How New York Giants Helped Their Offensive Line
For as much optimism as there was about this New York Giants team ahead of the 2023 season, there was one remaining cloud hanging over the team's chance for success: the offensive line.
With good reason. The 26th-ranked offensive line in pass-blocking efficiency last year was now sporting a rookie center in John Michael Schmitz and a right tackle in Evan Neal, who both missed a significant chunk of his rookie year and had a rocky season.
The unit's Week 1 performance against the Dallas Cowboys did little to assuage the concerns surrounding this unit and the injuries and reshuffling the line underwent in Week 2, in which it had new faces at both left tackle (Joshua Ezeudu) and right guard (Marcus McKethan) was a risk the team felt it had to take.
Despite the concerns, the Giants managed to come back from a 28-7 deficit in the third quarter to eke out the win. The Giants’ unbelievable comeback over the Arizona Cardinals was a tale of two halves and much of how they did it came down to schematic adjustments and protecting the offensive line.
The first half of the game looked too similar to the Giants’ Week 1 defeat, even though the Cardinals don’t have anything like the speed on defense that Dallas boasts, so they weren’t getting nearly as much penetration to disrupt behind the line of scrimmage.
The Giants relied on the classic West Coast quick game that carried them to the playoffs in the first half. They used a variety of quick slants and swing passes to the short area of the field to get the ball out of Daniel Jones’ hand quickly. It’s the standard prescription for a struggling offense with a suspect offensive line.
Arizona managed to balance aggressiveness and discipline, allowing them to dictate the terms of the game to the Giants’ offense. The Giants relied heavily on quick passes to tight end Darren Waller, receiver Isaiah Hodgins, and running back Saquon Barkley in the first half. Still, the Cardinals were similarly prepared for that attack style as Dallas was.
Quarterback Daniel Jones was getting the ball out of his hand in roughly 2.5 seconds when the Giants trailed 20-0 at halftime, but the ball wasn’t traveling far down the field. The Giants’ offense was laboring heavily in the face of Arizona’s swarming defense as they could play downhill.
So what changed in the second half that allowed the Giants to mount an amazing comeback victory?
The Giants came out incredibly aggressively, and it was just what they needed after a futile start to the 2023 season. It took three plays for them to sprint 75 yards and score their first points of the season. Their aggressiveness completely surprised Arizona and knocked them out of their game. It also revealed a glaring weakness in the Cardinals’ defense that the offense could safely exploit.
The very first play of the second half was a play-action pass to rookie receiver Jalin Hyatt for 58 yards. The Cardinals had a safety in position to contest the catch at the start of the play; however, the run fake pulled him out of position.
Not only did the run-action expose the back end of the Cardinals’ defense, but it also slowed down the Arizona pass rush. Where the Cardinals were able to balance aggressiveness and discipline in the first half, they never really recovered from the shock play to open the second half.
The Giants could take advantage of the aggressiveness with which the Cardinals had to play to overcome their limited roster. That bred costly mistakes, which helped to keep the Giants on the field and out-score the Cardinals 31-7 in the second half.
Per NFL NextGenStats, 229 of Daniel Jones’ 321 passing yards (71.3 percent) came from play-action. He also averaged an incredible 12.1 yards per attempt off of play-action, as opposed to just 5.1 on straight dropbacks.
It seemed as though every time the Giants snapped the ball in the second half, there was a mesh point between Jones and Barkley. And the constant meshing between Jones and Barkley created tremendous uncertainty in the Cardinals’ defense.
Not only did it create opportunities for explosive plays, but it also helped to slow down the Cardinals’ pass rush. By the end of the game, Jones’ time to throw had climbed from just over 2.5 seconds to 2.82. That’s a remarkable change and seemingly flies in the face of how teams with suspect offensive lines typically play.
However, as Bill Walsh once said, play-action is the safest way to push the ball downfield, and it was just what the Giants needed to complete their comeback. It also created opportunities for read-option plays and scrambles, which supplemented the Giants’ rushing yardage.
The heavy reliance on play-action and aggressive passing attack isn’t a panacea that solved the Giants’ pass protection woes. It might not have proven effective against a more disciplined or athletic defense. But for a historic comeback in a must-win game, it was enough.
With a quick turnaround on deck--the Giants visit the San Francisco 49ers on Thursday--the offense’s main objective now is to figure out how to deal with the 49ers’ potent defense.
We don’t know exactly what offensive coordinator Mike Kafka and head coach Brian Daboll will do on Thursday night. However, we can safely assume there will still be some quick-game, some option plays, and likely plenty of play-action, as trying to stay efficient while using misdirection to facilitate aggressiveness is likely the Giants’ best offensive bet for now.
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