New York Giants Week 18: Review of Philadelphia Eagles’ Defense

The New York Giants have one more regular season game this Sunday against the (current) No. 1 seeded Philadelphia Eagles, who won the last matchup 48-22. What's changed since that first meeting?

We take a look.

Personnel

The Eagles defense at every level has top-flight talent with veteran depth behind them and one of the best rosters in the NFL. There is no wiggle

Personnel-wise, the Eagles haven’t had many changes since the last time these two teams played in week 14. The Eagles will likely be without Josh Sweat this week after he got injured Sunday against the Saints.

The Eagles could be missing Avonte Maddox from their secondary as he’s dealing with a toe injury but did play in the week 14 game against the Giants.

The healthy players who should probably concern the Giants the most are Haason Reddick and Brandon Graham. The duo combined for 15 pressures and five sacks in the week 14 matchup on 54 combined pass-rush snaps, causing mayhem for Daniel Jones and the Giants offensive line.

Scheme

When the Giants faced the Commanders for the second time, it was easy to look at how the Commanders defended the Giants and what they did differently from the first game.

That’s difficult to do with the rematch between the Giants and Eagles because the Eagles got off to a big lead early, taking their foot off the gas defensively, and letting backups see significant snaps in the blowout.

The basic principles of this Eagles defense haven’t changed in the month since these two teams played: four-man front, pressing at the line of scrimmage, with quarters coverage on the back end.

One notable change for the first matchup was that Kyzir White was used as a pass-rusher on 11.5% of his pass defense snaps, as opposed to his usual 5.1% - a 6.4% increase.

The week 14 game was also the only time the Eagles have used Reed Blankenship as a pass-rusher this season. That doesn’t mean that there will be a repeat performance, but it’s something to note that the Eagles got more aggressive against the Giants than previous opponents and the opponents since.

What This Means for the Giants

If the Giants want to win, they have to get the ball to Saquon Barkley. The Giants gave up on the run too early against the Eagles in week 14 and never let themselves get into a rhythm.

It’s going to be interesting to see if the Giants feed Barkley or try to keep him fresh for the playoffs and work with Breida and Brightwell.

Throwing the ball is the same plan it should have been in their last match, keep the ball underneath and attack the middle of the field. In the week 14 matchup, Daniel Jones went 9/12 passing with 83 yards between the numbers and shorter than 20 yards downfield, so the completions are there for Jones with yards after catch opportunities.

The Saints had a similar gameplan throwing the ball when they beat the Eagles last week; however, the Saints had the situation of needing to win, so using Taysom Hill as a runner was a part of the gameplan, and I don’t see the Giants wanting to do that with Daniel Jones before the playoffs.

Final Thoughts

The Giants are again facing a great defense, but even on top of that, the Eagles are in a situation where they don’t have the first seed locked up heading into playoffs, so they still have to try to win. The 49ers are also in contention for the first seed, and they play the Cardinals at the same time as the Eagles and Giants.

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