Big Blue View
The New York Giants’ Week 8 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles was a no-good, rotten, very bad day.
Very little good came out of the loss. It could be argued that the play of Jaxson Dart in the face of Vic Fangio’s defense was a positive in the context of his long-term development. But even then, the outcome was poor thanks to the play of the team around Dart. He was let down time and again by his receivers, while also losing Cam Skattebo to a gruesome ankle injury that required emergency surgery and Daniel Bellinger to a neck injury.
The Giants were already missing some of their best players due to injury, and losing more just added injury to insult (literally).
Lost in the conversation around the loss, Skattebo’s injury, and how the game was officiated (or not officiated, as the case may be), is that third-year cornerback Deonte Banks quietly played well against the Eagles.
Banks was pressed into a starting role after Paulson Adebo suffered a knee injury against the Denver Broncos. Fans and media members alike predicted that the Eagles would key on Banks, picking on a corner who has struggled throughout his young career.
I noted in a post on The Feed prior to the game that Banks’ play was one of the things I wanted to track throughout the game, saying, “I’m going to try to keep track of his assignments and how often Hurts checks and moves on, not just what happens if he’s targeted.”
So how did Banks do?
The Giants’ run defense was, in a word, atrocious against the Eagles. For the most part, all three levels failed, albeit at different times (on most plays). Banks himself didn’t have much of a role in the Giants run defense in the game. Not that he wasn’t asked to be a run defender, but the Eagles tended to run to the opposite side of the field than the one he was on.
No, they probably weren’t avoiding him. It’s (much) more likely that it’s simply how things worked out. The times the Eagles did run his way, the results were uneven, but not altogether terrible.
We’ll get the bad out of the way first, then finish on a couple high notes.
Banks is the boundary cornerback here, aligned outside of Brian Burns. The Eagles line up in a jumbo package with offensive tackle Fred Johnson declaring as a jumbo tight end. Eagles’ running back Tank Bigsby takes the hand-off and presses the gap between Johnson and tight end Dallas Goedert.
Burns’ job is to set the edge and control the tight end. He positions himself to the outside, which cedes the D-gap to Bobby Okereke, and establishes Banks as outside contain. Unfortunately, Banks is sucked inside by Bigsby pressing the gap, and isn’t able to get back outside to either tackle Bigsby slow him until help can arrive.
This was, frankly one of Banks’ two worst plays of the game....
