New York Giants: Time to inject even more new blood into defense

. (Photo by Bobby Ellis/Getty Images) /

New York Giants defensive coordinator James Bettcher has done a solid job of digging himself out of an early hole, and putting together a respectable defensive unit with little to work with. He can help himself out more by trotting out a few more younger players, too.

If you haven’t been inspired by the overall improvement from the New York Giants defense since the second half of week three, I’m not quite sure what you’re watching. Sure, the unit got smoked against the Vikings, and has had other moments of weakness- that’s still nothing compared to the first 2.5 games.

Defensive coordinator James Bettcher- someone I’ve been extremely hard on during his tenure- deserves credit for trying different combinations of players and coaxing results out of his very young defense. With that said, it’s puzzling as to why rookies Corey Ballentine and Julian Love cannot find their way onto the field.

35-year-old saftey Antoine Bethea is clearly a shell of himself, yet the over the hill defensive back managed to play a staggering 80 snaps on Thursday (98% total) — that’s unacceptable. I’m not sitting here telling you that converted safety, and fourth-round rookie and 2018 NCAA first-team All American, Julian Love, is the absolute answer at the position, but what I am telling you is that he couldn’t be any worse than Bethea. Couple that with the fact that this is a rebuilding team, and it makes all the sense in the world for Love to find way more than a putrid one snap on defense.

RELATED PRODUCT

New York Giants Holiday Nutcracker /

New York Giants Holiday Nutcracker

Buy Now!

Additionally, sixth-rounder Corey Ballentine wowed just about everyone during training camp in the pre-season. For some reason, the former D-II product cannot work himself into the lineup, either. Ballentine also only played one snap on Thursday, and although Grant Haley is also young himself, it’s gotten tough to watch him be consistently beaten over and over.

Now, part of the reason for this is that Haley is a slot guy, and Ballentine is an outside corner. Still, Bettcher can find ways to mix up the looks and get his best players onto the field. After a promising rookie season, the former undrafted Haley has allowed 23 receptions on 28 targets. For my money, Bethea should be sat down on the bench entirely- that would open up 80 snaps to split between the two young rookie draft picks, alone.

It would be nice to see edge-rusher Tuzar Skipper, acquired off waivers from the Steelers, work himself into the lineup more, as well. Skipper only played two snaps himself, although a lot of that has to do with fellow youngster O’Shane Ximines commanding a large workload (52 snaps), and rightly so. Between Lorenzo Carter, Ximines and Markus Golden, it’s going to be tough for Bettcher to find a way to get Skipper onto the field, but he’s shown that he’s worth a look.

More from GMEN HQ

Last year’s fifth-round draft pick, RJ McIntosh is also a candidate to get an uptick in playing time. After being activated and netting his first career sack against the Vikings in week five, McIntosh surprisingly only played four snaps (5% of the total) against the Patriots. We’re going to need to find out if the former Miami Hurricane is worthy of sticking on our roster sooner rather than later, and it’d be nice to see him get most, if not all, of Olsen Pierre’s 18 snaps (something that should happen now that Pierre unfortunately has a concussion).

I’m not going to lie to you and say that it’s easy to find a way to get so many different young players involved on a team that is still fighting to make a season out of 2019, but it should be Bettcher’s main objective. It serves not only the franchise’s best interests, but his as well – if Bettcher can show that he can get results from late-round young players, it bodes well for him sticking around next year.

Let’s hope as the Giants likely fall out of the playoff picture, that Bettcher and Shurmur realize the best thing to do here is to get the young guys as much experience as possible.

Home/NY Giants News