NFL1000 Week 2 Scouting Notebook: Giants Spent Wisely on Defensive Line

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Updated: September 22, 2016

Welcome to Bleacher Report’s NFL1000 Scouting Notebook, a weekly series where we’ll use the power of the 16-man NFL1000 scouting department to bring you fresh insights into the game and explain some of the more interesting (and potentially controversial) grades we give players every week.

Let’s start this week with a little film study on the New York Giants’ rejuvenated (and expensive) defense and a Washington passing game that should save one particular concept for later.

The All-22: Giants Defense Is Dominant Again

In 2015, the Giants defense finished 28th in Football Outsiders’ opponent-adjusted efficiency metrics. Their defense finished 27th in efficiency in short-yardage rushing situations, 22nd in percentage of run plays in which the running back was tackled at or behind the line of scrimmage and 30th in sack percentage adjusted for opponent.

So in the 2016 offseason, the Giants spent money hand over fist to improve things. They gave former New York Jets defensive tackle Damon “Snacks” Harrison a five-year, $46.25 million contract with $24 million guaranteed and then doubled down with ex-Dolphins end Olivier Vernon, giving him a five-year, $85 million contract with $52.5 million guaranteed.

Through two games of the new season, the money on Vernon and Harrison seems to be well-spent. Vernon has seven total pressures and ranks among the top five in run-stopping rate for 4-3 defensive ends in Pro Football Focus’ charting metrics.

And Harrison, who was a monster of a run-stopper in the Jets’ hybrid fronts, is doing the same for Big Blue. With Harrison and fellow defensive tackle Johnathan Hankins in the middle, the Giants are proving to be a far more difficult force to contend with in the run game.

Harrison has created the ability for defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo to run some interesting formations to maximize the effectiveness of all that talent. Harrison isn’t a sack monster, but that’s not what you pay Snacks to do. You pay him to blow up the run, and that’s going on now.

This particular gap concept was effective against both the Dallas Cowboys and New Orleans Saints. In base defense, Harrison would usually play the one-gap nose tackle, aligned between the guard and center, and Hankins would play the 3-technique tackle, aligned between the guard and offensive tackle.

Flipping that concept a bit, Spagnuolo lined up Harrison to one side of the center-guard combo and Harrison to the other side of the guard-tackle team, with linebackers ready to fill the openings left by the offensive linemen who would be struggling to block both of them.

Buddy Ryan’s great 46 defenses with the Chicago Bears of the 1980s used a similar principle—Buddy would put his nose tackle right over the center and his two ends on the outside shoulders of the guards, forcing the guards to block to the outside and guaranteeing openings for linebackers to flow through. Mike Singletary appreciated this, to be sure.

This is the third play from scrimmage against the Cowboys in Week 1 with 13:56 left in the first quarter:

Watch how Harrison (98) and Hankins (95) line up on the outside shoulders of center Travis Frederick (72) and left guard La’el Collins (71). At the snap, that gap scheme causes a separation along Dallas’ offensive line, and the linebackers flow in to stack the box. Frederick and right guard Zack Martin (70) double Harrison, because if they don’t, he’s going to blow up that gap. Left end Jason Pierre-Paul makes the tackle, but the scheme wins this down.

Ezekiel Elliott has nowhere to go.

OK, you may be thinking to yourself, “This is a standard over front to the strong side with a linebacker at the point of attack and a safety playing force run-defender on the edge. Why not just throw the ball?”

It’s a fair question, and you would think that New Orleans’ Drew Brees would have checked to a pass against this concept more readily than Dak Prescott, a rookie quarterback who was playing in his first NFL game.

But this is what you see if you dial up the Giants-Saints game with 13:19 left in the first quarter:

Harrison and Hankins are to the outside shoulder of their guards, with a two-linebacker blitz look up the middle. Now, the idea with the defensive tackle alignment is to get the guards to block to their outside shoulders and create inevitable openings, and that’s what happens.

Left guard Andrus Peat (75) makes an adjustment to block back inside, as left tackle Terron Armstead (72) blocks down on Hankins, but the X-factor here (and you see this more and more in New York’s run defense) is the run blitz to the offensive right side by safety Landon Collins (21). Saints running back Mark Ingram runs for no gain, and again, the scheme wins the down.

Why didn’t Brees read run and audible to the pass? This we don’t know (he may have assumed the linebackers would drop into coverage), but it’s interesting to note that after this Giants win, Collins told reporters he and his fellow defenders knew what the pass situation was based on Brees’ shotgun set. That’s something for the Saints to note for the future.

NFL history is full of high-priced free-agent busts, but Harrison in particular has proved his value in how he allows Spagnuolo to scheme with confidence and his teammates to play with convection. Snacks will help Vernon pad his own pressure numbers over time.

The All-22: Why Kirk Cousins Is Fading Away

Washington quarterback Kirk Cousins was the lowest-rated passer in the Week 2 version of NFL1000.

That should come as little surprise to those who saw him overthrow open receivers, telegraph his passes and make some hideous reads. It includes one into triple coverage in the end zone with 10:43 left that led to a Barry Church interception and the Dallas drive that eventually won the game.

Cousins finished the 27-23 loss with 28 completions in 46 attempts for 364 yards, one touchdown and that really bad pick. The yardage total is high, but given his overall performance, that has to be characterized as statistical noise.

People have a lot of issues with Cousins’ abilities right now, and it would take an entire article to get into all of them. So let’s get specific.

The primary issue among the Washington, D.C., football media (many of whom used to play for the Redskins) is the number of fade routes called when their former team was in the red zone. Sonny Jurgensen, who may be the greatest pure passer in franchise history (don’t laugh; Vince Lombardi used to marvel openly at Jurgensen’s arm back in the day), asked head coach Jay Gruden after the Dallas game about the high number of fade throws and their relatively low hit rate.

“Coach, why do people fall in love with the short fade down at the goal line?” Jurgensen asked Gruden on the Redskins Radio Network postgame show (via Dan Steinberg of the Washington Post). “We tried it three times!”

“Yeah, we tried it three times, and we’ll try it again three times next week if we have to,” Gruden answered. “Just, we have very good matchups there, and if you have a running play called and they’ve got nine or 10 people in the box, it’s tough to get a yard sometimes. So we’ll figure out ways to get a yard running the ball down there, but we will continue to work our matchups one-on-one if need be.”

In short, a fade pass is one in which the receiver will run a vertical route with enough cushion between him and the defender, and between him and the boundary, to reach up and catch the ball at its highest point. It requires timing between the quarterback and receiver, excellent technique overall from the receiver and a combination of throw timing, touch and arc from the quarterback.

Most of all, the quarterback must be calm in the pocket when throwing a proper fade. Tom Brady, who throws the fade route as well as any quarterback I’ve ever seen, does so in part for two specific reasons: his calm in the pocket and his innate understanding of his own mechanics.

Brady knows better than most how to integrate his body into any throw and that his footwork must be precise. A quarterback with imprecise or inconsistent footwork will always have strange results, because his body is not normalized for consistent production, and he’s always going to be guessing to a point.

Cousins has always had issues with mechanical consistency, and it starts with his lower body. He throws flat-footed; he throws from his back foot; and he doesn’t throw nearly often enough in a way that transitions from his back foot to his front foot and presents the right amount of velocity and accuracy. So he’s generally guessing to a point.

Plus, he tends to play frenetically at times, which affects his trajectory. And on the two straight fades before the interception to Church, he was in a suboptimal position to be throwing them.

Let’s start with the incomplete fade to Josh Doctson (18) with 10:53 left in the game. Doctson is on the right side of the field and takes outside position at …

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