New York Giants Week 12: First Look at Cowboys Defense

The New York Giants visit the Dallas Cowboys in Arlington for a rare (for the Giants, at any rate) Thanksgiving day matchup. Let's see what's changed with the Cowboys defense since the two teams met earlier this season in Week 3.

Personnel

Since the week three matchup between the Giants and Cowboys, there are some new contributors to the defense. The defense is still centered around Micah Parsons’ who has generated 30 pressures and six sacks since week four.

Parsons is still his dominant self, but in recent weeks he’s gotten much more help from Demarcus Lawrence and Dante Fowler Jr. That duo has combined for 41 pressures, seven sacks, and 30 run stops since week four.

The Cowboys pass rush has also been helped by the emergence of Sam Williams, the rookie second-round pick out of Ole Miss. For the first three weeks of the season, Williams only picked up two pressures, both of which came in the game against the Giants. Since that game, though, Williams has come alive, generating ten pressures in just 69 pass rush opportunities.

At linebacker Leighton Vander Esch and Anthony Barr have been relatively consistent. They haven’t been consistently good, but they’ve been reliably average players, and given their veteran status, the Cowboys know what they’re getting from them.

In the secondary, Trevon Diggs hasn’t been the playmaker he was last season, but that’s likely a combination of his more consistent play in coverage and the talent lacking around him. Diggs was a boom-or-bust player who created turnovers last season but also gave up big plays consistently.

This year, he’s been a reliable cover man while quarterbacks have made it a point to target Anthony Brown and nickel defender DaRon Bland. Bland has given up 103 yards on eight targets in the last three weeks alone.

Brown has been targeted 67 times this season, giving up 38 catches, 430 yards, and four touchdowns for a passer rating of 96.

Donovan Wilson and Malik Hooker are still the starters at safety, with Jayron Kearse playing a hybrid safety/linebacker role when he’s been healthy. The trio at safety has allowed the Cowboys to get more versatile on the back end, which we’ll discuss in the next section.

Scheme

The Cowboys defensive scheme hasn’t changed from the last time the Giants faced them. The coaching staff is the same; for the most part, the personnel hasn’t changed.

However, some of their tendencies have changed, as the Cowboys have used safety Donovan Wilson significantly less as a pass-rusher. Through the first three games of the season, Wilson was used as a pass-rusher on 7.2% of his defensive snaps, but since then, he’s only blitzed on 2.3% of his snaps.

One of the biggest changes the Cowboys have made personnel-wise is using three safeties more often than they did to start the season, although that’s likely more so because of Jayron Kearse dealing with an injury that kept him inactive.

Despite technically being a safety, Kearse has essentially been playing linebacker - and has been one of the most effective run defenders on the team. This allows the Cowboys to be more versatile in coverage by taking a linebacker off the field and putting in someone who could cover better without sacrificing run defense.

All in all, this is still a defense that will put four or five defenders on the line of scrimmage, run stunts up front to confuse offensive lines, and play zone coverage on the back end more often than not.

What This Means for the Giants

The game plan shouldn’t change that much for the Giants from week three to Thanksgiving. Even last week against the Vikings, the Cowboys gave up runs to the right side of the offensive line.

The Giants should make it a point to run towards the right side of the line, preferably towards the outside, and hope that Saquon Barkley can get back to doing Saquon Barkley things.

Unfortunately for Daniel Jones, in this matchup, he won’t have Sterling Shepard or Daniel Bellinger, who were the second and third-leading receivers in week three.

The game plan is still to get rid of the ball as quickly as possible to the flats, especially with injuries mounting up on the offensive line.

Due to injuries, pickings will be slim for Daniel Jones as a passer, and he’ll likely be relied upon more as a runner this week than ever before.

Final Thoughts

The Cowboys defense is just a few days removed from the most dominant defensive performance in the NFL this season, where they beat the Vikings 40-3. It’ll be tough for the Giants to be able to find consistent success against, but even the Vikings found success running the ball; they just had to give up on it early because of their defense not being able to stop the Cowboys.

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