Giants' new gameplan on defense: 'We've got to simplify'
Cowboys wide receiver CeeDee Lamb catches a touchdown pass in front of Giants cornerback James Bradberry in the first half of an NFL game in Arlington, Texas, on Sunday. Credit: AP/Ron Jenkins
Patrick Graham seems to have hit a tipping point.
After the Giants allowed the Cowboys to have their most prolific and balanced game in nearly 40 years – they hadn’t had at least 300 passing yards and 200 rushing yards on the same day since 1983 – the defensive coordinator was blunt about the effort from his unit.
"It’s unacceptable, period," he said. "It’s unacceptable … When you give up 500-plus yards, that’s not usually winning football, so it’s completely unacceptable. Completely unacceptable."
What he and the players do about it on Sunday will go a long way toward determining how the rest of their season plays out. A team that thought it could be carried by a productive defense has instead been hampered by its inability to make stops in spite of a number of players returning to a familiar scheme. That recognition was supposed to allow the Giants to do more schematically, play beyond the 101 level of this playbook. Instead, Graham said he will try dialing back the rigors of the calls.
"We’ve got to simplify," he said. "How can I make it so we’re playing faster, we’re playing with confidence and everything? To me, it’s the simpler we can make it."
That this rebranded, reconstructed, remedial philosophy will be employed against the Rams, one of the most dynamic and complex offenses in the NFL with Sean McVay on the sideline on Sunday, may actually be one of those so-crazy-it-might-work practices that seem illogical. The Giants hope so, anyway.
Certainly the old way of doing things wasn’t working for them. The Giants are 29th in the NFL in yards allowed (408.6 per game), 22nd in passing yards allowed (270.2), 27th in rushing yards allowed (138.4) and 26th in points allowed per game (27.8). Only one team, Kansas City, has fewer sacks than them (8.0), and opposing quarterbacks have a 108.5 combined passer rating against them, which ranks 27th in the league. It’s difficult to find anything this defense does well.
Can the Giants turn that around? Against the Rams?
"We’re gonna find out," Graham said. "We’re gonna find out. I mean, we’re going to find out."
Seven times he said that — "We’re gonna find out" — before making the next leap in that thought.
"We’ve got to find out."
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
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