New York Giants head coach John Harbaugh did not need a long windup on Jayden Daniels. Asked how the defense can chase the Washington quarterback without letting him crush them with his legs, the coach called it one of the real problems of the week.
Daniels will be back on Sunday at Northwest Stadium after an elbow injury. Harbaugh’s answer was less about emotion than about lanes.
“Yeah, that’s right. That’s a really big thing. That’s a big factor," he told reporters on Friday. "That’s a big challenge because pinning your ears back -- what does that exactly mean? There’s lanes, so to speak. There’s leverages. There’s angles involved. I think it’s really important to understand that you’re rushing to the quarterback, not past the blockers or past the offensive
line. If you try to rush past the offensive line, you’re usually going to be past the quarterback. That’s not good.”
The instruction, Harbaugh said, is to arrive at the quarterback directly. That is not the same as running through the offensive line.
“So, we want to be to the quarterback in a direct fashion, direct manner. Our guys are really focusing on doing that. But that doesn’t mean you can just run offensive linemen over," he said. "They don’t let you do that too often. So, you’ve got to have ways to go about getting past them to the quarterback. That’s the challenge. I think if you think about it that way, you can see it’s not the easiest thing in the world to do. But that’s what we work on all the time.”
Harbaugh added that the Giants have good pass rushers and that the rush is starting to heat up. The other item on the sheet is the weather. Another miserable day is in the forecast, and he said the last two weeks, plus a rainy opening practice of camp, should help.
“Planning on it, absolutely. I feel like we’ve gotten a lot of practice. Our very first practice at camp was in the rain. So, we started off, obviously, God had our back. He knew what was coming," he said.
Preparation will still be intentional. Harbaugh listed ball handling, throwing, catching, and footing, and he said footing is an even bigger deal on grass. Equipment director Tim Slaman will have shoe options out, including changes during the game.
The week, in Harbaugh’s telling, comes down to getting to Daniels and staying upright while doing it.
This article originally appeared on Giants Wire: Giants’ plan for Jayden Daniels starts with rush lanes, not just pressure
