Better Communication, Better Defense? | Giants Week 5 All-22 Film Breakdown

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Download the Game Time app and create an account for $20 off your first purchase. Term Supply. Hey, what do you say, ladies and gentlemen? Dan and I are excited to introduce our Buy Me a Coffee page. We've had a lot of listeners reach out and say, hey there, bub, we really appreciate what you do and want to support the show. Well, here's one way to do that without big corporations taking, I don't know, 30 percent of the cut of your generosity. Just head over to www.buymeacoffee.com/bigbluebanter and chip in if you'd like to support us directly. Every contribution means a lot and it helps keep the show going strong. We appreciate each and every one of you. Thanks for listening and have a lovely day. Welcome back. It's the Big Blue Banter, New York Giants Football Podcast. I'm Dan Schneier. Joined as always by my co-host Nick Falato. Tonight we are here to break down the Giants defense on the All 22 film in Week 5 and their tie against the Washington Commanders. And I'll start by saying this, Nick. It was really almost made me shed a tear watching this game film. Thinking back to watching Shane Bowen, Drop 8, Rush 3, and me feeling the helpless feeling I felt versus what I got here from Dennard Wilson, which was an aggressive game plan that the series of plays after the Giants scored to go 20, 20, 27, 27 to 27, 27. But we've seen so many times, like Week 2 last season, against the Cowboys, the Giants did complete the comeback with the score and then immediately surrendered the field goal by dropping 8 and rushing 3. He said, we're not going to lose that way. And he came together with three straight plays that forced an incomplete pass well off target, a sack and then an incomplete pass well off target. No hope. And then he brought that over to overtime. That wasn't the last zero blitz we were going to see in the game. And even when he wasn't zero blitzing, he was blitzing five and he was sending an extra rusher and he was confusing Jaden Daniels post snap. Plenty of times where I saw them drop six and rush five and just totally, there was nothing available. I couldn't, I lost track on Tate Nick of how many times on this film there was nothing available. They hit a big 23 yarder to jig where they just had that dumb like roll out and he was open. They got us a couple times, but outside a couple in breakers to McLauren and Antonio Williams. But outside of that, dude, this offense and then Jaden runs and two Jacory Kroski merit runs. That's what seven plays I just went over eight plays. Outside of those eight plays, the defense basically won every snap. Yeah, no, it was, it was a progressive performance by the Giants defense and just massive credit to Dennard Wilson. He identified that I can win with man coverage on the back end and I can attack this quarterback and this situation. Specifically, I can attack David Blau, who is a rookie offensive coordinator by bringing the blitz, by dialing up the pressure. Dennard Wilson, he blitzed on 62% of Jane Daniels' dropbacks. I think he blitzed overall on 37% of the plays. 40.5%- That's a lot, 62%. We didn't ever reach that in the Shane Bowen era. No, 40.5% were quick pressures. They blitzed on 23 dropbacks and got a quick pressure on 12 of those. Drew Phillips had 5 quick pressures on 7 of his past rush snaps as a blitzer when they were bringing 5. Drew Phillips looked like a natural rushing the passer too. Massive kudos to Dennard Wilson. There were also twists in games with the end crashing inside. Arbel Reiss looping around to try to get him a free rush. I felt bad for Rashad White, who was one of the better pass protecting backs in the National Football League. He met Arbel Reiss in the hole. At first, you're like, oh, that was a good blitz pickup. But then Arbel Reiss, his power just took over. You just saw Rashad White get bullied on the ground. By that time, Jane Daniels was already getting sacked, I think, by Drew Phillips. But just an impressive game plan of knowing your personnel, understanding the situation, attacking. Look, they got burned a couple of times. We'll go over some of that. But overall, man, I came away just really impressed with Dennard Wilson and what he's able to do with his defense. I cannot believe for two years I covered a Shane Bowen defense. I feel like I'm in such a better place right now. We're in a much better place. The film is more fun to watch. So much more fun. We can die and we will die at some point with this. We're going to get hit with a big play. But I'll give up that one or two or three big plays every once in a while for a series like I saw at 27, 27, 27, because if we don't get that series, the Giants lose this game. And if we don't play that the way we played it, I think Jayden Daniels finds something and picks us apart for first down or two and we lose the game in regulation. I honestly do believe that if we didn't have that exact strategy that he had for those three plays, which I believe two covers, zero looks and one drop, five rush, six or one drop, six, rush, five, I can't remember. We don't win that football game. And throughout the game, he was putting pressure on him. Like you said, early in the game is when Drew Phillips got us two sacks. Earlier in the game is when Phillips, you know, one time where he, I thought he did a great job of disguising at pre-snap, like he was playing press man and then just blitzed off that edge, Drew Phillips and got the sack. And you know what I mean? Like these players executed the game playing well, I think they're playing better because they're allowed to play this style now. We always talked about this during the Shane Bowen era. The players enjoy playing football like this. They don't want to drop back eight of them and try to cover space and try to be in the perfectly time spatial areas of the field. That works for some teams. God bless, right? Like the Ravens won the game last night with Kyle Hamilton sitting in his own and picking off two attacking the Tonga Villa. The Eagles have been great with this. But for what the Giants have, personnel wise, both up front and in the back end, what we're doing now over these last two games is so much better suited to what we have as a defense. Absolutely. Yeah. It fits the personnel well. It dictates, as we have said, right? It puts the trust in your defensive players to make a play. Also, just think about it from a personal standpoint, not just winning games separate from that. When you have a game plan like this, it leads to statistics. It leads to interceptions. It leads to past breakups. And it leads to pressures and things that get players paid. Right? Like one of the reasons why Cave on Tibbido had three pressures in this game is because he had three rushes. Now, some of the time, this isn't a shot at Cave on. I think Cave on is, I feel like I have a higher opinion of Cave on Tibbido than like the broader Giants fan base does. So this is not a shot at him. He had a couple of great plays in this game. He had a couple of great games. He had the edge ones in the run game. Where he completely cut it and kicked it back inside. There's one, I just remember, that was perfectly played by him. I thought he won up the arc a few times too, as a pass rusher with a good first step. But my point is, when you're sending five or six, you're getting free rushes and that leads to sacks and sacks get people paid, right? Like that's, we saw Marcus Golden have a 10 sack season. Brian Burns had a 16 and a half sacks last year. Brian Burns is a great player, don't get me wrong, but some of it was a lot of attention being paid by Dule Carter and Brian Burns cleaning up. Like that's just the reality of football. So when you have a coach that puts you in position to get those stats and you're executing on them, there are quicker throws, there are bounce passes that go up in the air. Jevon Holland's coming down with interceptions. The defense is happy. And what does that breed, dude, that cultivates an atmosphere of confidence, aggressive, violent confidence. And that's what the Giants are playing with right now. Doesn't mean they're not going to get punched in the mouth. They got punched in the mouth down 14-3 or whatever it was against the Cardinals battled back with the game plan they had last week. This week, they surrendered a touchdown like the fourth or fifth play of the game where Tyler Newbon looked embarrassed. Tyler Newbon bounced back and had a solid game. He wasn't great. And then he ended up leaving with the neck injury. Hopefully he's OK. But just overall, man, I love coordinators who put the trust in their players. The players need to prove that they're trustworthy. And they have proved enough that they are trustworthy. Greg Newsom and Tae Banks are playing like, I don't have any worries about our cornerback position. I haven't, at least, right? And they went up against some good wide receivers. Michael Wilson is an underrated wide receiver that they went up against last week. This week, Terry McLoran's fine. But Washington couldn't get anything going. So just massive applause for Dennard Wilson and how he was able to out scheme and just really dial up the pressure against a rookie offensive coordinator who didn't really dial up a lot of easy plays for Jaden Daniels. Good point. He really didn't. And he had no real solution, in my mind, to the cover zero stuff at the end and in overtime. It was every play. It was every play. Yeah. Every play it was cover zero. And I was like, dude, Dennard Wilson is a maniac. Yeah. And the screen didn't work that they tried. It almost led to a fumble. They, you know, they didn't really have too many solutions. They had that inside release to McLoran that worked. And that was like Banks' worst rep. But it's a tough rep. Like McLoran had a really nice release and got the 17 yards, whatever it was. Right on time and good velocity. But overall, I think you're right. These corners are playing their best football because of this game. And because of the coaching, too, Dennard Wilson has clearly gotten through. But I don't think it's also coincidence, Nick, that we're seeing like the best version we've ever seen for him of the Yontae Banks in the run game now either. I think this style of defense is just like gets these play. We talked about this in the preseason, we're like, if they're gonna, if you're gonna allow these corners to play more man and to play more and everyone's playing more aggressively around the line of scrimmage, it leads to corners playing better physically. They don't have to come from depth to make these tackles. They're right there and they can make plays on the football. I still personally think there are exceptions I have with Banks, like the play that goes unnoticed, I believe it was toward the end of overtime. Maybe it was before the, it was probably the play just before the commanders did the stupid Jaden Neal, you know, Jaden fall on the ball and then run out of time. I didn't think Banks made a good tackle around the sideline there, and I still have some moments of that with Banks. But he's certainly playing a better brand of physical run defense than he's ever played with the Giants. He had four plays, I think, in the run game here. Now a lot of them were against condensed sets where he was unblocked or he was being blocked by like Antonio Williams, who was motioning over as like the wide receiver and he did a good job. He executed his son. Another thing I wanted to say though, just like speaking generally about this defense, you have second level level players who are making plays that, now definitely didn't happen with Tyler Nubin, but are making plays that are bailing the Giants out of bad situations. Oh yeah. Right? Tyler Nubin, that was not the case, but we saw what happened with the Tyler. There was another play which is Corey Kroski-Merritt, where he probably would have went for like 30 yards. But Arvel Reiss took on the lead blocker, such a good play. Kept his arm outside and then tackled him for a one yard game. Without that, everybody else is blocked up and the Giants were outgapped to that area. There was also a play in the red zone where third and fourth, you know the one I'm talking about where the commanders tried to get the Giants off guard with a Rashad White shotgun run. And essentially Tremaine, first Arvel Reiss closed the run off by attacking to the outside shoulder of the offensive lineman and kind of like hit him, pop them on contact, which forced White to just eventually cut back. And Edmonds was right there. Like it was just M2 essentially. And that was a light box. Like the Giants were daring them to run the ball. It was a third and four play, right? The third and four play, yeah. This is something that... You're talking about another play. I know the players are talking about the left side. No, no, no, I know that. Yeah, no, these are two separate plays. The third and four play was, you're exactly right. But the Giants, that was a play where the Giants have been running Arvel Reiss as a penetrator, a hammer, whatever you want to call him. He's freeing up someone else and he's so freaking heavy and dense on contact, dude. Like he reminds me of just a piece of lead. You drop it on something and it just smushes. And that's what Arvel Reiss does, man. He just hits, bro. He's like a Mack truck and he moved the defense alignment. And then Tremaine Edmonds was there to replace it. Now, if that was a pass, that still would have worked and Tremaine Edmonds would have had an easy pressure or a hustle or a hit on Jayden Danos, possibly a sack, right? We don't know. But it was a run and it worked just as effectively to where Tremaine Edmonds was untouched on that play and it ends up, I think they had to settle for a field goal on that. But that's exactly what we're talking about. The execution from that second level is so important. And it seems like Javon Holland does it sometimes. Now he had a bad miss on the 22 yard carry by Jacory Kroski-Merritt. But it's him, it's Tremaine Edmonds, it's Arbel Reese, Abdul Carter is just everywhere. He's getting blocked by so many different players. He's splitting double teams, getting held all the time. Abdul Carter is an absolute freaking animal out there for the New York Giants. And we've been saying it for a while now and I still see the national media kind of starting to come along to it. I saw Mina Kimes talk about it on her podcast. Credit to her for recognizing it. And they're like, yeah, this guy's really good. And I'm like, dude, is this similar to Dexter? This is similar. Long time Big Blue Banter listeners will know. Back in 2021, we were talking about Dexter Lawrence being one of the best defensive players in football. And a lot of people were like, no, what are you talking about? He doesn't sack. He's just a two down run stuffer. And not to rub it in their face. We were like, just watch the tape. I think that's going to be the same exact thing for Abdul Carter. There's still people out there who will be like, Abdul Carter is a bust. I don't know what you're watching, bro. I don't know what you think you're seeing. I think that's the same trajectory for Abdul, man. Because these sacks are going to start coming and they're going to happen in big situations. And it would have really helped that Brian Burns here this year. All the attention is now on Carter. And he's still making a massive difference and impact for this Giants defense. Yeah, I mean, there are some crazy stats that back up what you were just saying. Giants defense had a 2.14 average time to pressure against the commanders. That's the fastest time to pressure for any team in any game this season. And then the 98th percentile since I started charting in 2016. And Carter's a big reason for that. Carter's a massive reason for that. Carter, I think, led the league in quick pressures last year. He had like 66 total pressure. People calling him a bust. I'm like, what are you talking about? Get your head out of your ass. Like, this is getting ridiculous, guys. I don't mean to be disrespectful, but the guy has rare traits. Look, he might not be the best against Iran. I've seen that floating around social media. It's like he's 245, 250-pound. He's not going to anchor down and be a Michael Strahan type of edge rusher. Do I think he's a massive liability out there? No, not necessarily. I think he keeps the defense intact enough, but he might not be able to stack and violently shed like you see other defensive players. That's not necessary. He still wins with quickness. He still wins with TFLs and penetration. And that's more of his style is more of an attacking style. But what he offers as a pass rusher, I honestly don't know if there are other people in the NFL who have his type of potential when it comes to bend and high side rushing and twitchiness. Like it's like Micah Parsons level. It is at that level, I think. It hasn't resulted yet in those types of stats because he's in his second season right now. But if next season or the season after, we're talking about him like Micah Parsons, defensive player of the year. I'm not going to be shocked by the guy. Yeah. Now that we're actually pressuring and playing this style of game plan, where we're sending a lot of guys, it helps him the most. I don't think he has the pop or maybe the strength that Micah has. But when it comes to the bend, I think he has more bend than him though. I think he had one rep where he went around the edge and he turned. His hips swivel and just automatically oriented onto the quarterback through contact. It's just rare body control that he has. Just not a lot of human beings can do that. He's a very rare prospect from that perspective. It's all going to come together for him. It will eventually. He has a traits to it. If the work ethic is there, it's going to yield the results that we're all hoping it does. Yeah, for sure. But yeah, on to... But yeah, Dule Carter, very good at football. I'll say this, though, too. When it comes to David Blau and just the overall game plan that Washington had, it was a lot of quick man beaters, curl flats, try to get Chigga Conquo outside. I felt like they tried to attack the linebackers again, early on in this game with Chigga Conquo to the sidelines. And they had some success. I think Arville Reese was maybe... Because the thing about Reese, man, he's still not in position all the time, I don't think. Now, he might be wrong here, but just like my interpretation of what the coverage was, he did miss a few or was late to a couple assignments. Now, one of them was like a deep curl where he sat in the curl window for McLaurin forcing the check down to Chigga Conquo. And then he ran over and made the tackle. It was a short game. I don't think that was a mental lapse. I think he did that deliberately. But there was another play. I think it was actually Tremaine Edmonds where Chigga Conquo leaked out and he was late. And then it was the play action boot as well, where Drew Phillips and Tremaine Edmonds dropped down towards the line of scrimmage on the play action. Chig came from the opposite side and just leaked out in the flat. Nobody picked him up. It ended up being like a 25-yard gain. That's still happening in the Giants defense. That needs to be cleared up. That's a second level problem. That's not just on Arbel Reese, but it was something that I felt like David Blau kept leaning on throughout the first half of that game. And then it was just a shit ton of slant flat, curl flat, and then pick wheels and post wheels, especially in the red zone. They knew they were getting man coverage and they tried to run a lot of pick wheel, post wheel. Just, you know, number two was going to wheel around a little quick like spot curl route, try to pick the cornerback, the apex defender, the inner defender and allow that wheel route to manifest and become open. But the Giants, man, they've been passing that shit off very well, Dan, very well. And I've been so impressed with the communication on the back end. I think I have a play in here that will showcase that. That was like an 11-yard game by Jane Daniels using his legs. But if you look at how they pass the routes off in the red zone, they're just communicating and they're so in sync with each other. It's beautiful to see. Yeah, it is great. And that's kudos to Dennard Wilson, a defensive backs coach at heart. And kudos to the players who are playing well within his scheme right now. Yeah, man, the switch releases, just they weren't working for Washington. Giants were dialed in there. I felt like we saw Kevan Thibodeau drop into cover like 15 times, it seemed like, operated well in space. Obviously, the most important one was the quick pass that would have been to, I think, Chigo Conquo on that final play that Jayden Daniels just had an absolute brain fart on. A lot of Darius Alexander, that's something that we can talk about though. Darius Alexander had his best game of the season with the Giants for me. Yeah, I'd say so too. He ended up... 33 snaps, I think, right? 33 snaps, two pressures, two stops. One of them was towards the end of the game. He's still getting kind of moved a decent amount by double teams. Yeah, I wouldn't say it was perfect by any means. But for him, it's a step forward. The progression is not always linear, but for him, it's slow. But clearly, the fact that he's playing 33 snaps, he's earned some trust of coaching staff based on the tape. Shelby Harris, I thought was good in this game. DJ Reader, I thought was good in this game. Harris got a key PBU that completely stalled the drive early in the game. Where he batted past the line. Nothing I love more when I watch the tape than a PBU by D lineman. Because I just always feel like watching football. Nick, if I was a defensive line coach, I would coach my guys a little differently depending on the quarterback I'm playing. You know those games we end up watching on an island, it's not the Giants, and we'll see the quarterback just it's constant quick game. It's constant just get the ball out. I always wonder why D-Lines coaches don't adjust by being like, just fucking fake rush and jump up and bat the ball. This quarterback is just doing nothing but throwing quick game. I felt like at times the commanders were doing that in this game. Just generally speaking, I love to see a PBU by a defensive lineman. Big PBU guy. Yeah, same. Shelby Harris been getting his hand on a lot of balls. That's two in a row. That's last weekend, this weekend. That's something he's done throughout his career. He's been absurd actually among D-Lineman when it comes to batted passes of the line of scrimmage. The Giants have two very smart, savvy, veteran, gap sound, gap-responsible defensive linemen. This is what they wanted. This is all they cared about for this skin-mat style of defense. That's what they wanted at DT. And they're going to keep finding guys, in my mind at least, who are those types of players to fit this scheme. I actually thought there were some good snaps from 99. Akoya, I like him. I think he's going to be a player for us. To me, he's already showing more hope than I ever felt with DJ Davidson and those types of guys that we used to have in there. And that's credit to Harbaugh and Joshua going out there and trading for him. I agree. And we said it, I think, on last week. It was like, this is the DJ Davidson role that we've seen. This is a much better version of that, though. Yeah, he says that it's Planetary66340 or 66360 operating the role. So it was Jordan Riley, though, too. That's true. Well, I think Riley wasn't 340, though, or 355. But, yeah, he was 66. But I think you're right, though. I think Okoye is bigger than both of those guys. I think he was like rumored to be at like 380 once or something. Yeah. Yeah. What are we doing here? Yeah. But that's just insane stuff. But overall, man, just very impressed with the defensive effort. Should we get some plays? Yeah. Let's get into the plays. Imagine buying your kid a toy only to find the batteries aren't included or buying furniture, but missing the tools to build it. Frustrating, right? Now imagine the exact same feeling, but you're paying way more. That is what buying business software usually feels like. Fragmented, disconnected, and incredibly expensive. Odoo completely changes that. Odoo is a complete, fully integrated business suite where all your apps actually talk to each other. 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The GameTime app gives fans the advantage. Get amazing tickets in just a few taps. Fees are included, so what you see is what you pay. And the GameTime guarantee means authentic tickets at the best price every time. Take the guesswork out of buying tickets to concerts, sports, comedy, and more with GameTime. Download the GameTime app and create an account for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. All right, cool. Let's start here with the second and eight. So we're going to have I just love this play design by David Blau, right? So we have this cover for look and just watch the release from this. You have a double y set, meaning you have two tight ends here and here. Watch the release from these tight ends and how they get basically on top of each other, making it very difficult for Tyler Newman to make a decision against a cover for defense where the middle of the field is going to be wide open because Tremaine Edmonds more than likely isn't going to work over the areas and running back to worry about. You have three threats on this side, but you have the double y here and there's a run strength, obviously, because it could be a mesh point right there that you have to worry about. But it ends up being just a straight up pass. And I just love how you have one here. And then Tyler Newman is in a position where it's like, if this guy breaks out, Tyler Newman clamped down on it, right? Because Kavon Thibodeau is the only other threat, but Greg Newsome eliminated here. But obviously, we're going to get we're going to get him going to the middle of the field. But Newman is in this bad spot where he's the player in the middle of the conflict, right? We see this a lot. This is kind of what you went over on the last podcast, Nick, with the likely red zone route running behind the route behind neighbors. And I this is like what I saw all throughout the Jags tape last year with how like Liam Cohen had Lawrence attacking defenses. Yeah, yeah, dude. No, 100%. I just think this is a very this is an early play. It's 1347 left in the first quarter. Second pick. They're never going to call that the natural pick. And look at the communication at the top of the screen. You have a little smash concept with also a flare over here. You have the curl flat, you have the vertical, and then you have Javon Holland kind of bracketing over the top of this deep flag route, but that leaves this wide open. But just good scheming. Tremaine Edmonds doesn't see it from the back side, and that happens sometimes. And now we're going to have that first-in-ten run after this, and we'll see it from this angle. Carter trying to use a long arm. It's not going to be as powerful, obviously, to bend that edge to get around, but a pocket is very nice for Jane Daniels. Good, well-delivered pass that the all 22 didn't really pick up so look at this jump by Abdul Carter, too. He was doing this all game. It's just impressive. That's what with the stat we were talking about earlier with the time to pressure, he does a great job of anticipating this snap. I might not have included the first-in-ten. I have it in my notes, but I don't know if I have the video, so if you want to pull that up while I do some of this, Dan, the touchdown run. Which one are you talking about? The touchdown run, to break that down. But I don't think I have the... I'll try to find it. Again, this is the third and 14. I love this blitz at the Giants hit. This is right after the Carter sack. You have this jump by Carter, which you timed it up perfectly, and then you have a replacement blitz, similar to what we saw in last year. There's nothing open on the back end. That's the coolest part. Yeah, attack the B-gap. You're going to have Drew, and then you're going to have the follow from Tremaine Edmonds. Just attack that B-gap. It's a 2-B-1 against Rashad White. There's no way that Washington is going to be able to do anything on that. Then on the back end, what do you get? You bail. Bail off a line of scrimmage. Tyler Newman is going to bail. The New Giants are going to get this Cover 3 type of look. Just nowhere to go with the football. They're so in sync on the back end. The only thing we had was Terry McLauren pushing down Greg Newsome here. Whoever that was, was it Drew Phillips, maybe? Yeah, I think it's Greg. But also, Arbel Reiss is going to go and try to intercept anything that's going this way. You have Newman taking the deep middle of the field, closed, came on Tibbido and coverage. It's just unpredictable, right? That's right. All right. It's frozen for a second. Here we go. Here's a third and 10. This is a sack or Drew Phillips. Absolutely love it. Again, it's just dialing up pressure. You have a pressure look. Micah McFadden drops off the line of scrimmage along with Tremaine Edmonds. They send, what, five on this play. Giants get home. Loaded line of scrimmage. Pretty deceptive too. I felt like he did a good job here. Drew Phillips is bluffing like he's impressed man. Yeah. Then he just goes off right away. That's just bend and just gets right around the edge. You can see, look at where, I'm sorry, Arvo Reese is there to clean up even if that sack wasn't made. Exactly. You see right here. Once the motion happened, that's when he starts to move, goes. Arvo Reese is right there. Abdul Carter is right there. Even Thibodeau is right there getting some push on the guard, which you don't always see. No, you don't. Or is that the tackle? It is the tackle. Yeah. They're just spying too. They're respecting Rush Lane at that point, but Drew Phillips finishes it well. Here's Arvo Reese just making excellent individual plays. The one I talked about a little bit before. Yes. Look, man, the Giants are trying to penetrate right here with Kavon Thibodeau. In doing that, he gets washed out of the play. So now you're having two guys pull to create these extra gaps with two guys to account for and then Tyler Newman from depth. We know what happens there. But Arvo Reese lowers his shoulder into this and just makes this. That's just an insane individual effort that might have saved a long touchdown run because we've seen Tyler Newman take this angle in a shallow manner and not work out. Now, I think Giants make this play regardless, but Tyler Newman does that is, but it would come down to Tyler Newman versus Jacory Krawski-Merritt and then CJ Akwae is the next closest defender if Arvo Reese doesn't make this play. Right. You know, like just insane stuff. Right, Arvo Reese. Here's the third and 11. I just love the community. Look, this is the first down, but watch the communication at the bottom of the screen here. This is just this is just elite stuff because you're going to have little post wheel action and they're trying to free up 89 here in the back of the end zone and they're going to try to clear out Tae Banks with the post. But Tae Banks has his eyes on this. He's watching the number two at the snap, right? He knows that's a responsibility and that's a threat. So he passes Trey Lamberx to Javon Holland effortlessly while 22 splits the difference between all three of these guys. The positioning is elite from the New York Giants. I know that the Giants end up surrendering the first down because Jaden Daniels picks it up with his legs, but I just love seeing. How many quarterbacks are going to be able to do what Jaden does on this? Not many. 100%, man, about 100%. And watch how they push off. There's really no window for Jaden Daniels to throw the football. It's just excellently done by the Giants on the back end. It's the type of stuff we were talking about a little bit earlier, right? Yep. Ends up getting the first down. That's going to happen. Here's a third and four. This is a play that you were talking about a little bit earlier with R. Bell-Reece. R. Bell-Reece is just going to penetrate, take out, and then open up for Tremaine Edmonds, right? This is the play, right, dude? Yeah, it's an exact play. They tried to catch us off guard in third and four. Sugar the yay gap. Just take Sam Cosme for a ride and just allow Tremaine Edmonds to make the tackle. Just an excellent job. That was my favorite play by the defense. Yeah, no, 100%. Just because it was third and four and it looked like a look you can run into and they made it. Those two players made it clear you can't. No, 100%. Here's a first and 10, 10-48, beginning of the third quarter. Just Arbel Reiss expands here, but you have... Stantonio Williams, yeah. Yeah, you have Drew Phillips going in that direction anyway, so you have two players. This is kind of what I was mentioning before. Oh, with Reiss, gotcha. Yeah, so you have 22 coming this way, and now you have this open window. So I just think Arbel Reiss didn't know exactly where he was supposed to be, because Drew Phillips, you can see him talk to him here. He's like, hey, man, at this point, he's pointing, and Reiss is like, shit, maybe I screwed up. So I think you're getting some mishaps like this. He's learning, dude. It's hard to play linebacker at this. There's a bunch of defensive looks and everything like that, and a bunch of checks that he has to make. I'm not worried about it, but it's something to at least acknowledge. Yeah, it's a good point. Here we're going to have a first in 10. One thing the coach has said last week, I believe, was Dennard Wilson. I think he posted this clip was, what he loves about Arvel is he'll make mistakes, but he won't make those mistakes again, the same mistake again. Yeah, exactly. Now, the running back out of the fly has been a mistake that he's made. He didn't make it two games in a row, and it kind of came back a little bit in this one, but overall, I tend to trust what he says. He seems like a very coachable and smart young man. Here's the 22-yard run by Cory Krosky-Merritt. Good vision, good stutter step by Krosky-Merritt. Good job by Sanath, Takeout Trace Ford. And the giant, look. Jermaine Edmonds doesn't get over the top to fit this. Great job by Cosme Squaring up to provide this alley, and then it's on Javon Holland to get down there and make the play. And Javon Holland misses the tackle. And we kill Tyler Newman for shit like that, so Yeah. Yeah, we did. Yeah, bad angle. He knows that he has to make that. This ends up going for 22 yards. Jahad Ward in the game, he kind of looked like meh all game. I thought he looked bad in the snaps that I saw from him. He looked out of shape to me. They may even need to do something about finding somebody there. Yeah, we'll see. I mean, I'm willing to. It's his first game. I'll let him get in football shape and everything like that. Here is a third Nate, another blitz. Joe Phillips gets home. It's a similar thing, man. We're just gonna cover zero. And this is a part of the cover zero madness, right? Where we're just going to man up on the back end, Ardarius Washington in at this point. Ardarius Washington looked good to me when he was in the game. Hard, heavy hits around the line of scrimmage as well. There's really like two of you. Antonio Williams gets open here. He's out leverages Ardarius Washington there, but there's just no time because that's the thing with cover zero. There's no time for that. Exactly. And look at Arbel Reiss against Rashad White. That just penetrates the A-gap, just throws him on the ground. He's an animal, dude. He's a damn good physical football player. And then Drew is a natural when he's going forward like that. He's crazy. He just manhandled White on that. And White's known as one of the better pass protectors in the NFL. I know, man. I know. Good little rush by Darius Alexander to just stay put with his... One arm sends him to the ground. I'm telling you, man, the Giants have two rare players on defense who are in their first and second year. Both those players are rare defensive weapons. It's not a complete package by any means, but it's something. And then we have this last play, which is just another sack cover zero. Just Giants all over. Again, not a lot of... Not really too much... Too many places to go with the football. You have Trelon Burks, but at that point, he's already freaking getting sacked because the Giants are sending everyone. Javon Holland ends up taking up the protection. Darius Washington gets the first hit. And then Arvel Reiss cleans it up. Just impressive defensive performance, Dan, really. Excited. Yeah, for sure. And I was going to say... Yeah, sorry. Go ahead, Nick. No, no. I'm going to try to find that play as we discussed to go over it because I... I mean, really, it was Tyler... We have some other plays we got to go over, too. But it was Tyler Nubin has to fit that run from depth at that point, right? And he doesn't. That's pretty simple to make. He just takes a horrific angle. Like you just have to cut off and force him back on the cut back inside. And he just did the complete opposite of that. Yeah. Yeah. So I saw it somewhere. So here I'm just running. This is just I did a cut above the three plays at the end of the game. The looks we see pre snap from Dennard Wilson. The first, which forces this bad, dude, looks bad. What do you say? Like quality wise, it looks like shit. Oh, this is my all twenty two I got this week. I guess yours is better. Is it me or is it okay on my end, by the way? Okay. Hopefully it comes through well. I'll shut up now. No, that's okay. I think it could come through. But I just meant mostly wanted to show these three plays to show you the looks, the Giants had pre snap on these three key plays versus what we saw last year with Shane Bowen. It's just night and day, dude, and just forces Jayden to make these decisions so fast before you can really anticipate where to throw the ball to. That's what happened on these three plays was excellent. It was, man, it was. We're running them here again a little bit. This is much clearer now, so it must be different this year. Maybe it was just something on your end. Dude, look at, yeah, just not a lot of space, just dictating. You got to help your quarterback out. A lot of these throws are well downfield, too. It's not easy for Jayden Daniels at this point. You got to make it easier for your young quarterback. Holy crap, here the Giants were just going. Then we have this Washington hit here. That's all we have. Oh, I love this angle. This is the one I was talking about earlier, the second one. We had the one that everyone knows on the wide receiver screen, but this is just him doing a great job, coming from depth, something our safety struggle with, and just sticking the running back right there. It's a great play. Yeah, the lead block right at Arbel. Arbel, look, Arbel sees it, steps towards the line of scrimmage, right? And then he gets behind the line of scrimmage, takes on the block, and then that just creates the open. At this point, Cory Croskey-Merritt has already committed to where he's running, and Ardarius Washington reads it very well, and then just makes the tackle. Just a phenomenal play by Ardarius Washington and Arbel. Yep. Remember that play for later. This one is just Kavon doing a great job of setting the edge, in my opinion. I wanted to highlight this one. Yeah, no, he had a few plays like this, man. He had a few play. I like this angle, by the way. He had a few play. Yeah, this is what I got. All 22 was, which was nice and obviously a good play here from 93 as well. Just great run defense from the Giants, honestly, here overall. Yeah, the last one I had here was just Kavon winning up the arc. Weaning up the arc, yeah. Which is something he did a little bit better job of in this game, I thought at least. Quick first step. He does a better job pass rushing in my mind when he's trying to win up the arc versus basically any other way that he tries to win. He's just quick there to get there. Does that force Daniels to throw it away? I don't know. Does he feel that? But it's a good pass rush. It's a good first step. Yeah, no, I mean, I think he tests it out well when it came to his first step in that. Yeah, he challenged, got the half man, a little bit of a hold there. Both him and Carter, like look at Carter. Carter's getting held by both of these guys at this moment, dude. Carter's always getting held. Yeah, dude, he literally, both of them had their arms wrapped around him. From the other end, we're never gonna get a call, it appears, with this thing. And then to get the back judge, he's right there. This was called on Coleman. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that was a good job. It should have been. What about the other back judge who's watching Carter? There's two back judges here. However, there's so many back judges and no, no. Like, I swear to God, I think the NFL tells them not to call a lot of holds. Maybe, man. I mean, this is it's it's all like they're all Sandra Bullock in that movie where they're fucking blindfolded and stuff. Like whenever it comes up, dual Carter, it seems like here's that play, by the way. Touchdown, pistol run, just. Dude, this is this is killed Giants teams in the past, giving this up on the road and they're able to battle back. Like a first and 10 pistol, like a counter type of run out of 12 personnel where your safety takes that type of angle. Yeah. And you know, I think the defense maybe was supposed to shift possibly, Dan. Like you saw right before this, Sinna motioned over here and there wasn't a shift. I don't know if Akoye was supposed to kick over, to give the Giants more of a gap advantage. Because look, Coleman gets his free ass release and then the backside tackle also pulls and he just leads right up to R. And that's one of the bigger holes we've seen this year against the Giants. This is like Saquon's hold and the same play that happened last year with Tyler Newby when Darius Moussa didn't get over it and fit the run. And then Newby, that's just a bad angle, but it's also a really tough spot to be in. Like you shouldn't be in this spot as a safety, right? Like I just think the Giants weren't in position. I'm not sure about that, but that would be my read. The Giants weren't in the correct front once that motion happened. And then Washington took advantage and Tyler Newby looks, we've seen that way too often. I just feel like you need to force the running back to cut back regardless. You need to try to cut the sideline off. You need to box him inside. Yeah, exactly. And Newby just never does. He takes the opposite. Yeah, he just, I guess, over inflates athletic. Yeah, I think that's what it is because he thinks he can win that and he's already lost it by that point. Yeah, it's not good, though. It's not good. All right. Want to hit some superlatives? Yeah, absolutely. All right. Let's see. Who do you have, Nick? Nicholas, I might call you. When it comes to the unheralded player on defense. Or Darius Washington. Yeah, I knew we were going to have the same guy. But I could also... I mean, yeah. I mean, I was thinking it could also be... What am I doing here? I was thinking it could also be Drew Phillips, but he's not on heralded. He's getting a lot of hype from Giants fans. So it was the play we put up there earlier from Washington, but also he made a great play on the screen pass, too, to a wide receiver. Yeah. Highest effort player? I went with Abdul Carter for this one. Yeah, I think so, too. I mean, I have Orville Reese down, but Abdul was more effort, but I have Abdul as my best player, too. He's definitely the best player on team. And I also thought he was the highest effort. Yeah. Player we expect to see more from. I mean, like, I don't have one. I guess I don't have one. Avon as a pass rusher, but I didn't even think it was bad. I thought he was OK. It's not. Yes. I don't know. I'm just going to say. And I'm not expecting much more at this point from him. Same goes for like Nubin and run support. So I got nothing for you. I'm going NA. Yeah, pass rusher. It's weird because we gave up a lot of points, but I didn't feel like the defense played bad at all. No, it's hard to explain. Yeah, too long. James, six total plays that they lost or eight. Let's say it was eight. It was like eight total plays they lost. I know. And, you know, people would say, well, yeah, you know, the score is like, yeah, but like a 36 or 38 yard touchdown run and a 20 yard touchdown run and then a 36 yard touch. Like a lot of just like and two of them being quarterbacks trying to pass and the Giants just didn't sufficiently spy him. And then they spied him in overtime and Jaden Daniels took an angle on Arbel Rees. Yeah, he had him. It's like that's what it is. Jaden just do good. Yeah, he's he's wild. He's wild. You really got to be dialed in with your positioning if you're going to spy a guy like that. But you can't allow it to run all over you either. But the Giants and it'll look it seems like like I don't even want to interpret this. It's like, did they win? No. Did they lose? No. But I feel like I almost view it more like a win. It's definitely more on the win side because I thought it was over. It was over at 2713. But I completely understand why people would. We have the tech to get food delivered in 15 minutes, but we all have horror stories about buying tickets. The Game Time app gives fans the advantage. Get amazing tickets in just a few taps. Fees are included, so what you see is what you pay. And the Game Time guarantee means authentic tickets at the best price every time. Take the guesswork out of buying tickets to concerts, sports, comedy, and more with Game Time. Download the Game Time app and create an account for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. View it as loss, because the Giants were in position multiple times to win this game, and Dave freaking tossed it away, too. Pass rushing. I went with... This was tough, so I went with 7.5, because the pass rush overall was great, but I don't think individually it was very good outside of Abdul Carter. It was a lot of blitzing, too, so you got to factor that in. That's what I mean. It was great in the sense that they got there, but it's still 7.5 for me overall. Yeah, I have 6.8. Run defense. Run defense again. A big run to Jacori Kroski-Merritt, a big run, or two of them, 22 and 30, whatever it was, the touchdown, and then I guess those Jaden runs count against them to some extent, though I don't really blame them all that much for that. I thought the run defense looked pretty fucking good besides that, man. Yeah, I'm not counting the Jaden runs. Yeah, that's not really against your run defense. So I'm going to go with like 8-3. Yeah, I went 7-9. Yeah, this is a great, the Giants run defense has been so much better already this year. I know, man. Something. It's exciting to think about. I feel like the defense is finding its identity. You're talking about the communication on the back end, passing off, they're blitzing, they're aggressive. We could be headed hopefully toward a better stretch of defense of football. We have Tyler Schuck who this past week, Brian Flores had come into the game, Nick, with this was crazy. I saw this stat. A 70% blitz rate, which was obviously by far in the NFL. In the first half, he had a 91% blitz rate against Schuck. Or 90%, sorry. I think he just ramped it up even more. And so I feel like we're just going to look at the tape and do the same thing. You know, Kellan Moore is going to have contingencies. True. All throughout his game plan. True. But if you speed up Schuck, I think that's the way to get him right now. Then it's CJ. Stroud after that. And then it's Jalen Hurts and their bad old line. Those are our next three games. I think it could be a nice stretch for the Giants defense. I know. I agree. It should be fun. Exciting times. Thank you to everybody tuning in tonight. Please do us a favor. Hit the like button. Leave comments both before, during and after shows. And please subscribe if you haven't already. Other than that, have a great rest of your day, week or night. And we'll talk to you soon. We have the tech to get food delivered in 15 minutes, but we all have horror stories about buying tickets. The Game Time app gives fans the advantage. Get amazing tickets in just a few taps. Fees are included, so what you see is what you pay. And the Game Time guarantee means authentic tickets at the best price every time. Take the guesswork out of buying tickets to concerts, sports, comedy and more with Game Time. Download the Game Time app and create an account for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply.