Big Blue View
The New York Giants surrendered 276 rushing yards in their 38-20 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles. Both Saquon Barkley and Tank Bigsby topped the 100-yard mark as the Eagles averaged 8.4 yards per carry, with each back exceeding 10 yards per attempt. There’s no other way to slice it — the Giants were flat-out embarrassed on the ground.
The Giants couldn’t fit the run, tackle, or slow down an Eagles rushing attack that entered Week 8 averaging a measly 88 yards per game, ranking 29th in the NFL. Yes, the officiating was comically bad — to the point where fans are questioning the integrity of Brad Rogers’ crew — but that doesn’t change the fact that Philadelphia manhandled the Giants in the trenches.
The Giants couldn’t handle Philadelphia’s double-teams up front; the edge rushers lost contain multiple times, and the linebackers — particularly Darius Muasau — were not gap-sound. Overall, the defense was undisciplined in its run fits, and the third-level defenders — notably Tyler Nubin — lacked the quickness and range to compensate for the breakdowns up front. Then there’s the sloppy tackling, which Muasau was guilty of multiple times. He missed four of five tackle attempts, for an 80% missed-tackle rate.
The Giants held Philadelphia to just 73 yards (3.7 yards per carry) two weeks ago. The Eagles honored the run more seriously in Week 8 and attacked the Giants outside the tackles. On the nub tight end side, the Eagles pulled their play side tackle and center to the frontside multiple times throughout the game. Philadelphia also incorporated center skip-pulls, G-Lead (play-side guard), an HB misdirection crack toss pitch, among other more common rushing concepts.
The Eagles also ran their signature tush push, with quarterback Jalen Hurts granted the luxury of fighting for extra yardage without worrying about ball security. What a luxury!
Enough snarkiness from me. Let’s go through five run defense plays — if we can call it that — where the Eagles embarrassed the Giants.
A second-and-10. Philadelphia aligned with six offensive linemen (Fred Johnson, No. 74) and tight end Grant Calcaterra (81) on the field side, as well as wide receiver Darius Cooper (80). The Giants align in an OVER front with Roy Robertson-Harris (95) as the six-technique over the sixth offensive lineman acting as a tight end.
This defensive alignment is used to account for Philadelphia’s extra muscle, but it leaves a natural bubble in the backside B-Gap. Rakeem Nunez-Roches (93) is the backside one-technique with Kayvon Thibodeaux as the backside edge; there is A LOT of space between the two players. Nunez-Roches’ one-technique alignment made the double-team between center Brett Toth (64) and Landon Dickerson (69) naturally leveraged, meaning the COMBO-Climb up to Muasau would negate the linebacker from fitting the backside B-Gap. Unfortunately, this is precisely what happened.
Muasau failed to be cognizant of the backside responsibility as Barkley pressed the frontside. To the Giants’ credit, the frontside played the run well, but Muasau...
