This Giants Player Viewed as X-Factor for Success

One Giants defender is being considered a key element to how far the team will go in 2024.

Jul 24, 2024; East Rutherford, NJ, USA; New York Giants cornerback Deonte Banks (3) slaps hand with linebacker Bobby Okereke (58) during training camp at Quest Diagnostics Training Facility. / Vincent Carchietta-USA TODAY Sports

In a season where the New York Giants have a lot to decipher on the offensive side of the ball, one NFL analyst believes the team’s secret weapon will come from the defensive end, and not from the impressive group they have set to play up front. 

While New York’s success will depend heavily on the work of their defensive front seven, Ben Solak of ESPN picked perimeter cornerback Deonte Banks to be the Giants X-factor for the 2024 season. 

Despite having one of the youngest and thinnest secondaries in the league, Solak figures Banks to be the one player that can best uplift the position, and the Giants more broadly, and expects him to take a gigantic leap in his sophomore year. 

From his analysis of the Giants’ 2023 first-round pick, Solak states, “the most important position belongs to Banks…He held his own, often in isolated man coverage as defensive coordinator Wink Martindale left him on an island…but new defensive coordinator Shane Bowen runs a more diverse blend of coverages. That will particularly help Banks, whose zone feel was impressive in college.”

While Banks is still considered a spring chicken by NFL standards, he is arguably the most battle-tested cornerback on the Giants roster this season outside of Adoree’ Jackson. After he was picked 24th overall that year, the 23-year-old Banks was thrown straight into the role of the No. 1 cornerback faced with slowing down the opposition’s elite pass catchers every Sunday. 

It wasn’t always a clean mission for a rookie in the Giants’ blitz-heavy system under Martindale that sent guys charging into the backfield a whopping 45.4 percent of the time with a lot of manufactured pressure from the secondary. New York also struggled to get consistent pressure on the quarterback which put extra emphasis on Banks, who was targeted the tenth-highest 92 times, to stick with the toughest wide receivers in extra space. 

Yet, with a mix of athleticism and ball skills, Banks often made it work as one of the team’s sharpest deep field assets. In 844 total snaps and 496 in coverage, which ranked third in the Giants secondary, Banks held his opponents to a position-best 57.6 percent reception rate with 16 forced incompletions and two interceptions. He also kept the after the catch damage below 210 yards and four touchdowns for one of the cleanest markings among eligible corners with at least 22 targets.

Over the course of the 2023 season, Banks allowed more than four receptions and 87 yards receiving just four times while playing against the likes of CeeDee Lamb, Tyreek Hill, Stefon Diggs and DK Metcalf. 

The only players that fared similarly to him in those areas were safeties Xavier McKinney, Jason Pinnock and veteran Adoree Jackson, two of which left in free agency and one whose new role upon returning to the team is yet to be determined. 

Pending he can grow his game in year two, Banks attributes will become crucial when the Giants untested defense ventures into man coverage looks against high-powered offenses, but one can’t forget how he fits into the things that are changing under Shane Bowen’s new system in 2024. 

The new defensive coordinator doesn’t like to use a lot of pressure from the third level, instead vouching for combinations of zone coverages, like quarters, that should put more guys in starting reps but also help them handle the big responsibilities in the open field. Banks did really well in that type of system in his days at Maryland, peaking in his senior year with a 74.3 coverage grade while allowing no more than 53 yards receiving per game and a 43.3 percent rate.

There is also the element of underneath demands for the secondary, where Bowen will call on the cornerbacks to get physical in stopping the run game that was a major problem last season. 

The Giants ranked 28th in overall run defense last season despite adding stout defenders to help the cause, which was good for 132.4 yards per game and the league’s second-worst 4.7 yards per attempt. 

That should all be improved under Bowen’s leadership, but again, Banks should be one of the names involved in that operation as he was one of the strongest box tacklers at the college level and posted a position-best 64 tackles and a modest 12.3 percent missed tackle rate in his first pro campaign. 

As the rest of his teammates get their feet wet in more extensive roles and try to figure out where they excel, Banks will be first to conquer the beasts in the sixth-toughest schedule in the NFL this fall. 

That starts with figuring out how to slow down 2022 NFL Offensive Player of the Year Justin Jefferson in the season opener against Mineesota, a guy who will be coming into MetLife Stadium hungry after the Giants knocked his squad out of the postseason two years prior, before seeing more equally capable receivers down the road.

No matter who he faces, Banks offers the best package at the cornerback position and can give the Giants their strongest case for staying afloat amidst their issues at depth and experience in the secondary. The pieces will hopefully come together with the talent around him, but they will need him to be the glue that holds the back end of the defense together like his former leader in McKinney did for the past four seasons. 

If they don’t, and things start off shaky as they did for Banks in 2023, we could see an early collapse in the passing defense that boasted the better half of New York’s performance last season, including 10th in touchdowns and third in interceptions forced. 

In an NFL that’s gone crazy for the long-distance aerial game, that could spell a recipe for disaster.

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