via trade and A’Shawn Robinson via free agency.
Jordan Phillips was signed in free agency, but the fading veteran defensive tackle was traded to the Dallas Cowboys before the season even started. He was so bad in two games for Dallas that the Cowboys invented an injury to put him on IR. Phillips is now back with the Buffalo Bills.
The only additions to the defensive line this season have been undersized undrafted free agent Elijah Chatman, who played just five snaps Sunday vs. Carolina, and veteran Armon Watts, added to the roster during the season. Despite losing Williams and Robinson, Schoen did not make a significant addition via free agency or the draft.
Knowing that, the defensive line was always likely to be an issue in 2024.
In three drafts, Schoen has selected only D.J. Davidson in Round 5 in 2022 and Jordon Riley in Round 7 in 2023. Davidson has done little in three seasons and Riley has played 35 snaps this season and has been inactive the past three games.
Verdict
Schoen has not done enough to fortify this position. The Giants almost always get taken advantage of when Lawrence is on the sideline, and sometimes even when Lawrence is in the game. Good teams build solid, deep defensive line rotations. The Giants don’t have one.
