Film room: What’s wrong with the Giants’ defense?

Let’s see if we can figure out why the Giants are struggling to stop opposing offenses

Through two games of the season, the New York Giants have allowed the 26th-most yards in the NFL. They rank 28th in rushing defense (yards allowed) and just surrendered 215 rushing yards against Washington, who averaged 6.1 yards per carry. Head coach Brian Daboll spoke about the run defense on Monday:

The Giants’ defense is not on the same page and the lack of depth up-front is a problem. The issues are a combination of scheme and responsibilities accounting for pre-snap movement and how that affects the run-fits and, of course, personnel in key areas.

Washington offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury carved through the Giants’ soft leverage with screen passes that forced the Giants to rally and tackle. New York did not have a cornerback in a press alignment on 72% of the defensive snaps, and most of the press snaps were in the red zone.

New York did not change its alignment to account for Washington’s approach but attempted to attack aggressively downward, which put specific players in a vulnerable position for fakes, as seen in the video below.

Both the Minnesota Vikings and Washington Commanders pounded the rock up the middle when Dexter Lawrence was not on the field. The Giants have a big issue behind Lawrence; Rakeem Nunez-Roches is an adequate depth defensive tackle, but the losses of Leonard Williams and A’Shawn Robinson have shown through two games, especially in this system that burdens the linebackers.

The 2022 Giants’ defense struggled to fit counter run from their TITE fronts in five-man BASE personnel. Bowen’s defense has a different structure up-front, and that structure’s foundation has not solidified. Through two games, the structural integrity of their run fits from a WIDE over or under front have been exposed.

Aaron Jones and the Vikings attacked the aggressive nature of the Giants’ edge defenders by hitting the back-side C-Gap for multiple 10+ yard runs. Washington used pre-snap motion and 3×1 sets to displace the linebackers from the middle of the field, giving the offensive line leverage on their climb.

The more middle-of-the-field-open approach from two-high shells makes the box a bit lighter. Still, that issue could be mitigated with gap-disciplined defense up-front, which the Giants have not consistently received.

A few of Washington’s chunk plays on the ground were just one player’s mistake, but there were also timely play calls by Kingsbury to create HIGHWAYS for his playmakers against the Giants soft-leverage. I detail those plays, and some of the issues in run support below: