How Giants Can Draw Roster-building Lessons from Eagles and Chiefs

The Eagles and Chiefs provide a good model for teams like the Giants to follow as they look to re-build their franchise.

Author:
Patricia Traina
Publish date:
Feb 12, 2023 10:00 AM EST

In this story:

New York Giants

At some point in a person's life, they lock in on a role model, aspiring to achieve the type of success the model reached.

That might sound weird to say about the Philadelphia Eagles, the New York Giants' most hated rivals, and the Kansas City Chiefs, who will face off against each other this Sunday in the Super Bowl, but like it or not, both teams have been built as solidly as they come, and they have the results to back it.

The Chiefs have made it to the Super Bowl in three of the last four seasons, winning one and losing one. On the other hand, the Eagles were last in the Super Bowl in 2017, which they won, but they have otherwise been in the playoffs in five out of their last six seasons.

The Giants? They surprised the world when they qualified for the playoffs this season despite several roster deficiencies, which we'll get to in a moment. But when all was said and done, and the Eagles eliminated the Giants via a 38-7 defeat, it became clear to general manager Joe Schoen and head coach Brian Daboll just how big of a gap exists between the two teams.

Build Through the Draft

This might sound elementary, but if it was so well known, many more teams would be doing it to where their roster composition featured more homegrown players than free-agent imports.

According to Over the Cap's advanced roster composition metrics, the Chiefs and Eagles rank fifth and sixth in terms of the percentage of their homegrown players versus those they acquired outside of the organization.

The Chiefs' ratio is 61 percent to 39 percent, and the Eagles' 60.6 percent to 39.4 percent. The Cowboys lead the league with a 71.1 percent homegrown to 28.9 percent imported. And the Giants rank 18th with an equal 50-50 split.

A look at the Giants' draft history over the last five years isn't very encouraging, as shown in the table below:

Giants five-year draft history chart (by Patricia Traina)

Based on the above data, 32 percent of the Giants' draft picks over the last five seasons either finished the season out of the league or with another team. While there are different circumstances involved, needless to say, the Giants need to start having better luck with hitting on their draft picks to where more and more of them are getting second contracts with the team.

Beef Up the Trenches

Regardless of what anyone says, games are usually won and lost in the trenches. And when it came to the Giants' 2022 season, let's be honest: they didn't always win on both sides of the ball, whether in the run game or the pass.

Let's look at some numbers. The Chiefs allowed 26 sacks and recorded 55 defensively. The Eagles allowed 44 but recorded 70 sacks.

To be fair, the Giants offensive line underwent another round of revisions which was made worse by injuries--left guard was a revolving door, center Jon Feliciano missed a couple of games, and rookie Evan Neal also had to sit out some games due to an injury.

But that's where depth comes into play, and it would be a shocking development if Schoen doesn't add to the offensive line for the long term, perhaps adding a true center that can grow old with Andrew Thomas and Neal and adding another guard prospect.

On the other side of the ball, Leonard Williams dealt with injuries, missing his first career games this year. Dexter Lawrence carried a heavy workload. Both played well, but when they came out of the game, there was a clear drop-off in depth, further exacerbated by injuries.

Here are some more numbers to consider. The Giants allowed 5.23 yards per rushing play, 31st in the league, and 6.4 yards per pass (13th). The Chiefs allowed 4.35 yards per run (15th) and 6.07 yards per pass (sixth), while the Eagles allowed 4.64 yards per run (24th) and 5.50 per pass (first).

Step Up the Pass Rush

A sub-division of the trenches that needs to be mentioned is the pass rush. The Eagles had four guys register at least 11 sacks a piece. The Chiefs had one double-digit sack artist (Chris Jones, 15.5) who, when combining his production with teammate George Karlaftis produced 21.5 sacks.

The Giants' team leader in sacks was defensive lineman Dexter Lawrence (7.5), and their four outside linebackers (Kayvon Thibodeaux, Azeez Ojulari, Oshane Ximines, and Jihad Ward) combined for 14.5 sacks.

Granted, the Giants dealt with some injuries--Ojulari missed ten games, and Thiboceaux missed two games due to injury. But unlike the Chiefs and Eagles, the Giants lack a three-deep legitimate pass-rushing threat off the edge. Ximines contributed two sacks, and Elerson Smith, whom the team was hoping to play a larger role in the pass rush, once again landed on injured reserve after contributing to just five games.

It also didn't help that Leonard Williams, who hit his first double-digit sack season in 2020, continued to see his sack numbers decline. After posting 6.5 sacks in 2021, Williams only managed 2.5 in an injury-filled season that saw him miss his first career games due to his health.

The bottom line is that the Giants need to add more firepower to this unit. They have a good nucleus with Thibodeaux and Ojulari, but as we saw last year, if a team lacks depth, it's probably not going to be as successful rushing the passer as it'd like.

Add Speed On Offense...

Be honest. How many players on the Giants' offense were the kind that kept opposing defensive coordinator up at night? Saquon Barkley? Sure. Daniel Jones's running ability? Perhaps.

Anyone else?

Therein lies a big gap between the Giants and the Eagles and Chiefs: A lack of explosive playmakers capable of creating headaches. Was it any big coincidence that when teams figured out how to minimize Barkley's impact, the Giants hit a losing skid coming out of the bye?

Is there any question that having at least another playmaker or two might have potentially forced opposing defenses to pick their poison when defending the Giants?

Assuming they re-sign both Jones and Barkley, the Giants have the same kind of one-two punch as the Eagles and Chiefs, both of whom have a leading rusher that's a running back and whose second leading rusher was their quarterback.

But what the Giants don't have yet is a receiving corps that scares anyone, certainly not in the way Devonta Smith, A.J. Brown, and Dallas Goedert of the Eagles do, or how Travis Kelce, Mecole Hardman, and Juju Smith-Schuster of the Chiefs do.

Schoen downplayed the need to add a No. 1 receiver, noting in his year-end press conference, "A number one receiver doesn’t guarantee you anything. I think it’s important that we continue to build the team, and there are multiple positions where we want to upgrade throughout the offseason. So, yeah, I’d love to have a number-one wide receiver, but we’ve got to place value on everything we do."

It might be a matter of semantics since the Giants offense is set up to build off of plays and to potentially feature different guys each week, but one thing is certain. The Giants don't have a game-changing X-receiver, the role they hoped Kenny Golladay would fill.

Just think how much that kind of player would help open up things for the running game if the Giants suddenly force opponents to guess who to devote optimal resources to rather than having it so obvious as it was every week.

...And on Defense

While on the topic of speed, let's not forget about the defensive side of the ball. We still can't get over what turned out to be a revolving door of inside linebackers this season that was brought on not by injury but by performance. This rotation seemed to be a big reason behind the run defense's struggles, as linebackers had issues filling holes.

But let's look at some numbers. The Giants allowed 5.23 yards per rush, 31st in the league, and 6.4 yards per pass, 13th. The Eagles allowed 4.64 yards per rush (24th) and 5.5 yards per pass (first), while the Chiefs allowed 4.35 yards per run (15th) and 6.07 yards per pass (sixth).

Just as a defense can never have too many pass rushers or cornerbacks, it can never have enough speed. The 2022 Giants, unfortunately, didn't have enough speed, be it due to injuries or simply the depth they carried.

Final Thoughts

Schoen knows that building a team capable of sustaining annual success will not happen overnight. Still, with a healthier cap situation this year and what appears to be a projected 11-member draft class, he's certainly going to give it his all.

"We’re going to try to do the best we can," he said. "We’re always going to try to build a better roster, players, whatever it may be, whatever it is – resources around here. Anything that we can do that’s in the best interest of the franchise that’s going to make us better, we’re going to do. You can’t put a timeframe on that, but we’re going to be relentless in the pursuit of building a championship team here."