For the second straight season, the New York Giants struggled immensely to provide a response meaningful enough to minimize their opponents’ running efforts.
Even with personnel changes to account for their weakness in 2023, the regime of Joe Schoen and Brian Daboll didn’t find the answers it was looking for when it brought in running-minded defensive coordinator Shane Bowen of Tennessee.
During Bowen’s three seasons with the Titans, he quickly built a legacy on defensive units that prided themselves on rushing and were effective on late stops near the red zone. His Titans teams were always hanging around or in the top 10 in the opponents’ main racing categories, forcing teams to fight their way through the air.
Unfortunately, that didn’t transfer from Bowen to the Giants. After finishing in one of the bottom four spots in the NFL in rushing yards, touchdowns and average yards per carry that peaked at around 4.7 per attempt, Bowen’s run defense this year n ‘was only extended with similar rankings in first and third. categories and a more recent troubling trend in an adjacent statistic that could get scarier on Sunday: an epidemic of missed tackles.
According to Pro Football Focus, the Giants have 125 missed tackles, including 64 against the run, and one missed tackle rate of approximately 13.6 percent for their attempts overall, which is good for 13th in the NFL.
Seven of the Giants’ most-used defenders have missed nine or more tackles this year, and nearly twice as many players have been shredded on more than 10.7 percent of their opportunities.
In total, this led to the Giants giving up 905 yards after contact, which was the second-highest amount behind the Cleveland Browns with just one month remaining in the regular season.
That feat doesn’t take into account the looming reality that awaits the Baltimore Ravens, with their ever-present running back, Derrick Henry, adding to the tally.
Henry, who signed with the Ravens in free agency after eight seasons with Tennessee, is competing with Saquon Barkley for best rushing performance of the season and who is in the running for the all-time rushing record in only one season held by the Rams. legend Eric Dickerson (2,105 yards).
In addition to continuing his career-best campaign from the 2020 season, the 30-year-old running back reached his current production of 1,407 yards and 13 scores by being one of the best players in the game at rubbing off defenders.
According to NextGen Stats, Henry has forced 78 total missed tackles this season, is good for the third most in the league, and has taken them for an additional 587 yards, which completely outstrips the rest of the competition by 80 yards.
Henry now has five of the top 12 seasons in yards gained from missed tackles since 2018, and that number can only reach two seasons in the same span for any other player looking at his caliber of talent.
To put this season in perspective, he racked up six 100-plus yard games in some of the Ravens’ dominant games of the year, and all but one saw him add 50-plus yards after continued contact.
With Baltimore fresh off the bye week and Henry’s legs fresh for the final stretch, he’ll be inspired to take them on against a weak Giants unit that has let running backs run wild on them in recent weeks, including Understood allowing over 100 rushing yards in nine of their last ten games, and over 150 yards in five of them.
Last week, the Giatns run defense held Saints running back Alvin Kamara and the Saints ground attack to 92 yards with a season-high 11 stops. That’s quite an accomplishment, considering their defensive front was made up of guys who had rarely played or were on the practice squad earlier in the season.
Can the Giants’ run defense do the same against Henry, quarterback Lamar Jackson and the rest of the Ravens’ offense, which has the league’s second-best rushing attack (179.1 yards per game? ) ?
It’s a tall order, but if they can limit the damage the Ravens are doing on the field, it would certainly go a long way in giving them a chance to keep the game close.
