Giants have blitzed at a high rate during three-game unbeaten streak

To blitz or not to blitz?

That is the question the Giants have answered definitively over the last two weeks.

They morphed from a team struggling to bring pressure to one bringing it at a high level. It’s not the style Dennard Wilson’s defenses were known for with the Titans, but the Giants’ defensive coordinator has dialed up more blitzes to greater success.

“We’ve been able to hit the quarterback.” Wilson said. “We’ve been able to disguise. They don’t know where it’s coming from. And the biggest thing when you pressure, the DBs are covering well so you have more confidence in calling it.”

The change is quite stark. In Week 1, the Giants blitzed 17% of the time, according to the analytics website SumerSports. They blitzed on 62% of their snaps in last Sunday’s tie with the Commanders and did so 51% of the time against the Cardinals in Week 4.

It led to a season-high five sacks against Washington and played a role in the Giants’ rally from a 14-point deficit in the fourth quarter. Cornerback Dru Phillips, who entered the game with one sack in his NFL career, had two.

“It’s definitely a fun thing to do,” he said.

Add blitzing to the list of changes fueling this three-game unbeaten streak, along with Jameis Winston’s improved play and the Giants’ late-game defensive stops. It’s even more impressive because they are doing it without last season’s sack leader, Brian Burns, who is out for the season with an ACL injury.

In the last two games without Burns, the Giants have blitzed on 57% of their snaps. That’s the second-highest rate in the league over that span and a large jump from the first three games, when they were 26th in blitz rate (23%).

What Wilson has done well is utilize more of his personnel. It’s not just the outside linebackers getting more pressure; it’s inside linebackers Arvell Reese and Tremaine Edmunds getting to the quarterback. Even Phillips is rushing more from the secondary.

To Wilson, anybody can be a blitzer. His job is to deploy them and let opposing offenses figure out whom to stop. Phillips got those chances Sunday, Wilson said, because he’s an explosive, violent player who is unafraid of contact.

“One thing I like about this group, they love going forward,” Wilson said. “They love attacking. So they all are attack players. So in our scheme, we have the ability to run blitzes from everywhere and anybody can come from different looks.”

Perhaps it’s overcompensating for life without Burns, but the Giants struggled to get pressure when Burns was healthy. The defense clearly has figured something out.

Neither Wilson nor Phillips said blitzing is a foundational piece of the defense. It helps having that option if they need it, though.

“Dennard has a way of cooking things up, but it’s definitely not, I would say, a consistent thing,” Phillips said. “It’s a week-by-week thing off of what we’re seeing and how we feel. So you just go out there and, if they send me, I’m going to try my best to go get there and everything. But the [blitz rate] percentages, it goes off the flow of the game.”

It also speaks to the improved play in the secondary, especially cornerback Deonte Banks. When the Giants blitz, there’s a trust that the cornerbacks can handle the receivers one-on-one.

That has been validated. The Giants are seventh in passing defense and Banks and Greg Newsome have helped with that on the outside.

Wilson said last week that he also has taken input from his players on knowing when to blitz. If they tell him they’re guarding receivers tightly in coverage, he’ll use that to factor in when to call more blitzes.

“I think it’s a good connection where he trusts us and believes that we can guard every receiver that we go against,” Phillips said. “So he kind of frees up and we can blitz more and be able to cover our guys.”

The heavy blitzing will get tested this week, though. The Saints’ offense has the NFL’s highest no-huddle rate at 16.5%, according to Sharp Football Analysis, and it’s harder to blitz when teams run more tempo.

It helps that the Giants aren’t married to their new tactic. If it works, bring the pressure. If something needs to be adjusted, do it and keep being effective.

With Burns out, the Giants have to continue to make up for his intensity and ability to get to the quarterback. If more blitzing can do that, the defense will add it as another tool to try to stifle offenses.

“That’s the enjoyment of being in this system, running this system, and also the players fitting within the system,” Wilson said. “They can come from anywhere.”

By Evan Barnes

evan.barnes@newsday.comevan_b

Evan Barnes covers the Giants for Newsday. He previously covered the Brooklyn Nets, Memphis football and the Memphis Grizzlies and also covered prep sports in Los Angeles.