Big Blue View
The New York Giants will return home to host the Green Bay Packers in Week 11.
The Giants return to the Meadowlands a different team than the one that left for Chicago in Week 10. Head Coach Brian Daboll has been fired, while offensive coordinator Mike Kafka has been named interim head coach in his place. Complicating matters even further, the Giants’ offense took it’s biggest hit yet when Jaxson Dart suffered a concussion on Sunday.
The Giants have fallen to a 2-8 record for the third consecutive season, and are riding a 4-game losing streak entering this week. That, along with Dart’s injury, likely explains Daboll’s dismissal. The Packers, meanwhile, have fallen on hard times as well. They’ve slipped to 5-3-1 on the season after a two-game losing streak that involves a 16-13 loss to the lowly Carolina Panthers.
But while the Packers have lost, their defense has done more than enough to win. They allowed 16 points to the Panthers and just 10 points to the Philadelphia Eagles. So what can the Giants’ offense expect from the Packers’ defense on Sunday afternoon?
The Packers run an odd-front defense, typically lining up with a three down linemen. While they technically run a 3-4 front, it’s effectively a 5-2 front as their outside linebackers line up on the line of scrimmage, outside the offensive tackles. The Packers typically run a one-gap defense, either penetrating into the backfield or using their 3-man line to force runs to the perimeter.
The Packers have versatile edge defenders, and make use of them in a variety of ways in their front. For instance, Rashan Gary is listed as a defensive end, but is often asked to play from a 2-point stance as an outside linebacker. New addition Micah Parsons, meanwhile, is listed as an “OLB” on their depth chart, but is also used as a defensive end out of a 3-point stance. The fluidity of the Packers’ front is intended to create confusion and force offenses to keep track of multiple players as well as create mismatches or one-on-one match-ups. Micah Parsons is the greatest threat in their defensive front, and teams need to go make a point of tracking him on every play. However, they can’t do so at the expense of neglecting Gary or DL Devonte Wyatt.
In fact, Gary leads the Packers with 7.5 sacks to Parsons’ 6.5 sacks — though Parsons does have one more QB hit than Gary. The Giants also need to be aware of LB Quay Walker, who is used as an off-ball linebacker, a pass rusher, and as a run defender.
The Packers typically play zone coverage, calling some form of zone roughly 68 percent of the time. Interestingly, they call Cover-1, Cover-2, and Cover-3 at pretty similar rates. They call Cover-1 on 23.8 percent of plays, Cover-2 on 23.5 percent of plays, and Cover 3 on 29.9 percent of plays. Of their three most frequent alignments, Cover 3 is by far...
