To blitz or not to blitz? That is the question for Giants DC Shane Bowen

He’d rather not, but it depends on the opposing quarterback

During the New York Giants’ 1-3 start to the 2024 season, most of the hand-wringing has been over the anemic offense. However, there is concern over the defense as well. It’s probably not a coincidence that the Giants’ lone victory this season came in the game in which the defense played its best so far:

Courtesy of Pro Football Focus

As I discussed in my previous post about Pro Football Focus grades for the Dallas game, there are times when PFF grades mystify me as much as they often do many of you. The numbers above, though, don’t seem out of place. The Giants victory in Cleveland coincided with their best pass rush grade of the season. The hard numbers bear this out as well:

Courtesy of Pro Football Reference

Sacks, yards lost on sacks, yards per pass attempt, completion rate, and passer rating were all the best of the year in that game (although the rush defense was good as well). Maybe that’s just because Deshaun Watson now seems to be a shell of his former shelf. It might, though, also have something to do with the aggressiveness of the defense called by coordinator Shane Bowen.

Bowen did not have a reputation at Tennessee of being a defensive coordinator who likes to blitz. In his three seasons there, the Titans blitzed 21% of snaps (28th in the NFL), 18% (26th), and 22% (23rd). Compare that to previous defensive coordinator Wink Martindale, who blitzed 40% and 45% of the time in his two seasons, the most and second-most in the league, respectively.

Thus far this season, though, Bowen has blitzed on 32% of defensive snaps, fifth-most in the NFL. It has varied week to week according to the quarterback he is facing, and its effectiveness has varied game to game as well:

Courtesy of Pro Football Focus

There’s not much evidence that blitzing has been effective in the Giants’ first four games. Four of the six TDs passes they have surrendered came on plays where they blitzed. Sam Darnold, Jayden Daniels, and Dak Prescott completed almost every pass they threw when blitzed. There are differences in the PFF passing grades between blitz and no blitz dropbacks, but none of the opposing QBs were significantly worse when blitzed than when not, and a couple were noticeably better (Daniels, Prescott). Watson did have a poor completion percentage when the Giants blitzed. I didn’t show sacks, but there was no big tendency for sacks to come on plays when the Giants blitzed vs. when they didn’t.

Bowen’s problem is that the Giants’ defensive line has not gotten much pressure on its own this season. Virtually every quarterback in the game performs worse under pressure than from a clean pocket, as we’ve discussed before. Bowen wants his DL to do that job, not his linebackers and defensive backs. He’s between a rock and a hard place when the defensive line is not getting the job done because blitzing compromises pass coverage.

I also show above the season stats for Daniel Jones and for Geno Smith, the next quarterback who will face the Giants. Neither of them is adversely affected by the blitz. Smith has almost identical stats with or without a blitz, and Jones’ three interceptions have all come on plays he was not blitzed. Given the Seahawks’ dangerous receiving corps, we might guess that Bowen will play things pretty straight next Sunday and only show the occasional blitz. ‘Tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slants and digs of Tyler Lockett and Jaxson Smith-Njigba in Cover 4 than to take arms against a sea of DK Metcalf go routes in Cover 0.

Does that mean the Giants should never dial up a lot of blitzes? It depends on the opponent. Here are the PFF season passing grades for other quarterbacks the Giants will face the rest of the season whom they have not yet faced (assuming that these are the starters by the time they play):

Courtesy of Pro Football Focus

We might predict that Bowen will dial up blitzes most often against Kirk Cousins, Derek Carr, Andy Dalton, Lamar Jackson, and Anthony Richardson, all of whom have performed noticeably worse when blitzed this season. What do these QBs have in common? Cousins, Carr, and Dalton are seasoned veterans who you’d think should see a blitz coming and would exploit it to hit an open receiver. They are also fairly immobile quarterbacks, though, and perhaps a blitz that gets home quickly can disrupt them more than is the case for more mobile QBs like Jalen Hurts, Baker Mayfield and Justin Fields. In the Giants’ 2022 playoff win in Minesota, Cousins actually had a higher PFF passing grade when blitzed than when he wasn’t, but both of his TD passes in that game came on plays he wasn’t blitzed. Perhaps post-Achilles tear Cousins is more susceptible to the blitz.

Anthony Richardson is a very inexperienced, raw quarterback, and thus it may not be a surprise that with his limited playing time (due to injuries) he has not yet mastered how to exploit blitzes. The exact opposite of that is Joe Burrow. Burrow is not very mobile, but he has a reputation for standing in the pocket in the face of pressure and not fleeing the rush. That shows in the table above in his similar blitz and no-blitz grades. It may also show, though, in the number of injuries he’s had in his career.

That leaves Lamar Jackson. I can’t imagine why he’s affected as much as he is by blitzes given his great escapability. It wasn’t true last year, but it’s been a factor in his other seasons.

The overall sense, though, is that we may see Shane Bowen be aggressive selectively in certain games, but in others – like this coming Sunday – he’ll be forced to just cross his fingers and hope he can get pressure by rushing four. That hasn’t been a formula for success so far this season for the Giants.