A new manager invariably wants to put his stamp on the team or group he leads.
Shane Bowen has arrived to lead the Giants’ defense, and the new coordinator intends not to make the mistake of showing how smart he is by adding pages and pages to the playbook.
“The last thing I want to do is have so many plans that we can’t focus on our style of play, technique, fundamentals and paralyze ourselves before the snap,” Bowen said Monday. “I want to make sure that when that center has his hand on the ball, we are aligned. We’ve got our cleats in the ground and we’re ready to roll and attack and play ball and we’re not thinking too much.
Oh, the Giants will be different in 2024 on defense.
How could they not?
Over the past two years, they were one of the most recognizable teams in the NFL under the orchestration of Wink Martindale.
His core belief was to create pressure with unpredictable rushers using creative rush lanes.
In 2022, the Giants were first in the league with a blitz rate of 39.7 percent.
In 2023, Martindale blitzed more often – 45.4 percent – and the Giants finished second in the NFL behind the Vikings.
That’s in stark contrast to what Bowen brings with him from Nashville, where he was defensive coordinator the past three years.
In 2022, the Titans were 26th in the league with a blitz rate of 18.1 percent.
Last season, the Titans were 24th at 22 percent.
Martindale’s relationship with head coach Brian Daboll evolved as the Giants suffered a loss in 2023, culminating with Daboll, the day after the season, firing two defensive assistants that Martindale had brought with him from the Ravens.
Martindale, 60, cursed Daboll and stormed out of the building.
He is now the defensive coordinator at the University of Michigan.
Bowen, 37, was with Mike Vrabel at Tennessee and the Giants will be more like that style of defense.
Bowen of course needs to come in and learn the strengths and weaknesses of the roster, but his approach calls for releasing the top four to create pressure without having to send in extra bodies.
With the addition of Brian Burns in a trade with the Panthers, the Giants have Burns and Kayvon Thibodeaux as edge rushers and Dexter Lawrence as one of the league’s deadliest pocket pushers on the interior of the defensive line .
“Like the front four, they are coordinated with their running lanes, work together, find ways to affect the quarterback,” Bowen said, “and then can use that to be multiple on the back end. But we We’ve done the whole range. We’ve brought four, we’ve brought five, we’ve done six. We’ve done some zone pressure stuff, some overload stuff.
“It will evolve over time, but my history is, if we have four guys that can rush, we’re going to let them rush.”
That likely means less drop in coverage for Thibodeaux and less blitzing for inside linebacker Bobby Okereke, who had more sacks (2.5) in his first season with the Giants than in his previous four years combined with the Colts.
For returning players on defense, it could be, in summary, this: “I feel like everything is going to be simplified,” Okereke said.
Pick up the familiar refrain at times like this, when the new coordinator arrives to fix what might have been broken.
If the previous system was quite basic, the new idea is to install more features.
If the old system was unpredictable and risky, the new kid in town intends to go back to basics.
Do more or do less?
“Yeah, it’s a dance, obviously,” Okereke said. “You need both.”
Okereke took to Martindale’s system so quickly last year — his first with the Giants — that he was almost instantly voted team captain and tasked with relaying defensive calls to his teammates.
Okereke didn’t want to see Martindale go.
Now there is a new defense to master.
“People talk about playing fitball and people talk about playing soccer,” Okereke said. “You can play fit-ball, and everyone is in their A gap, their B gap, setting their arm and playing fundamentally sound defense, and you can play soccer where everyone plays physical and violent and downhill. We need to find our happy medium somewhere on that spectrum.
Bowen appears to be keeping a lower profile than Martindale, who has made no secret of his desire for the head coaching job.
“I hope they see us flying, playing with speed, playing with a lot of effort,” Bowen said. “A physicality in our game, playing with violence. Attack the line of scrimmage. The guys are fundamentally sound. Don’t fight us. At the end of the day, if guys are flying and we’re playing physical, I feel like that makes up for a lot of things.
New York Post
