New York Giants Week 7: A Look at the Philadelphia Eagles Defense

The New York Giants offense has struggled mightily so far this season with the fourth-lowest scoring offense in the NFL right now and are set to face their division rival Philadelphia Eagles, who allow the 19th-most points.

This is the second year in a row that the Giants will face a defense led by Vic Fangio.

Personnel

This Eagles defense isn’t what it used to be in terms of their effectiveness just wrecking pass-blocking units.

Josh Sweat and Jalen Carter have been dominant so far, combining for 39 pressures on the season. Dexter Lawrence and Brian Burns have combined for 46 pressures with one more game played, for reference.

Outside of Sweat and Carter though, the pass-rush hasn’t been what we’re used to seeing.

Bruce Huff was brought in with expectations to be an elite passing-down specialist after a strong start to his career with the New York Jets but has been a major letdown so far.

Nolan Smith, the Eagles first-round pick last season, has been a complete non-factor to this point. Being under 240 pounds on the edge for me is just too light to play there consistently and be successful in my opinion.

Brandon Graham is relegated to a rotational role at this point in his career but he’s playing good ball in those reps.

Moro Ojomo is another almost exclusively passing-down specialist on the line that hasn’t been able to hit home this season.

Jordan Davis is a mammoth in the middle of the defensive line but hasn’t been as impactful as he was last season, partially because he’s playing more as a 3-technique this year when he’s always been more of a 0 or 1-technique.

The Eagles play just two linebackers and go with a light box frequently, a Vic Fangio staple. Nakobe Dean and Zack Baun are the two linebackers but they shift Baun to the edge as a hybrid off-ball/edge player.

Dean hasn’t been good this season in my opinion and has been especially underwhelming in coverage under Fangio, which requires linebackers to play with awareness in coverage.

Baun has found success in his hybrid role this year as one of the few bright spots on the defense.

The Eagles secondary is a mixed bag that are also struggling to pick up the Fangio defense, which is a common trend for secondaries in year one under Fangio.

At cornerback, rookie first-round pick Quinyon Mitchell starts on one side with Darius Slay on the other side of the field. Slay left the Browns game early last week with a knee injury but the staff has said he’s expected to be back.

Cooper DeJean earned a start in the slot last week after Avonte Maddox struggled for the start of the season. DeJean was the second-round pick for the Eagles this year and had a strong starting debut.

CJ Gardner-Johnson and Reed Blankenship have been hot and cold this season after both had strong seasons last year, albeit Gardner-Johnson was with the Lions.

Scheme

Historically, the first season with Fangio as defensive coordinator has been difficult for defenders to pick up quickly.

On the defensive front, Fangio likes to operate with a light box - essentially daring opposing offenses to run.

The light box means that the Eagles may only have five players in the box but then the responsibility then falls on the defensive line to hold up against blockers.

Big defensive linemen need to be responsible for multiple gaps with fast linebackers that are rangey and can strike hard as tacklers.

Coverage-wise, the Eagles will play mostly cover 3, cover 4, or cover 6 when they work in zone. Cover 6, is cover 4 played to the strong side of the offense and cover 2 played to the weak side and has become increasingly popular in the NFL as teams focus on shutting down the deep ball and making coverage more difficult.

When in man coverage, the Eagles are almost exclusively going to play cover 1 but will occasionally play cover 0 as well and almost never play cover 2 man.

The pass-rush plan for Fangio’s defense is built less around blitzing quarterbacks and more about confusing quarterbacks about where pressure is or isn’t coming from.

The edge rushers in this defense will drop back into coverage occasionally so that the Eagles can crowd the line of scrimmage then drop players back to try and confuse quarterbacks and not sacrifice coverage.

Overview

The Eagles are one of the worst run-defenses in the NFL right now on a per-play basis, allowing 4.8 yards per carry with 3.39 of those yards coming after contact.

With the Giants running the ball and using their quick passing game as an extension of the run game, there will be plenty of opportunities to exploit an Eagles defense that struggles to bring ball-carriers down.

It wouldn’t shock me if we saw the Giants run some passing concepts that has receivers run near each other to create some confusion.

It hasn’t been a common concept but a scissors concept (receivers on the same side, one runs a corner and one runs a post so they cross each other) or a switch verticals concept (hello Jalin Hyatt) could cause mayhem.