Review: Where the Giants Pass Defense Struggled (and How to Adjust)
The Giants defense assembled a valiant effort against a quality, yet rusty, Steelers’ offense on prime time television. New York was able to stymie the Steelers’ ability to run the football early on, until adjustments were made to take advantage of what Patrick Graham was doing.
The Steelers started running a lot of power/gap (1 to 2 pullers) to the outside, away from the tite OKIE/BEAR front the Giants were frequently showing.
In base, the Giants ran a lot of 3-3-5, with a nose, 3-technique to the boundary, and a 4i-technique to the field.
This puts a lot of pressure on the force defender outside with pullers coming at him and his nearest defender is inside of the tackle. That adjustment worked, especially with the Giants defense tiring out and their pursuit wasn’t as lively due to fatigue.
Other big adjustments that the Steelers made to put the Giants in a bind was in the passing attack.
Defensive coordinator Patrick Graham ran a lot of Cover 1 on Monday Night, and he also ran a lot of Cover 2.
In the two-minute drill before the end of the first half, Graham was running a lot of Cover 1 man, and the Steelers adjusted to ensure their receivers separation ability was maximized by creating traffic with their routes to manipulate the coverage defenders.
It all started on a 2nd-and-10, the fourth play into the drive, and after a failed jet sweep, a back-shoulder completion, and an incomplete pass.
Man Beaters
Pittsburgh has three eligible receivers to the field with JuJu Smith-Schuster tight to Eric Ebron, who is lined up in the Y.
This is a designed play to pick Darnay Holmes, No. 30, off of Smith-Schuster and give the receiver nothing but open space to run into because the Giants were in obvious man coverage.
Ebron releases slightly outside and vertical, then engages Jabrill Peppers, No. 21. This creates traffic that Holmes must go around; while that’s happening, Holmes’ assignment, JuJu, goes underneath the traffic and has a clear path into space, while Holmes is forced to take a disadvantageous angle to cut Smith-Schuster off.
This is a simple "man beater," and the Steelers kept doing this throughout the drive.
The very next play, the Steelers line up in a stack. The No. 2 receiver does the same thing; slightly releases outside and vertical, towards the inside shoulder of the No. 1 receiver’s defender in man coverage who happens to be Corey Ballentine, No. 25.
This creates traffic and allows the receiver to go underneath, but the pass is incomplete.
Typically in these types of situations, a BANJO call could be made by the defense. BANJO calls require a lot of communication for they change the assignments of the defenders based on the stems and routes of the wide receivers, e.g., “If receiver A goes out, I got him; if receiver A goes in, you got him.”
That didn’t happen with the Giants on Sunday, and the Steelers went back to a similar play concept the very next snap.
It’s the same look as the first play, and it initially looks like the same play, but the Steelers get tricky.
Ebron releases vertically and Holmes anticipates the same under route, so he is baited to go overtop a bit early, but Smith-Schuster and the Steelers had something else in mind.
Good job by Holmes to recognize the play, but it was gassed and it was designed for Holmes to react that way. Holmes goes over the top and Smith-Schuster runs a pivot route back outside, now with Holmes momentum going inside in anticipation.
This gives Smith-Schuster all the leverage outside in man coverage with no one out there to stop him. It’s a very easy first down pick up, and then some.
Two plays later, Pittsburgh scores on this play with a similar man beating concept with a wheel route from the No. 2 receiver and an under route from the No. 1.
The wheel routes goal is to pick James Bradberry, No. 24 off of James Washington, No. 13 which gives the receiver separation in the middle of the field.
Smith-Schuster runs the wheel and leads Holmes right into Bradberry who was trying to work over the top of the wheel.
This put Washington into an excellent position to catch the football in space. It was a great sequence from the Steelers in an up-tempo, no-huddle, offense.
Cover-2 Beaters
When the Steelers adjusted to power outside after halftime, and the Giants man coverage was being abused by clever route combinations, the Giants switched to play a bit more 2-high zone.
This consisted of some Cover 2 / Tampa 2 type of looks, and they also mixed in some Cover 1 robber--they didn’t fully stray away from man coverage. This is how the Steelers combated Cover 2 zone.
New York is showing mostly man, but if you look at the No. 3 receiver to the field you’ll see that he’s uncovered, which is a sign of zone.
The Giants then drop to zone post-snap and the Steelers handle this coverage in an intelligent way. To the play side, they run the No. 2 and No. 3 receiver vertical acting as a clearout for the hook defenders.
While this is going on, the No. 1 receiver runs a drag underneath and the corner doesn’t follow because his zone is flat. This leaves an open void in the hook zone areas because they were cleared out by the other receivers routes.
The result is an easy pitch-and-catch for the offense, and it usually results in the wide receiver being matched up with a lesser athlete like a linebacker. On this play, Dexter Lawrence, No. 97 was actually in coverage as well.
The Giants were in their 2-4-5. Both Blake Martinez, No. 54 and Davante Downs, No. 52 have excellent pursuit to the football and take advantage of the receiver stumbling.
Here’s a similar look from the Steelers; again against Cover 2. The No. 2 and No. 3 receiver here are tight, with the No. 1 receiver being off the numbers by about five yards.
After the snap, the No. 2 receiver releases outside and up, and the No. 3 goes straight vertical, clearing out and occupying the underneath defenders' attention.
With that happening, again, the Steelers’ receiver easily catches the ball on the drag and picks up a big chunk of yardage while being in space against players like Lorenzo Carter, No. 59.
Peppers was the apex defender on the play and he could have had a good shot at stopping it, but the clear-outs occupied him long enough. It’s very good playcalling and scheming from Steelers offensive coordinator Randy Fitchner and quarterback Ben Roethlisberger.
Moving Forward
There’s no doubt that Bears head coach Matt Nagy is aware of these concepts and how the Giants struggled to handle them in Week 1.
I expect the Bears to do something similar and really utilize the slot, while taking vertical shots with players like Darnell Mooney who played just over 30% of the snaps.
I expect to see a lot of Allen Robinson in the slot against Darnay Holmes, and I also feel like the horizontal crosses will be a problem for the Giants.
However, if Graham tasks Logan Ryan to specifically eliminate the strong side crossers from the robber position (as he did on a few occasions against the Steelers) then maybe the Giants can bait Mitchell Trubisky into mistakes.
This is a winnable game in Week 2 for the Giants, so let’s hope the defense can force some turnovers against the Bears’ offense.
