1.) Coach Graham talks in-detail about working the fundamentals:
1:43 to 2:13 minute mark
2.) Montre Hartage, one of our current Giants safety who also played for Coach Graham in Miami, echoed the same thing in his interview on the Murph and The Maj podcast.
“It was all about coming out here and winning the battle each day,” said Hartage. “You don’t win the game on Sundays; you win them every day in practice during the week.”
“You come in every day to get better. That’s what he constantly preached." |
SI Article
3.) Coach Judge says the defense will mostly resemble the places where Coach Graham has coached before and it'll be influenced by the New England family of defenses:
17:43 to 18:04 minute mark
4.) Note...a lot of those New England family of defenses mostly play man-to-man.
"Zone coverage is more prevalent than man coverage in today’s NFL. Only three teams ran man coverage on over 50% of their defensive snaps in 2019, and all three of those teams stem from the Bill Belichick coaching tree." |
As per PFF
...this too
5.) ...and Hartage confirms that
“In terms of what Pat brings as a defensive coordinator, this current scheme with the Giants is like what we had in Miami," Hartage said. "A lot of man-to-man coverage and he’s also very into running a 4-3 look.” |
6.) I think that man coverage will be our go-to early on because it allows you to play faster and cuts down on the amount of thinking you have to do.
Former Giant & Patriot & 2-time Super Bowl Champion, Jonathan Casillas, talked about the benefits of keeping things simple in his interview on Big Blue Kickoff earlier this off-season
31:08 to 33:04 minute mark
7.) I'm very encouraged that Judge and Graham will bring an overemphasis on technique and situational awareness.
In this clip of a coaching clinic by former Pats DC, Matt Patricia, he shows how they paid special attention to coverage technique during every single practice:
43:16 to 44:50 minute mark
8.) The "Cover 1" YouTube channel does an excellent job of breaking down how the Dolphins' succeeded on one particular play last year vs the Bills.
It's a good display of the "New England" man coverage techniques that Coach Patricia was talking about.
Quick 2-minute video
To sum it up:
IMO...for the first time since the Tom Coughlin Era, we're going to go back to basics and properly develop our players in a discipline fashion. And that's very refreshing to see.
3
They will need time to get this playing......like they want.
Correction: this unit hasn’t played together on the field AT ALL.
My concern is that many of these quotes are just coachspeak. Every defensive coach says most of these things. “One play at a time” “win individual battles” “starts in practice” blah, blah, blah. Let’s see the product on the field. These words don’t mean much. And as has been mentioned countless times, the new coaching Is starting out at a distinct disadvantage due to COVID-19.
Let these young CBs use their athleticism rather than trying to play a thinking man's game.
I do NOT like the fact that CB S. Baker is still under indictment rather than exonerated and on his ZOOM calls. He played well the last six games of the year and I think this new DC will use him and Bradlee the right way, pressing.
I'm not fond of our linebackers....yet. Ximines and Carter really need to step up for me to believe.
I love the potential of our secondary even if Baker is suspended. Or worse. There is a lot of young talent though they must stay healthy.
I would not be surprised to see our DL strong right out of the gates against the run especially.
However, with only 8 whole practices and no pre-season warm-up game (will they practice against the Jets perhaps?) I see us stinking it up to 0-4.
We have grown accustomed to poor defense for a long time and people ask "what will be different this year?" - the answer is that 8 of those 9 players have played here 1 season or less. So this is an almost completely new unit of starters vs. the 2018 defense in year 1 of the new FO.
Yes, coaching is important too, but just like last year's Dolphins Graham will only get the results the players on the field are capable of - hence the focus on the new group of players.