New York Giants Week 3: A Look at the Cleveland Browns Defense

What will the New York Giants see when they face the Cleveland Browns defense this week?

Sep 15, 2024; Jacksonville, Florida, USA; Cleveland Browns defensive end Myles Garrett (95) celebrates a stop against the Jacksonville Jaguars in the third quarter at EverBank Stadium. / Jeremy Reper-Imagn Images

The New York Giants offense has yet to perform consistently, but it will hopefully do so against the Cleveland Browns this weekend.

Personnel

This Browns defense is built to generate a pass rush consistently, but outside of Myles Garrett, that hasn’t happened.

Garrett has picked up six pressures on just 26 true pass sets, excluding play action, rollouts, and RPOs. Those 26 true pass sets only include plays between two and four seconds before the throw.

On those plays Garrett has a pass-rush win rate of 26.1%, 10th-best among qualifying edge rushers.

Za’Darius Smith is the rusher opposite Garrett but to this point in the year he’s been a relative non-factor on the field.

On the interior of the line is Shelby Harris, Quinton Jefferson, and former Giant Dalvin Tomlinson handle the majority of the reps.

Expect to see Harris and Tomlinson handle most of the reps as a nose with Jefferson playing more of a 3-technique role.

Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah and Jordan Hicks play the overwhelming majority of snaps at linebacker.

Owusu-Koramoah has played 122 of 123 defensive snaps and Hicks has played 98 of them. 

Hicks is struggling this season in just about every way but he’s been especially unimpressive in coverage so far.

The secondary is stacked when healthy with Denzel Ward, Greg Newsome II, and Martin Emerson Jr. 

Newsome II bounces in to play the slot when Emerson comes onto the field as the outside corner.

Grant Delpit is the swiss-army knife of the defense that plays as the deep safety and comes down into the box to play off-ball or off the edge occasionally.

Juan Thornhill was the starting safety but after week one was placed on IR so Ronnie Hickman Jr has been starting in his place.

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• RELATED: New York Giants Week 3: A Look at the Cleveland Browns Offense

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Scheme

The Browns defense has the ninth-highest blitz rate in the NFL right now with a 28.2% blitz rate and are tied for the fifth-quickest time to throw at 2.53 seconds.

The most common off-ball blitzers for the Browns are Owusu-Koramoah, Hicks, and Delpit despite not being effective there yet.

The trio has combined for just four pressures on 36 blitzes so they’ve yet to figure that out yet which could help the Giants with Daniel Jones throwing both of his touchdowns this year against the blitz.

Schematically, the Browns will run mostly cover one or cover three as they stay with single-high shells more often than not.

Overview

The Giants need to take deep shots in this matchup against the Browns. It’s not the strength of the current roster but the Jaguars were able to push the ball vertically last week.

The wide run has been successful against the Browns to this point as well. When running outside of the tight end against the Browns, offenses are averaging 7.125 yards per carry.

This will be the first true tough test for the Giants offensive line to handle a Browns pass-rush with talent that’s just looking to put it together and tee off.

Opportunities are going to be there but for a Giants team that has failed to capitalize, things have to drastically change or there will be more disappointments in the future.

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