Giants vs. Saints: Can the Giants’ defense slow down Alvin Kamara?

The New York Giants return home in Week 14 to host the New Orleans Saints.

This is a battle between two injury-ravaged and disappointing teams who aren’t going anywhere this year.

In particular the Saints’ offense and the Giants’ defense have been hit hard and often by injuries. The Saints have lost most of their wide receiving corps, while the Giants just lost their best player in defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence. In just a hint of good news (for them, anyway), the Saints still have Alvin Kamara.

This is, in all likelihood, going to be a very run-heavy game. Do the Giants have a hope of holding up against the run without Lawence?

Stats that matter

Who will catch the ball?

The Saints’ offense has been hit incredibly hard by injury this year, which is part of the reason why they’ve fallen off so dramatically from how they started the year. They’ve lost three of their top five receiving options to injury coming into this week.

Wide receivers Chris Olave and Rasheed Shaheed are both on the injured reserve. Olave suffered his second concussion of the year back in Week 9 and will be out until at least Week 15, while Shaheed is recovering from meniscus surgery. The team has also lost Taysom Hill to a torn ACL, further limiting their options through the air.

That leaves 2018 5th round pick Marquez Valdes-Scantling, 2018 sixth-round pick Cedrick Wilson as the starting wide receivers, with 2022 UDFA Kevin Austin Jr. and 2024 UDFA Mason Tipton also in the mix.

All told, the Saints’ currently active receivers have a total of 58 targets between them and none ranks higher than seventh overall among the Saints’ most targeted receivers. Of the Saints’ active receivers, Valdes-Scantling might be the biggest threat. The veteran receiver has only been a member of the Saints for four games after being signed on October 22nd. And while he’s only been targeted 11 times over those four games, he has 7 first downs and 4 touchdowns, both of which lead the Saints’ available wide receivers. In fact, his 4 receiving touchdowns actually leads all of their pass catchers.

It wouldn’t be a surprise to see the veteran get a bigger role in the offense this week as he gets more comfortable in the offense and their options dwindle.

They could also be getting some small reinforcements back in the form of 2024 fifth round pick Bub Means. Means has been on the injured reserve with a high ankle sprain, but the Saints opened his 21-day practice window this week. The that would only add 15 more targets to the total, only one of which came from Derek Carr.

If the Saints want to move the ball through the air, they’ll likely be forced to do so with their tertiary receiving options like Juwan Johnson and Foster Moreau. The Saints have used a high rate of 12-personnel sets, with Moreau playing 70% of the possible snaps and Johnson playing 60 percent of the possible snaps.

Both tight ends are athletic, with Johnson turning a 4.58-second 40, while Moreau runs in the mid-4.6’s. Neither is particularly big, topping out at 6-foot-4, but they’re versatile and able to contribute in multiple areas and in multiple phases of the game. They should provide a challenge for the Giants’ second level defenders and will be legitimate threats in the red zone.

Of course, the name not mentioned yet is — by far — the most significant threat on the offense: Alvin Kamara. Kamara is the Saints’ leading receiver in targets, catches, and is their leader in total touchdowns. He might not be quite the terror he was earlier in his career, but Kamara is still the straw that stirs the drink on the Saints offense (particularly this year) and he’s having his best season since 2020.

Slow down Alvin Kamara

All due respect to Derek Carr, Kamars is the single most important part of the Saints’ offense. Just how important? Of the Saints’ 70 offensive plays, Kamara was on the field for 60 of them. And of those 60 snaps, the ball went his way on 29 plays — in other words, the ball went his way just under half of the time it could, and 41.4% of the time overall.

Not only is much of the Saints’ offense schemed around ways to get Kamara the ball, he is also the player whom Derek Carr looks for when in trouble. Kamara is rarely used as a pass protector, but is instead sent out on routes in scat protection. The Saints — rightly — believe that Kamara would be wasted as a blocker compared to what he can do with the ball in his hands.

Kamara is obviously a threat as a receiver. He’s slowing down a bit in his age 29 season, but he’s still a quick, twitchy athlete with explosive acceleration when he sees daylight. However, his average depth of target on the season is just 0.4 yards downfield, and he averaged -4.5 yards behind the line of scrimmage in Week 11 and 0.2 yards past the line of scrimmage in Week 13.

This might change given the losses to the rest of the Saints’ passing attack, but based on recent history, stopping Kamara as a receiver is a matter of playing downhill and swarming to the ball.

Stopping Kamara as a runner is another matter.

The Saints’ run game isn’t particularly complex or overly diverse — mostly because it doesn’t have to be. Their schemes are well-suited to their personnel and they execute those schemes well. The Saints’ running game is primarily based around zone blocking schemes, split between inside and outside zone, with some pin and pull schemes added in as well.

The right side of their offensive line is particularly potent in the running game. The trio of (former Giant) Shane Lemieux at center, Cesar Ruiz at right guard and Trevor Penning at right tackle is effective at moving defenders off the ball.

Like the song says, we’ll start at the very beginning, it’s a very good place to start. And it just so happens that the Saints started the game with a run to the right.

The Saints start the game with some good ol’ power football, lining up in a Power I formation with 22-personnel (2 RB, 2 TE) on the field. They run a pretty simple outside zone to the right, behind Lemieux, Ruiz, Penning, and TE Foster Moreau.

The lateral blocking stresses the Rams’ defense, forcing them to flow to the sideline in an attempt to string the run out. The center and right tackle are able to account for the 1-technique and 5-technique, respectively. That allows Ruiz (51) to release to the second level while the tight end and fullback account for the edge defender and cornerback.

Between the effective blocks and lateral flow of the play, Kamara has multiple rushing lanes available to him. He sees the cornerback get picked up at the second level and angles to run behind that block, which nets him 12 yards to start the game.

Outside of simply stressing defenses to create holes for Kamara, they also use their play design to create a numbers advantage on the play side.

Here we see another run to the right, this time for 13 yards. The Saints line up with a relatively balanced formatio. The Rams use an unbalanced defensive front that weights the defensive line to the right of the center. At the start of the play, their alignment gives them a 5-to-4 advantage in blockers on the right side. That’s solid call and should allow them to deal with a run to that side. However, the Saints account for that (potentially) unblocked defender by pulling their left guard around ahead of the play. He blocks edge defender Byron Young, while the wide receiver comes across to block free safety Jaylen McCollough. That creates a nice rushing lane for Kamara, which he takes advantage of.

We could see the Saints make heavier use of pulling guards in this game, taking advantage of Dexter Lawrence’s absence to free up potential pullers and attack the edges of the Giants’ defense.

Can the edge defenders step up?

The Giants will be without Lawrence for the remainder of the season.

That kind of loss would be a massive blow to pretty much any defense in the NFL. However, life goes on and there are games that still have to be played. So it falls to edge defenders Brian Burns and Kayvon Thibodeaux to pick up as much of the slack as they can. They obviously can’t replace Lawrence’s presence in the middle of the defense. They can’t be that rock in the middle of the defense, nor can they fill (or attack) interior gaps. However, they can combine to set a firm edges, either stringing runs out to the sideline or forcing them back inside.

Fans have soured on Thibodeaux, however he has quietly been playing well since returning from Injured Reserve. He’s become a solid run defender and does a good job of controling blockers and disengaging to make a play on the ball carrier. He has also become more consistent as a pass rusher — even if the box score production has yet to follow. Thiboeaux had 2.0 sacks and four quarterback hits in the three weeks before going on the injured reserve. He’s also had six pressures over the last two weeks, and has the fastest time to pressure (2.58 seconds) of his career, per NFL NextGenStats.

Also, per NextGenStats, Thibodeaux has spent the majority (78.2%) of his snaps at right defensive end. Assuming that trend continues, he’ll likely be matched up against rookie left tackle Taliese Fuaga. Fuaga has been excellent this year and allowed one of the lowest pressure rates among left tackles in the NFL. Fuaga’s play isn’t exactly surprising, as he was our OT1 in the 2024 NFL Draft. This should make for a fascinating match-up and one of the keys to the game.

Brian Burns might actually have the easier matchup on the other side, at least from a pass rush perspective. Right tackle Trevor Penning is massively strong and a good run blocker, but he has struggled somewhat when pass blocking. He’s given up 30 total pressures in 451 pass blocking reps, per Pro Football Focus.

The Giants’ secondary should be able to deal with the Saints wide receivers. However, Kamara, Juwan Johnson, and Foster Moreau could still combine to be a significant problem. The team will need their edge defenders to apply pressure to get the ball out of Carr’s hand to help the coverage over the middle. Likewise, they’ll need to hold up on the edges to allow the linebackers and safeties to flow to the ball.

Will they be able to? That’s another matter, but the Giants are counting on them to do so.