Giants Preview: How Washington Commanders Defense Played Giants and What to Expect

Brandon Olsen takes a look at what's new with the Washington defense and what they did to the Giants in the first meeting that might carry over to the second.

Author:
Brandon Olsen
Publish date:
Dec 15, 2022 8:00 AM EST

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New York Giants

The New York Giants take on the Washington Commanders for the second and final time this regular season. The first game was two weeks ago, ending in a 20-20 tie.

What's changed in two weeks? Admittedly not much, but we'll go over the differences and some of what Washington's defense did to slow down the Giants.

Personnel

The biggest change to the Commanders personnel going into this game is that Chase Young is expected to return to the field this Sunday night. Young tore his ACL in November of 2021 and hasn’t played since.

Last year when he was healthy, Young was on pace for a 50-pressure season. Will that be the Chase Young that steps onto the field Sunday night? Will he have a snap count? Will he start?

The hype surrounding Chase Young’s return is stealing the headlines here, but his exact involvement in the game plan is interesting.

Obviously, much hasn’t changed since the Week 13 matchup between the Giants and Commanders as far as personnel goes, but the top performer in that game was Jonathan Allen, who had four pressures and four run stops. Kamren Curl was another big performer for the Commanders, picking up 12 tackles, three run stops, and allowing just 18 yards in coverage.

Kendall Fuller was another name that played well, allowing just two catches for nine yards on 41 coverage snaps. Fuller also made three stops for a gain of three or less, getting active in defending the run.

Scheme

Just like two weeks ago, the Commanders operate out of four-down linemen with two-high safety looks and play zone coverage on the back end.

In Week 13, though, the Commanders made some slight adjustments to account for handling the Giants' offense. The Commanders always called some creepers/replacement blitzes, but against the Giants, they called those more often than usual.

From Weeks 1-12, Jonathan Allen and Daron Payne dropped into coverage on just 1.3 percent and 1.8 percent of their pass defense snaps, respectively, with Bobby McCain and Danny Johnson blitzing on just 1.6 percent and 8.2 percent of the time.

In Week 13, Allen and Payne dropped into coverage on 7.5 percent and 7.9 percent of the time, a 6.2 percent and 6.1 percent increase. On the flip side, McCain and Johnson were used as blitzers on 5.3 percent and 12.5 percent of the time, a 3.7 percent and 4.3 percent increase.

Another big change in tendencies was how often the Commanders called coverages. Usually, the Commanders would call man coverage on about 25 percent of their defensive snaps, whether it was cover 0, 1, or hybrid coverage.

In Week 13 against the Giants, the Commanders called man coverage about 15 percent of the time. There are many reasons for these adjustments. It could be showing respect to keeping eyes in the backfield on Daniel Jones, it could be due to the increase of creepers for the week, or it could be that the Giants offense doesn’t pose enough of a threat to need to play man coverage when you could sit in zone and still stifle an offense.

What This Means for the Giants

It may sound reckless, but the Giants should look to challenge vertically more this week against the Commanders. If an offense is challenged vertically up the seams and along the sidelines, sometimes it’s easier to play man coverage.

Another method for the Giants is to call more screens, creating mismatches that get linemen in space on smaller defenders and can create big plays. Forcing the Commanders into playing more man coverage has to be a focal point where you could open up even more big plays for Daniel Jones to run the ball.

As for running the ball, test Chase Young. Young is a phenomenal talent, but he hasn’t played football in over a year. Run the ball directly to his side and see how physical he’s willing to get in his first game back. Use Young as the read man in the option game and see if he’ll lose his discipline and assignment early on.

The Giants found success picking up yards after the catch in the last matchup. Look for them to do that again this week when the Commanders likely play zone coverage heavily again.

Final Thoughts

We saw the Giants and Commanders play to a 20-20 tie in Week 13. Whether that’s more indicative of each team’s offense being poor or defense being good is open for interpretation, but the fact remains that these teams are close in terms of talent.

Expect both teams to come out trying things that are different from their Week 13 matchup schematically and trying to turn this into an adjustments matchup. Either way, this game should be another close one that will hopefully have a winner.