Sean McVay Offers a Surprising, Unsolicited Sentiment About the Giants Defense
Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay, on a video conference with Giants beat writers, was asked about his play-calling decision-making process when suddenly he offered an unsolicited and surprising opinion of the Giants defense.
"I’ll tell you what," McVay said with a straight face, "this is a real pain to get ready for this defense. They do a great job of activating a handful of different personnel groupings. They are huge inside and they do a great job of really limiting the space that you can create."
Come again?
"This is a great challenge for our offense," McVay added.
While on the surface that might sound like McVay was being respectful toward his team's next opponent, despite the overall 0-3 record, the Giants defense surprisingly has been more middle of the pack.
Patrick Graham's unit is ranked 13th overall in yards per game allowed, 20th against the run, and 10th against the pass.
But numbers can be deceiving. The Giants pass defense, for example, hasn't been tested deep yet as opponents have had more success exploiting intermediate areas of the field. (The Giants have only allowed six big-play passes of 20+ yards in three games, the longest being a 28-yarder in Week 1 to Chase Claypool of the Steelers.)
And the run defense should probably be better as of the nine big-play runs of over 10 yards, two were by opposing quarterbacks.
Regardless, McVay's words are still curious as the Giant's defense is still part of the reason why the team stands 0-3.
"I can't speak for Coach McVay, but we got good players," said Graham. "We got good players on the field. I mean, if I were in an offensive coach's shoes, yeah, it's hard to deal with those good players.
"I don't know exactly what he meant--I can't speak for him, but there are a lot of good players on the field and we just gotta find a way to string it together and finish."
