The pressure is on the Giants to find a pass rush

Help on the edge and inside are both needed

Offense is king in today’s NFL, right? Well, it’s true that playoff teams tend to score a lot of points. Both Super Bowl participants this year had formidable offenses. However, the reports of the death of defense as an important part of NFL success have been greatly exaggerated. Here are the top 15 teams in the NFL in 2023 points scored and points allowed:

Courtesy of Pro Football Reference

In 2023, 12 of 14 playoff teams were top 15 in scoring, the exceptions being Tampa Bay and Pittsburgh. However, 10 of 14 playoff teams were top 15 in points allowed, the exceptions being the Rams, Miami, Detroit, and Philadelphia. The two Super Bowl participants were Nos. 2 and 3 in defense, and Super Bowl champion Kansas City was only No. 15 in points scored. Neither team scored 20 points in regulation in the Super Bowl.

Season points scored and yielded isn’t everything. Baltimore and Dallas were top five in both categories and didn’t get to the Super Bowl. Still, being good at both enhances your chances to get a ring.

There are three components to good defense – pass rush, coverage, and run stops. Nothing beats getting pressure on the quarterback, though, for stifling an offense. (Just ask any Giants quarterback.) Patrick Mahomes’ lone Super Bowl loss came when a tough Tampa Bay pass rush bullied a Kansas City offensive line that had injuries to multiple starters.

There are two ways to get pressure on the quarterback – with good edge defenders and interior defensive linemen who can win one-on-one matchups, and with blitzes that create a numbers advantage for the defense. Blitzes are most effective when they are disguised, e.g., this crucial play late in regulation during the Super Bowl when Trent McDuffie faked dropping back and then blitzed, forcing Brock Purdy to hurry his third down throw for an incompletion:

The problem is that relying on the blitz too much shouldn’t be a base defense strategy. Steve Spagnuolo actually blitzed on 51% of Brock Purdy dropbacks during the Super Bowl, much more than he usually does. The one above worked, but overall, both Purdy and Mahomes handled the blitz well:

Courtesy of Pro Football Focus

Both QBs performed better when blitzed than when not, because a good QB knows to throw the ball to the space vacated by the blitzing player where there is likely to be an open receiver.

Quarterbacks do not, however, like being pressured in general. You can see from the chart above that Mahomes and Purdy did noticeably worse when pressured than when kept clean – but mostly that was when pressured with a four-man rush that allows the secondary to maintain integrity in coverage, rather than when facing a blitz.

Under Wink Martindale, the Giants in 2023 blitzed more than any team except Minnesota:

Courtesy of Pro Football Reference

As you can see, though, it didn’t do much good. The Giants only got pressure 20.9% of the time, much less than Kansas City’s 27.8% with a much lower blitz percentage. The Giants also had a lower hurry percentage and QB knockdown percentage than Kansas City, and fewer sacks as well.

Under Shane Bowen, Tennessee only blitzed about 20% of the time, so we can expect that Bowen will rely more on traditional four-man rushes. Last year, 12 of the 13 Tennessee players with the most pass rush snaps were edge defenders or IDLs. Contrast that with the Giants, who had all three of their rotational off-ball linebackers in their top 10 players with pass rush snaps, plus safety Isaiah McKinney at No. 13. Where is that pressure going to come from, and what moves do the Giants need to make in the offseason to improve their pass rush from 2023?

The edge defender position gets most of the attention in the NFL in discussions of pass rush, but actually interior pressure can be even more effective. It can get there quicker when it happens, it’s harder for a QB to see over an IDL rushing up the middle, and it flushes the QB from the pocket even when it doesn’t get home.

The Giants are fortunate to have the NFL’s best interior pass rusher in 2023 under contract in Dexter Lawrence. A big question for 2023 is how Bowen will use Lawrence. Last season Wink lined him up mostly in the A-gap and often as a classical nose tackle (0-technique) lined up right over the center. To say that Lawrence flourished there is putting it mildly. Bowen did not employ that type of alignment much last season. I’d like to be a fly on the wall when Bowen and Andre Patterson talk about Lawrence’s use.

Beyond Lawrence, there are only question marks at IDL after the Leonard Williams mid-season trade. A’Shawn Robinson is a free agent while Rakeem Nunez-Roches is under contract, but neither of them brings much to the table in the pass rush. Late-round draftees D.J. Davidson and Jordon Riley showed some promise last season as IDLs but their pass-rush potential is largely unknown.

On the edge, there are unfortunately just as many question marks. Kayvon Thibodeaux had a productive sophomore season with 44 total pressures and 13 sacks, but he was inconsistent from game to game, and there’s a feeling that meat is being left on the bone. One possible explanation is that he didn’t get much help from the opposite side, where the once-promising Azeez Ojulari had another injury-plagued and unproductive season, and where free agent Jihad Ward (will he enroll at Michigan to play for Wink?) only flashed occasionally.

If the pass rush is essential to stopping today’s elite quarterbacks, the Giants need help. More than one player. Maybe three. Maybe four.

Free agency

It’s hard to know what type of edge or interior lineman Bowen will be looking for, e.g., someone who rushes standing up as an outside linebacker vs. someone who plays more like a LEO/REO defensive end with a hand in the dirt, as Ed discussed in his piece on Danielle Hunter.

The problem with signing a free agent edge defender is that the position is one of the most highly paid in the NFL. For reference purposes we can look at the Pro Football Focus rankings of possible free agents, which include an estimate of the size of the contract they’ll command from Over The Cap.

Want a great young player whose contract is up, like Josh Allen or Brian Burns? First of all, they’re more likely to be tagged than to be let walk. If they do become free agents, though, they will command a contract north of $20M per year. It’s always possible to do something to fit a player under the cap through the magic of the prorated signing bonus, but a few million here, a few million there pushed into future years and at some point you’re talking real money. Hunter will command something similar.

Going down to the next tier, we have a one-trick pony, Bryce Huff. All Huff does well is rush the passer, but on third-and-long, that’s a nice trick for a defensive coordinator to have up his sleeve. Josh Uche is another of those types, and he might be had for a lot less money since he had a poor 2023 after a great 2022. Over The Cap sees him as being worth $7.25M on a one-year deal, which is pretty affordable. Speaking of affordable, Andrew Van Ginkel is estimated to be available for $6.5M per year. Van Ginkel was a pain in the neck for Daniel Jones last season, and he’s improved steadily over the past few years.

If you want to bet, though, Shane Bowen might feel more at home if Joe Schoen can lure Denico Autry, one of his mainstays in Tennessee. Autry had a down 2023 after a great 2022, and he’s 33 years old, but he still managed 53 total pressures, including 12 sacks, and he also should come at a reasonable price. Not to be underestimated when thinking about free agents is that they’re not items on Amazon to just click on and purchase by anyone who wants them. If Autry felt comfortable in Bowen’s defense, and Bowen thinks Autry can be a coach on the field explaining the nuances of his scheme to teammates, it could happen.

In the interior, it would be nice to dream about Chris Jones or Justin Madubuike, or even to re-unite Dexter Lawrence with his old college linemate Christian Wilkins. It’s not going to happen for multiple reasons, the biggest one being that all of them will be looking for contracts like Lawrence’s.

The question really is whether an upgrade from A’Shawn Robinson or Rakeem Nunez-Roches is possible at a similar cost. An intriguing possibility might be Shelby Harris, most recently a Cleveland Brown but for most of his career a Denver Bronco. Over The Cap lists his expected cost at $3M per year, less than what the Giants paid Robinson this season and what Nunez-Roches is scheduled to make in 2024 (although cutting him would incur $2.9M in dead money). Harris is solid against the run and has been average to above-average in rushing the passer, with 22-32 total pressures and 2-7 sacks in each of his past five seasons.

2024 NFL Draft

As a general rule, finding an edge defender in the draft is a better strategy than signing one as a free agent because of the cost differential. Unfortunately, 2024 is not the year to be shopping edge in the draft. It is judged to be a pretty shallow class with no transformational players likely to emerge. This will not be like 2022, when Travon Walker, Aidan Hutchinson, and Kayvon Thibodeaux were gone in the top five.

Compounding the problem is that the Giants’ multiple critical needs almost surely dictate that they will not go edge at No. 6, or even if they trade down from No. 6. It will be a shock if the Giants use their first round pick on anything but a quarterback or wide receiver, because the Giants need impact players on offense most of all. Whichever they do take in Round 1, that leaves their two picks in Round 2 to try to satisfy the other need if the board falls to them the right way.

Let’s assume that the highest-ranked edge defenders are off the board by Round 2 (Dallas Turner, Jared Verse, Laiatu Latu, Bralen Trice are all first round values on PFF’s draft big board). Same for IDLs, where PFF has only Jer’Zhan Newton and Byron Murphy II as first rounders. Let’s also assume that Carmen Bricillo convinces the Giants that Evan Neal can be salvaged and that Joe Schoen picks up a good veteran guard in free agency, reducing the need to draft one early.

With those assumptions, I conducted a three-round mock draft in PFF’s simulator:

Courtesy of Pro Football Focus

A couple of notes about this draft. First, Jaylen Daniels was still on the board at No. 6. I passed on him not because I wouldn’t take him if he was there, but because I think there’s very little chance he lasts until No. 6. Instead, trying to be more realistic, I took Rome Odunze, who is (a) awesome and (b) more likely to be there at No. 6 in the real draft. Second, I took the enigmatic quarterback J.J. McCarthy at No. 39. Has there ever been a heralded quarterback prospect about which we know less? The buzz is that he’s likely to be gone in Round 1, but who knows? In any case, this is an article about pass rushers. Replace McCarthy with Bo Nix or Michael Penix Jr. if that makes you happy.

Anyway, that left me with the Leonard Williams trade pick and the Giants’ own third-round pick to shift my focus to the defensive line. Edge defender Chop Robinson was off the board in Round 2 before I picked but his linemate on the other side Adisa Isaac was still there. Isaac has more development to do than Robinson, but he actually had 9 sacks to Robinson’s 3 this season, although Robinson had a much higher pass rush win rate. He’s also solid against the run. Isaac would probably start as a situational pass rusher as he develops his game, and Round 2 may be a bit rich for him (though he is No. 47 on PFF’s big board), but again, it’s not a deep draft pool at the edge position.

Finally, in Round 3, I selected IDL Ruke Orhorhoro. I was intrigued by Chris Pflum’s profile of Orhorhoro that saw him as potentially a nice complement to Dexter Lawrence on passing downs, so with him on the board in Round 3 I jumped.

Free agency or the draft?

My answer is…yes. I view the Giants’ situation at edge defender as dire. Thibodeaux may have more room to grow, and there’s always the chance that Ojulari will stay healthy for a full season and that Bowen will figure out how to get him back to his rookie form. Even in that case, my feeling is that the Giants need two more edge defenders, to have a viable rotation when everyone is healthy and a backup plan in case not. So I’d like to see both a veteran free agent and a cheap (i.e., not Round 1) draftee added to the roster.

The situation is not as dire at IDL, because the Giants already have the best one in the NFL, because they at least have a capable run-stopper under contract and might be able to bring the other one back at low cost, and because they have two cheap draftees who have shown some promise. Nonetheless, more is needed – especially, more interior pass rush. It would not upset me to see the Giants release Nunez-Roches, not re-sign Robinson, sign free agent Harris, and draft Orhorhoro or his equivalent.