New York Giants Week 9: How the Commanders' Defense Might Be Different This Time

How will a struggling New York Giants offense fare against a red-hot Washington Commanders defense?

Brandon Olsen | Oct 31, 2024

Oct 20, 2024; Landover, Maryland, USA; Washington Commanders linebacker Dante Fowler Jr. (6) celebrates after making a tackle on a fourth down conversion attempt against the Carolina Panthers during the second quarter at Northwest Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-Imagn Images / Geoff Burke-Imagn Images

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New York Giants

The New York Giants are averaging 9.33 points per game over the past three weeks and are about to face a Washington Commanders defense that has dominated over the past two weeks.

Let’s see what has changed since the two teams met in Week 2.

Personnel

Dante Fowler Jr. has had a career resurgence with the Commanders, leading the team with 24 pressures and five sacks so far despite not being an every-down kind of player.

With star defensive lineman Jonathan Allen out for the season, the Commanders are looking for rookie second-round pick Jer’Zhan Newton to become a more consistent contributor.

Newton had seven pressures last week against the Bears after registering just two pressures through his first six games.

Dorance Armstrong and Clelin Ferrell man the edges as the starters on this defense, with Newton joining Daron Payne on the interior.

Frankie Luvu and Bobby Wagner are the Commanders' starting off-ball linebackers and have been used as versatile weapons so far this year.

Luvu has blitzed on 27.9% of his pass-defense snaps while Wagner blitzes on 16.3% of pass-defense snaps.

They’ve both found success there, too, picking up 15 and 14 pressures, respectively.

In the secondary, Mike Sainristil has moved to outside cornerback after starting the season as Washington's nickel defender.

Noah Igbinoghene now handles the majority of the snaps in the slot and has played decently, albeit not great, there.

Benjamin St-Juste is still trying to take the next step as a boundary cornerback, but he might just be what he has shown to be - considering this is year four, and he’s never taken that step.

Jeremy Chinn, Quan Martin, and Percy Butler handle the majority of snaps at safety, with Chinn moving around the formation.

Chinn has a safety/linebacker mold, and the Commanders are doing a good job weaponizing him across the formation, although I think they would use him more as a blitzer than they have so far.

Scheme

Dan Quinn’s defense is unsurprisingly performing well this season. It has only allowed 28 or more points three times, one of which came in overtime. The other two were in week one against the Buccaneers and in a shootout win over the Bengals.

While Quinn has historically been a very Cover 3-heavy coach, the Commanders run Cover 2 at one of the highest rates in the league.

Cover 1 is their most commonly called coverage, then Cover 2 then cover three to make up more than 70% of their defensive coverages.

As I mentioned, I would have expected the Commanders to use Chinn more as a blitzer, but I suspect that has more to do with Wagner’s lack of coverage ability than anything else.

Blitzing Chinn likely means leaving Wagner in coverage and that’s just easy pickings for most NFL quarterbacks.

The Commanders are doing a good job of using versatile defenders around the defense, with players like Luvu and Chinn in the back seven and Jer’Zhan Newton along the front.

Overview

This Commanders defense has developed a chemistry together and that’s more important than the individual talent available.

The pass rush has started to figure some things out over the past month, registering a pressure percentage over 40% in three of their last four games. They’ve also significantly increased their blitz rate in that time.

Teams have been finding success running the football against the Commanders lately, and if Tyrone Tracy is healthy, he should be able to spring more explosive runs.

The Giants' offensive line has suffered injuries in recent weeks, and I think the emphasis should be on Daniel Jones and John Michael Schmitz to properly recognize and prepare for the blitzes that the Commanders will be bringing.