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Dennard Wilson cast aside his reputation, listened to his players’ feedback and found his inner Brian Flores.
The NFL ends up with stationary quarterbacks in RPO offenses, defensive ends in outside linebacker stances and man-to-man cornerbacks dropping into zone coverage because play-callers who initially claim they will adjust to their personnel often end up jamming a square peg into a round hole.
Wilson joined the Giants with a low-blitz reputation after two seasons as defensive coordinator for the Titans and stayed true to it in his first three games calling the defense. Since then, however, Wilson has pulled a full 180-degree turn into Blitzville, as creating pressure with a short-handed four-man front proved difficult.
“Dennard has pretty much every blitz known to man in the system,” head coach John Harbaugh said. “And almost every blitz coverage — we don’t have quite all of them, but we can get to them soon enough if we want. And he does a great job of organizing it. It’s a great, week-to-week game-planning mindset.”
The Giants ranked at the bottom of the NFL with one sack and seven quarterback hits while blitzing on just 22.1 percent of defensive snaps over the first three games.
In their first two full games without injured All-Pro pass-rusher Brian Burns, the Giants blitzed the Cardinals on 51.3 percent of drop-backs and then upped the rate to 62.2 percent — often with more than one blitzer — in the overtime tie against the Commanders. The results are a combined seven sacks and 14 quarterback hits.
“You saw probably more all-out pressure blitzes from two teams in the fourth quarter and the fifth quarter than you’ll ever see again,” Harbaugh said. “Every play pretty much was ‘Zero’ blitz by both teams, it seemed like. So, that’s probably going to drive the numbers up a little bit. But we feel like we would consider ourselves probably a blitzing team generally — but we also consider ourselves a cover defense too.”
Physical slot cornerback Dru Phillips was the biggest beneficiary, recording two sacks and five pressures on seven blitzes. Safety Jason Pinnock, who missed the previous game with a concussion, also is well regarded as a blitzer (6 1/2 sacks from 2022-24).
Calling a blitz usually requires tight man-to-man coverage off the snap.
“Anybody that blitzes, you have to look out for the people behind you,” Phillips said. “Being a defensive back, when you are covering, you depend on guys to get home. When I’m blitzing, I’m like, ‘I have to rush my tail off.’ Not trying to ease your way in there because you’ve got guys fighting for their life behind you.”
To think the Giants are just going to copy Flores’ plan for the Vikings — who lead the league with an astounding 57.2 percent blitz rate for the season — is unrealistic. The Titans blitzed on fewer than 21 percent of defensive snaps in both seasons under Wilson.
Perhaps the Giants are just taking advantage of a journeyman immobile quarterback (Cardinals’ Jacoby Brissett) and a wounded offensive line (Commanders) after facing quick-release quarterbacks (Cowboys’ Dak Prescott and Rams’ Matthew Stafford) in the first two games.
Sunday’s game against the Saints’ Tyler Shough presents another opportunity for Wilson to send extra pressure. Shough’s numbers against the blitz, according to Pro Football Focus, include four touchdowns, three interceptions, four batted passes at the line of scrimmage and nine sacks taken, though he is completing 69.6 percent of passes when he gets the ball out of his hand.
“Dennard has a way of cooking things up, but it’s definitely not a consistent thing,” Phillips said. “It’s a week-by-week thing based … off the flow of the game.”
The uptick in blitzing started with Wilson listening to his cornerbacks, who felt they could handle the Cardinals receivers in one-on-one matchups.
Same goes for the Commanders, who were without Stefon Diggs. The Saints are without rookie receiver Jordyn Tyson.
“When we’re like, ‘These [receivers] can’t separate on us,’ he trusts us,” Phillips said. “It’s a good connection where he believes that we can guard every receiver we go against, so it frees us up to blitz more.”