New managers always want to give their recognition to the team or group they oversee.
Shane Bowen has arrived to take charge of the Giants’ defense, and the new coordinator is trying not to make the mistake of showing how smart he is with page after page of strategy.
“The last thing I want is to have too much planning and lose focus on our playstyle, technique and fundamentals and paralyze ourselves before the snap,” Bowen said Monday. “We want to make sure that when that center gets his hands on the ball, we’re lined up. We have our cleats firmly planted on the ground and we’re ready to roll, attack, and play the ball. Don’t overthink it.”
Yeah, the Giants’ defense will be different in 2024.
Why didn’t you do that?
Over the past two years, they have become one of the most storied teams in the NFL under the direction of Wink Martindale.
His core belief is to use creative rushing lanes to generate pressure with unpredictable rushers.
In 2022, the Giants ranked first in the league with a blitz percentage of 39.7 percent.
In 2023, Martindale’s blitzing percentage was 45.4 percent, which ranked the Giants second in the NFL behind the Vikings.
This is in stark contrast to the players Bowen brought in from Nashville, where he was defensive coordinator for the past three years.
In 2022, the Titans were 26th in the league with a blitzing percentage of 18.1 percent.
Last season, the Titans ranked 24th at 22 percent.
Martindale’s relationship with head coach Brian Daboll soured as the Giants endured losses in 2023, culminating in Daboll firing two defensive assistants brought in from the Ravens the day after the season.
Martindale, 60, swore at Daboll and stormed out of the building.
He currently serves as the defensive coordinator at the University of Michigan.
Bowen, 37, played alongside Mike Vrabel at Tennessee, and the Giants’ defensive styles will likely be more similar.
Of course, Bowen will have to come in and learn the strengths and weaknesses of his squad, but his approach requires him to unleash the front four to create pressure without sending extra bodies.
With the addition of Brian Barnes in the trade with the Panthers, the Giants now have Barnes and Kayvon Thibodeau as edge rushers and Dexter Lawrence as one of the league’s most lethal pocket pushers inside the defensive line. became.
“Just like with the front four, we work with the rushing lanes, work together, find ways to impact the quarterback, and then be able to use that to fill multiple roles on the back end. But we did a whole range of things. We brought in four, we brought in five, we brought in six. We did some zone pressures, overloads, things like that. we have everything.
“It’s going to evolve as we go along, but my history has been if we have four guys who can rush, we’re going to rush them.”
What this probably means is less coverage for Thibodeau and less blitzing for inside linebacker Bobby Okereke. He had more sacks in his first season with the Giants (2.5) than he had the previous four years combined with the Colts.
For players returning to defense, the short answer could be this: “I feel like everything gets simplified,” Okereke said.
At times like these, a familiar refrain signals the arrival of a new coordinator to fix what may have been broken.
If your previous system was fairly basic, the new idea is to install more bells and whistles.
If the previous system was unpredictable and risky, newcomers to town are eager to get back to basics.
Do more or less?
“Oh, obviously dancing,” Okereke said. “I need both.”
Okereke learned Martindale’s system so quickly in his first game with the Giants last year that he was almost immediately elected team captain and tasked with relaying defensive instructions to his teammates.
Okereke didn’t want to see Martindale go.
Now there are new defenses to master.
“People talk about playing fitball, people talk about playing football,” Okereke said. “You can play fitball, you can have everyone in the A gap, B gap, you can set up your arms and basically play solid defense, everyone can play physical and violent, You can play football that goes downhill. We have to find our happy medium somewhere on that spectrum.”
Bowen is believed to be keeping a lower profile than Martindale, who has made no secret of his desire to move up to the head coaching role.
“I want them to see us fly around, play with speed and play hard,” Bowen said. “There’s a physicality to our game, we play with violence. We attack the line of scrimmage. We’re all fundamentally sound. We don’t let ourselves get beat. At the end of the day, the guys are flying around and we’re I feel like if I play physical, that makes up for a lot.”
