NY Giants should bench these players as season’s second half begins

Oshane Ximines and Lorenzo Carter:

With the great play of Azeez Ojulari, alongside the emergence of Quincy Roche. The NY Giants need to end the era of Lorenzo Carter and Oshane Ximines.

Ximines was already benched against the Raiders, inactive as a healthy scratch, and that should continue.

Both Carter and Ximines have been playing poorly all year. With Carter only putting up a measly 20 combined tackles, zero sacks, one QB hit, and one tackle for loss in seven games.

In the games he has played, Carter has appeared in 64% of defensive snaps. For the amount he plays this is unacceptable.

Ximines on the other hand has tallied 12 combined tackles, 0 sacks, 0 tackles for loss, and 2 QB hits in 8 games. He has played 33% of defensive snaps in these games. Ximines will likely not be seeing the field much anymore regardless, registering as a healthy scratch in last weeks game against the Raiders.

This is likely due to an offsides penalty Ximines obtained after a crucial interception made by the NY Giants late in the game against the Chiefs 2 weeks ago.

Neither of these players are playing at an even decent level and it is time to give other players a chance. The players who are most likely to replace Ximines and Carter are rookies; Ojulari and Roche.

Ojulari has been nothing short of spectacular this season.

Tallying 25 combined tackles, 5.5 sacks, seven QB hits, six tackles for loss, and 13 pressures in 65% of the defensive snaps this season. There are no more excuses for him to not be the NY Giants’ number one edge rusher on the team. Ojulari has played about the same percentage of snaps as Lorenzo Carter and has him beat in nearly every defensive metric.

Quincy Roche has just recently begun to break out, but he looks great so far. Roche has only played in 6 games so far this season, and out of these 6 games he has only played over 23 snaps in two of them.

In the games he started on the edge and produced. Tallying seven tackles, one sack, one tackle for loss, three QB hits, and a forced fumble.

In Roche’s biggest game against the Raiders he played huge, getting a big sack at the end of the game in which he forced a fumble on Derek Carr. This sealed the game for the NY Giants. In this week Roche as graded as the 6th best pass rusher in the entire NFL. Not bad for a 6th round pick.

Both Azeez Ojulari and Quincy Roche have outplayed Lorenzo Carter and Oshane Ximines all year. If the NY Giants want to attempt to have a successful pass rush it is time to make a change and bench Carter and Ximines.