It’s my opinion that the Green Bay Packers are running the ball too much. They’re playing conservative and relying on their very good defense to win games, while they should be riding good offensive personnel out to an early lead so that Micah Parsons can kill people. They need to seriously dial back the running, hopefully forever, but at least until the offensive line improves. The results from the last two weeks should be driving that message home.
Oh, but this week. This week is NOT going to help
with that. I predict that by the time Monday rolls around, people will be making fun of all of us who “doubted Matt LaFleur” and talking about how “the Packers are back on track.” They’ll say that the offensive line and Josh Jacobs look rejuvenated, and that the team finally has its mean streak back. And this will all be incorrect. DON’T BE FOOLED! Why? Because the New York Giants’ run defense…sucks is not a strong enough word.
Imagine you’re at the running of the bulls in Pamplona, and you’ve been assigned to stop the bulls, and the tool that you’ve been given to stop the bulls is a grease-covered pool noodle, and the grease is both slippery for you, and the bulls, but also contains a potent steroid that makes the bulls run faster, harder, and angrier whenever they touch it. That is the Giants’ run defense in a nutshell. You could actually fit the entire Giants’ run-stopping talent in an actual nutshell.
And this is not hyperbole; it’s more of a reflection of the limitations of language, but where language fails us, numbers can step in. The Giants are dead last in run defense DVOA at 16.8% (positive numbers are bad for defensive DVOA). The Bengals are a close-ish second at 13.2%, but both are orders of magnitude worse than Buffalo at a third-worst 6.1%.
But you might be thinking, “Hey, Paul, 16.8 doesn’t seem so bad, I thought it was going to be like 48 or something?” And that’s fair because that’s usually how DVOA works, but we need to keep in mind how RUNNING works. Running is generally a negative efficiency play to start with, and so the median run defense this year (Houston) is -12%, or 28 percentage points away from the Giants. Cleveland has the best run defense at -32.2%, and there are six teams below 20%. Relative to the league, the Giants are horrible. They’re 48.8% points from the leaders. See, your instincts were good!
EPA tells the same story as DVOA, where the Giants are allowing a dead last .142 EPA per running play. How bad is that? It’s so bad that 24 teams allow fewer average EPA per passing drop back! 24! Tampa Quarterback Baker Mayfield averages 1.34 EPA per drop back, and so on average, a run against the Giants is more valuable than a BAKER MAYFIELD PASS ATTEMPT. It is also more valuable than a Justin Herbert pass attempt, and more than twice as valuable as an Aaron Rodgers pass attempt.
But maybe you don’t care for all of these newfangled analytics. Maybe you don’t trust them. “Paul, if they’re as bad as you say, why even bother with all of this fancy math? After all, if you serve me a terrible cheeseburger, I don’t need to know the ingredients, I just need to take a bite.” Alright, fair point, so how about this?
In Week 1, Commanders’ running back Jacory Croskey-Merritt ran the ball 10 times for 82 yards and a touchdown. Deebo Samuel chipped in a 19-yard touchdown, and all in as a team, they rushed for 220 yards on 32 carries. In Week 2, Javonte Williams ran for 97 yards and a score on 18 carries, but because every Dallas game is a shootout, Dak also threw for 361 yards and two touchdowns. The Chiefs ran for 105 yards and a score as a team. The Chargers actually lost to the Giants despite Omarion Hampton running for 128 yards and a score on just 12 carries. The Eagles lost their first game to the Giants (Cam Skattebo had 98 yards and 3 scores for New York) but they maybe should have given Saquon a few more carries, as he ripped off 58 yards on just 12 carries. In their second game, which the Eagles won handily, they did exactly that. Saquon had 150 yards and a score on 14 carries, and backup Tank Bigsby had another 104 yards on 9 carries. The 49ers had 159 yards and two touchdowns on a robust 39 carries, if you’re wondering how the Packer game might go. Denver only handed off 15 times, but their backs gained 94 yards. And last week, D’Andre Swift had 80 yards on just 13 carries.
That’s a lot of big yardage gained on carries in the teens for a lot of Giant opponents. On the season, they have allowed a league-worst 5.5 yards per carry and a league-worst 1521 yards total, despite ranking only sixth in carries against. Shockingly, the Titans have actually allowed one more rushing touchdown (15) than the Giants.
And so, the Packers will likely run against the Giants, and run well, and in a vacuum that’s good strategy! They almost certainly win the game as the Giants will be without Malik Nabers, Jaxson Dart and Cam Skattebo. But for this version of the Matt LaFleur Packers, it’s just going to feed his baser instincts. This is a trap. This is letting your kid win at horse before destroying them in one-on-one. And so, when the week is done and the Packers are back in the win column, please do celebrate, but keep a level head, because the Giants are a unicorn. I mean, if that unicorn has absolutely no ability to hold an edge, or tackle, or fill the proper gap.
