Five Statistics the New York Giants Must Improve on Defense

The Giants' defense wasn't as much of a disaster as the offense last year, but there is still a lot of room to improve for the unit. Here's a look at some areas where the defense can improve.

Author:
Brandon Olsen
Publish date:
Aug 3, 2022 8:00 AM EDT

In this story:

New York Giants

There’s a new coaching staff for the New York Giants, and with that comes new expectations. Brian Daboll brought Don “Wink” Martindale to East Rutherford after a four-year stint as the defensive coordinator in Baltimore.

In this article, you will see me refer to the Ravens' injury-riddled 2021 multiple times because the Ravens performed worse than they previously had under Martindale. Keep in mind, though, that by most accounts, that injury-plagued defense still outperformed the 2021 Giants defense in these key categories.

Pressure Percentage

In 2021, despite having talented players like Dexter Lawrence II, Leonard Williams, Azeez Ojulari, and Lorenzo Carter, the Giants' pass rush produced a pressure percentage of just 20.1 percent.

The Giants ended the season with 134 pressures, the sixth-worst in the league. Luckily for the Giants and their fans, Coach Martindale has come in from the Ravens, and if there’s one thing that the Ravens did well under Martindale, it’s pressure the quarterback.

In 2021, the Ravens were decimated by injury. Still, they had a pressure percentage of 23 percent, which was 24th in the NFL but better than the Giants, who finished 30th. (Worth noting regarding the Ravens was that Odafe Oweh, the Ravens' leading pressure creator, Calais Campbell, and Justin Houston all missed time at different points in the season.)

When talking about Martindale’s defensive scheme, pressure is often the biggest key. For two of Martindale's four years in Baltimore, his defense ranked in the top four in terms of pressure percentage. Never did a Martindale defense drop below 23 percent, and with the roster the Giants have, don’t expect 2022 to be the first time a Martindale defense fails to hit a pressure percentage of 23 percent.

Score Percentage

It doesn’t take a genius to know the easiest way to win a football game is to score more points than your opponent. From a defensive point of view, it’s less focused on scoring than your opponent and more focused on making your opponent score less than you.

In 2021, the Giants failed to do that often. 41.3 percent of the Giants' defensive drives ended with their opponents putting points on the board, good for the ninth-worst rate in the NFL.

Despite being decimated by injury, the Martindale-led Ravens defense had the eighth-best rate with a score percentage of 34.2 percent.

The goal for the Giants is obviously to reach the playoffs. In 2021, only one playoff team had a worse defensive score percentage, and that team got eliminated in the first round, and that was the Las Vegas Raiders.

In the four seasons Martindale spent in Baltimore as defensive coordinator, that 34.2 percent in 2021 was the worst defensive score percentage the Ravens had. Martindale has done a phenomenal job as a coordinator in keeping the opposition from scoring touchdowns and converting field goals.

RELATED: Four Statistical Areas the New York Giants' Offense Must Improve

Third Down Conversion Percentage

It isn’t just impressive but beautiful when a defense can consistently get off the field on third down. In 2021, the Giants were a middle-of-the-pack team in preventing their opponents from converting third-down opportunities, ranking 17th with a third-down conversion percentage of 39.8 percent.

As mentioned multiple times, the Ravens were one of the most injury-bitten teams in 2021, but they still maintained a top-three third-down conversion percentage at 34.8 percent. The Giants placement isn’t awful; after all, the reigning Super Bowl champion Rams and runner-up Bengals were both worse in this area than the Giants.

Those teams, however, had exceptional offenses, especially when converting their own third downs to mask the failure of their defenses. Martindale consistently has had a defense that can get off the field, allow their offense more opportunities, and provide solid starting field position.

Perhaps the biggest reason for this is Martindale’s aggressive defenses that dominate early downs and use pressure to prevent quarterbacks from finding receivers downfield to convert third and mediums or third and longs.

Rushing Yards Allowed (Per Attempt and Per Game)

How did the Ravens dominate first downs? Simple: Have a tremendous run defense. Despite the NFL becoming more of a passing league, NFL teams still like to run the ball on early downs.

In 2021, the Giants fielded one of the worst run defenses in the NFL. The Giants allowed 4.5 yards per carry, tied for eighth-worst in the NFL. Teams knew that when they faced the Giants, they would be able to run the ball successfully.

The Giants held opponents to under the league average of rushing yards per game (115.2) just seven times in 2021 because teams knew they would be able to run the ball against the Giants. Teams ran for 200+ rushing yards three times against the Giants and averaged 6.1, 6.3, and 5.2 yards per carry in those games.

The Martindale-led Ravens allowed only the Colts and Vikings to rush for higher than the league average. That wasn’t just about the Ravens having a better defensive roster because the argument could be made that the Giants had the better players in the defensive front seven. That was game-planning and coaching to effectively stop the run.

Passer Rating Allowed

I know, I know: Passer rating is not the be-all, end-all of pass defense evaluation, but it is perhaps one of the best ways to evaluate how successful a defense was at keeping quarterbacks from being efficient. Passer rating allowed is one of the outliers where the Giants outperformed the Ravens in 2021.

Once again, however, that Ravens secondary was so injury-riddled that even the practice squad players they were forced to activate ended up on injured reserve.

The Giants allowed a passer rating of 89 in 2021, barely better than the league average. Excluding 2021, that would have been the worst passer rating allowed by a Wink Martindale defense, which allowed passer ratings of 80.6 in 2018, 77.5 in 2019, and 87.2 in 2020.

It may be a cop-out to excuse the Ravens' horrid pass defense in 2021 due to injury, but this was possibly the most injured a secondary has ever been. With the current roster, Giants fans could see the passing defense improve somewhere between the 2018 and 2020 Martindale seasons.