How the Giants Defense Adjusted for the Rematch Against the Eagles

Defensive coordinator Patrick Graham, who felt he let his team down the first time the two division foes met, wasn't going to let that happen a second time.

Three weeks ago, when the clock read all zeros, Giants defensive coordinator Patrick Graham, head in his hands, sat on the visitor’s bench after watching his defense let a game against the Eagles slip away from the in the final five minutes.

As Graham explained last week, he felt in his heart that he had let his players down by not giving them the correct path to success.

But just as Graham’s students learn from their mistakes daily, he too learned from his. In the re-match against the Eagles, a game presenting a golden opportunity for the team to move up in the division standings, Graham wasn’t about to let this one get away if he could help it.

So he changed up his defensive strategy intending to confuse the hell out of the Eagles offense—a healthier Eagles offense that was supposed to be much better than the group the Giants faced last time.

Ah, but that Eagles offense that took the MetLife Stadium field was no match for the Giants defense.

Safety Jabrill Peppers, one of the star performers this week—he led the team in tackles with seven, had a half-sack on a blitz, and recorded two tackles for a loss—explained the difference between the two defensive approaches.

“The first game, we were kind of vanilla when they went tempo, you know, cover-three, cover-two, cover-three, and cover-two,” Peppers said.

And this time around?

“We had a lot more multiples. That's a testament to the coaching staff and putting us in places to excel and giving them looks on the fly while they're going tempo. They think they're getting this and we're actually doing this. I think that gave them trouble tonight.”

It certainly did. The Giants, a team good at disguising what they do on defense as it is, had the Eagles’ heads spinning. There was no rhyme or reason behind the pressure packages Graham threw at the Eagles, but one thing is for sure: the Eagles, who typically like to run an up-tempo offense to keep the defense at bay, were thrown out of their element.

Officially, the Giants finished with three sacks and a season-high 13 quarterback hits. Quarterback Carson Wentz, who per Pro Football Focus completed 40.4% of his 2020 passes this season when under duress, was under pressure on 50% of his pass attempts in this game, completing seven of 14 attempts for 76 yards and absorbing two of his three sacks on the day.

For as good as the Giants defense was against the Eagles, Peppers said that the unit and, by extension, the team is still not where it wants to be.

“We're taking steps. We still have a long way to go, but we're taking steps,” he said. “I definitely feel like we're a better team today than we were three weeks ago. Three weeks ago, we lost this game in the final minutes. Now we found a way to hang on. You just build off that, man, and keep executing by getting one percent better day in and day out.”