PFF's Surprising Rank for the Giants Defensive Line

Is the Giants' defensive line a team strength? According to Pro Football Focus' ranking, it sure doesn't look that way.

Pro Football Focus released its rankings for all 32 defensive line units entering the 2020 season, and when it came to the Giants unit, primarily thought to be a team strength, well, let's just say that PFF didn't exactly agree.

The popular analytics site ranked the Giants defensive line 26th for the following reasons.

The Giants are short on interior players who can genuinely pressure the passer and instead will rely on just squeezing the pocket. And that strategy that could work if they had plus play on the edge — the problem is that they don’t have that proven commodity—yet.

The Giants have a group of solid options but don’t have much in the way of proven players who can get after the quarterback in a league that has never been more pass-happy.

PFF did acknowledge the unit's run-stuffing strengths. The Giants had four defensive linemen with a PFF run-defense grade above 70.0 last season (Dexter Lawrence, Dalvin Tomlinson, B.J. Hill, and Leonard Williams.

However, PFF appears to base its ranking on the lack of pass rush production holds the unit back from achieving a higher ranking ahead of the season, as the Giants defensive linemen combined for just 11.5 sacks in 2019.

But here's the problem with PFF's ranking. While sacks are the ultimate goal, the ranking doesn't appear to consider total pressures (hits and hurries), nor does it seem to take into consideration opportunities created for others to record the ultimate goal of getting a sack.

The Giants defense's modus operandi in the past at least was for the defensive line to stuff the run, which again it had success doing if PFF's grades are to be believed and absorb blockers to open up gaps for the edge rushers to do their thing.

This is something that benefitted Markus Golden, who led the Giants in sacks last season with 10. Golden often took advantage of gaps that opened up because the big men in front of him could draw multiple blockers. Golden would then often exploit those gaps (usually the A-gap) and record his sacks.

If that was indeed the defense's goal, then to rank the defensive line so low is not fair.

With that said, ask any coach on the Gants if they'd like to get more sacks, and they'll probably happily sign up for that. But sacks are often a result of other guys creating the opportunity for the pass rushers to hit home. And to that, the Giants defensive line has had success in creating those opportunities.

According to PFF, no player had a more significant difference between their pressure rate and sack rate rank than Williams, the Giants franchise player who many are waiting to develop into a premier pass rusher.

He ranked 13th in pressure rate at 11.3 percent 9out of 87 defensive linemen) and tied for the lead in quarterback hits (19) with Calais Campbell.

Lawrence, who is entering his second season, recorded 30 total pressures in 412 total pass-rush snaps, resulting in 2.5 sacks. Lawrence primarily worked inside as the nose tackle but showed some intriguing promise with his ability to move along the interior and attack gaps.

Tomlinson rounds out the Giants big three on the defensive line as the unit's leader in sacks last season with 3.5. His presence as a pass-rusher and run-stuffer figures to be a huge asset for the Giants defensive line that is looking to contribute its share of sacks in what will hopefully be a turbocharged pass rush.

The Giants' defensive line is expected to be a significant team strength in 2020, but if the performance matches the ranking, it could spell trouble for New York's defense this year.