The once-proud New York Giants defense is in shambles, and it’s been that way for a few years now. The pass defense, or lack thereof, has been laid bare for all to see in the multitude of fourth quarter leads this team has blown. Against the Lions, though, the run defense said, “Hold my beer,” letting Jahmyr Gibbs run wild, including on the first play of overtime.
The run defense wasn’t the main culprit against the Patriots last Monday, grading just below average for the game (56.9) by Pro Football Focus. That however followed a string of games in which they graded the run D 29.3, 39.6, 40.6, 49.3, 42.1, and 35.6. For the season, the Giants are PFF’s lowest-graded run defense at 40.2. Aaron Schatz, formerly of the now-defunct Football Outsiders, continues to calculate his defense-adjusted value over average (DVOA) metric for FTN. He reports in an article for ESPN that after 12 games, the Giants’ DVOA for run defense was the second-worst of all time in his records going back to 1978.
How did we get to this point? I know your answers: It’s Shane Bowen’s fault. It’s Joe Schoen’s fault. Well, yes, but not solely. This has been a long time in coming. Let’s look at some numbers, both hard-core traditional stats and subjective grades, for the last decade of Giants teams:
Once upon a time, the Giants had one of the best rushing defenses in the NFL. No, not the 2007-2011 glory years. The 2007-2008 teams were stout against the run, but they drifted down to become middle of the pack or worse by the 2011 Super Bowl season. Those Giants teams made their mark on defense with their ferocious pass rush more than anything.
The best Giants run defenses were in the middle/late part of the 2010s. Those were not winning teams except for the 2016 playoff team, but for a number of years they had one of the NFL’s best run defenses. You can see that above both in traditional metrics like rushing yards per attempt and in subjective metrics such as PFF run defense grade. It’s also there to some extent in mixed objective-subjective metrics such as missed tackles (which requires an analyst to judge when a defender should have made a tackle or not) and in stops (an objective calculation but subjectively defined based on the percent of the first down distance a runner gets on first, second, and third downs).
Other than 2017, when there were injuries on the defense and dysfunction in the locker room, the Giants had a five-year stretch in which their defense against the run was one of the best in the NFL. You can see that in rushing yards per attempt as well as PFF run defense grade. It’s easy to understand why when you look at the top five players in tackles on rushing plays (the color coding represents the player’s PFF run defense grade, with blue = 90s, green = 70s-80s). Even in 2017 it was still good in several metrics.
When Jerry Reese was GM, the Giants signed Jets free agent defensive tackle Damon Harrison in 2016. End of story. Snacks was one of the best run defending linemen the league has ever seen for about five years. He thrived under defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo in 2016 and 2017. The Giants had other great run defenders such as Landon Collins, and edge defender Olivier Vernon had a good 2016. In 2017 Reese drafted Dalvin Tomlinson, another really good run defender. Then in 2018 new GM Dave Gettleman drafted B.J. Hill, and the run defense stayed good even though Harrison didn’t get along with the new coaches and was traded to Detroit. Gettleman came back in 2019 to draft Dexter Lawrence with assets acquired in the Odell Beckham trade.
That 2016-2020 stretch spanned three different defensive coordinators – not only Spagnuolo and Patrick Graham, but also the unsuccessful James Bettcher. All of those DCs had different defensive philosophies, yet the run defense was a constant. It all changed in 2021, though, and the Giants’ run defense has been bad ever since.
In 2021 the run defense dropped to 23rd in yards per attempt. Their PFF grade, which had consistently been in the 70s or 80s, plummeted to 47.1, and it has yet to return to its form of the late 2010s. Patrick Graham was still the DC, so what happened? Gettleman had traded with the Jets for Leonard Williams in 2019. 2020 was Williams’ contract year, and he happened to have the best season of his career. What a coincidence. Gettleman wasn’t going to pay both Williams and Tomlinson, and the latter left for Minnesota. That left Lawrence and Williams on the inside without Tomlinson to spell one of them in the A-gap or B-gap. Lawrence and Williams both regressed from their 2020 run defense performance to the lowest of their careers up to that point according to PFF (Lawrence is challenging that low this year). Austin Johnson, signed to replace Tomlinson, didn’t compensate. The other missing piece of course was Blake Martinez, who had the best year of his career in 2020 but whose ACL injury in Game 3 in 2021 effectively ended his NFL career. That’s a reminder that run defense isn’t just a DL issue – off-ball linebackers, and even safeties and slot cornerbacks, are an important part of the equation.
Joe Schoen and Brian Daboll took over in 2022. An important point is that poor run defense is a problem they inherited, but one that may have been seen as an anomaly at the time given the previous five years. In their defense, Gettleman left them with $40M of red ink, so Schoen’s first off-season had to be devoid of major free agent signings. Graham had been replaced as DC by his polar opposite, Wink Martindale. In Baltimore, Wink’s defense was all about pass defense – the defensive line and disguised/simulated pressures by the second and third levels – and elite linebackers were not so much a concern. The Giants got by that season with the likes of Jaylon Smith and a struggling rookie Micah McFadden at inside linebacker. They were stout up front though with Lawrence (who thrived after Andre Patterson’s decision to move him to nose tackkle), Williams, and rookie Kayvon Thibodeaux, who gets too little credit for his run defense. It seemed to work, as the Giants made the playoffs and even won a playoff game. Still, the run defense, now ranked 31st in the NFL in yards per attempt and EPA per rush, had become an even bigger issue.
In 2023, Schoen to his credit signed Bobby Okereke to a $10M per year four-year contract, and it seemed to pan out. Okereke had an excellent 2023 season, matching his best in Indianapolis and exceeding it in some aspects. What Schoen did not do was to draft an IDL on Day 1 or Day 2 for the second consecutive year. In hindsight we can see what a mistake that was. At the time, though, the Giants entered that season anticipating another playoff run, with Lawrence and Williams holding the fort on the IDL. One 40-0 skunking by Dallas and an Andrew Thomas injury later, that season was on its way down the toilet. Lawrence had his best season as a run defender, but once Schoen decided to move Williams for draft capital in a lost season, the middle of the Giants’ DL was hollowed out.
Schoen’s strategy up to this point is defensible. 2024 is not. Having traded Williams, he inexplicably did not draft an IDL on Day 2 of the 2024 NFL Draft, nor did he sign a high-end free agent defensive lineman. Instead he tried to plug the hole with Rakeem Nunez-Roches, signed the previous year, D.J. Davidson, a fifth-round draft pick in 2022, and Jordon Riley, a 2023 seventh-round pick. Surprisingly, the run defense improved somewhat in the midst of a 3-14 season. It went from 31st to 23rd in yards per attempt and 31st to 19th in EPA per rush. The Giants had switched from Martindale to Shane Bowen as defensive coordinator. Maybe Bowen’s defense was easier to play, I don’t know. One thing, though, not a single interior defensive lineman was in the top five in tackles for the Giants last season. The other red flag was that the missed tackle rate per game, which was as low as 3.0 back in 2016, had now crept up to 5.0 per game.
Now in 2025 the bottom has fallen out completely. Rushing yards per attempt are dead last in the NFL. The tackle rate is lower, and the missed tackle rate higher, than at any time in the past decade. The EPA per rush is dead last in the NFL, the PFF run grade is dead last in the NFL (by a lot), and the run stops per game have plummeted to by far their lowest level in the past decade.
Schoen has yet to draft an off-ball linebacker higher than Round 5 in his four years. Compare to Howie Roseman in Philadelphia, who drafted Jihaad Campbell at No. 31 in the first round this year. Until this year, Schoen had never drafted an interior defensive lineman on Day 1 or 2 of the draft. Compare again to Roseman. He drafted Jordan Davis No. 13 in Round 1 in 2022, and when an overweight Davis didn’t justify his high draft slot, Roseman came back the next year and drafted Jalen Carter No. 9. Davis meanwhile has shed some weight and is now an asset in run defense though not so much in pass rush. Oh, and for good measure Roseman drafted defensive lineman Ty Robinson in Round 4 this year.
Schoen finally got that message this year and drafted Darius Alexander near the top of Round 3. Some analysts saw Alexander as a Round 2 value. Alexander has gotten off to a slow start. That’s expected when you take a defensive lineman from the MAC rather than from Georgia, as Roseman did two years in a row. Alexander’s been terrible in run defense so far (28.6 PFF run defense grade, three missed tackles), but he’s also had eight run stops and 11 pressures in the passing game, including 2.5 sacks. Dane Brugler said something interesting about Alexander in his draft profile for The Athletic:
Alexander is rangy defending the run, with the body fluidity and length to displace blocks. He has shown an improved ability to feel the rhythm of blocks to work off contact, but needs to streamline his pass rush with more consistent leverage and sequencing. Overall, Alexander isn’t yet the full sum of his impressive parts, but his blend of power, length and athletic body control give him the makings of a three-down, scheme-versatile NFL starter. He projects best in an attacking role, where he’d be able to maximize his disruptive traits. His peak plays are reminiscent of Leonard Williams.
Interesting comparison. Maybe Alexander will eventually be the answer inside. Maybe not, though, so whoever the Giants’ GM is next spring, they’d better be planning to add a high-level defensive lineman – and a high-level inside linebacker – in either free agency or the 2026 NFL Draft. That won’t solve all their defensive problems, but it will be a start.
It may not be enough, though. If/when the Giants decide to move on from Schoen, it won’t, or at least it shouldn’t, be based on the failures of high draft picks such as Evan Neal, Deonte Banks, and Jalin Hyatt. Every one of those players was considered an appropriate choice where they were drafted by “experts.” That’s just the draft; it truly is a crapshoot. Just ask some of the other teams who have drafted quarterbacks in Round 1 the past two years.
Instead, Schoen’s dismissal will, or at least it should, be based on what can fairly be called his willful neglect of so-called lower-priority positions such as interior defensive line and off-ball linebacker. Those are a good part of the reason why the Giants have give up more than 30 points five times in the last seven weeks, all losses. Taking fliers on those positions on Day 3 of the draft, or signing the occasional low-level free agent, at those positions is fine; making it the cornerstone of your strategy to fill those positions is not.
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