Between Brian Burns’ season-ending knee injury and Arvell Reese’s transition to interior linebacker, no one is confusing the New York Giants’ defense with the Monsters of the Midway.
But few expected Dennard Wilson’s pass rush to be this unproductive. The Giants managed eight sacks in their first five games, with three players — Abdul Carter, Tremaine Edmunds, and Dru Phillips — each recording two thus far. The latter two aren’t known for their sack production, and Phillips has already set a career high.
We’ve said enough about Kayvon Thibodeaux’s lack of production, and Reese only has one sack. But the team’s lack of tackles for loss is a far greater issue entering Sunday’s clash with the free-falling Saints.
The New York Giants continue struggling to get tackles for loss
For the unfamiliar, here’s the difference between sacks and tackles for loss. Let’s say Reese stops Alvin Kamara behind the line of scrimmage and forces the Saints to 2nd-and-12. That’s a TFL, and all sacks also count as a TFL.
We bring that up because the Giants have 15 total tackles for loss, tying them with the Rams for third-worst leaguewide. To put it in perspective, the NFL average sits at roughly 23 TFLs.
But of the Giants’ 15 TFLs, only seven aren’t sacks. We’ve heard so much about Thibodeaux’s stellar run defense, but he’s yet to make a stop for negative yardage. Chauncey Golston, who went on IR earlier this week with a neck injury, failed to record a TFL through his first four games.
Burns’ absence has certainly played a pivotal role, as the Giants’ 91 TFLs ranked sixth last year. But pinning the blame solely on their All-Pro sack artist’s injury doesn’t work for us, especially given John Harbaugh’s recent implication that the staff doesn’t trust Thibodeaux to rush the pass.
What’s especially interesting is Wilson spent the previous two years as Tennessee’s defensive coordinator, and the Titans finished above the league average in TFLs both times. However, Wilson the Giants may have cracked the code against Jayden Daniels and the Commanders. SNY reported that Wilson’s unit needed only 2.14 seconds on average to pressure Daniels, and their six TFLs marked a season best.
Reese and Edmunds were the only Giants who sacked the injury-prone Daniels in the controversial tie.
“We would probably consider ourselves a blitzing team, generally, but we want to keep trying to be diverse in what we do,” Harbaugh said Monday.
If diversity breeds more tackles for loss, then the Superdome will have more reason to levy the boo-birds on Tyler Shough and the Saints this weekend.
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