Brian Daboll cited “the line of scrimmage” as one of the Giants’ key issues in their six-point Week 1 clunker at Washington. That’s the closest a head coach will come to saying outright that his offensive line wasn’t good enough.
“I’d say it was a collective effort,” Daboll said Monday. “We just we never got into a rhythm in the early part of the downs, which affected it. The line of scrimmage, there was a play here, a play there, a block here, a read there, that we just kept getting behind the sticks and could never get into a good enough rhythm.”
Dexter Lawrence, meanwhile, had an extremely quiet game on the defensive line.
The Giants managed his snaps in the first half with Lawrence still working himself into playing shape coming off an offseason impacted by last season’s dislocated elbow. And he did not have his typical impact when he played, outside of drawing a double team on two of the Giants’ three sacks of Jayden Daniels.
“I got out of my flow a little bit,” Lawrence said. “Second half a little more, but it wasn’t good enough. I got prepare to go be better next week, and I think that’s the biggest thing you gotta keep working on — your improvement.”
The offense is this team’s primary problem, especially Russell Wilson’s play at quarterback, which wouldn’t win any team many games.
It’s still worth noting how overwhelmed the Giants’ offensive line was in their Week 1 defeat.
The Commanders’ pass rush generated 22 pressures on 45 Giants drop backs (48.8%), according to NFL NextGen Stats, by Dorance Armstrong’s nine. That’s five more pressures than Washington recorded in any of their games last season.
Wilson completed only five of 16 passes when pressured for 51 yards for a measly 18.2% success rate.
Left tackle James Hudson III allowed a team-high nine quarterback pressures, per NFL NextGen Stats, followed by right tackle Jermaine Eluemunor (six), center John Michael Schmitz (five), left guard Jon Runyan Jr. (four), right guard Greg Van Roten (three) and backup tackle Marcus Mbow (one).
Schmitz was tagged with two sacks allowed while Runyan was credited with surrendering one.
If franchise left tackle Andrew Thomas (Lisfranc) can make his season debut at Dallas after missing the season opener, that could conceivably help the Giants stop some of the bleeding up front, but the interior still has to be a lot better.
Dallas’ pass rush generated 18 QB pressures on Jalen Hurts’ 33 dropbacks for Philly (54.5%) against one of the best offensive lines in the NFL.
The Giants’ passing game wasn’t the offensive line’s only problem against the Commanders. The Giants couldn’t run the ball at all, either.
Their running backs carried the ball 15 times for 30 yards at a pathetic 2.0 yards per carry clip.
Tyrone Tracy Jr. toted it 10 times for 24 yards. Devin Singletary had three rushes for nine yards. Cam Skattebo carried the ball twice for -3 yards.
The Commanders’ defensive front was credited with seven “run stuffs” out of those 15 rushes, led by three from middle linebacker Bobby Wagner.
Daboll cited “the line of scrimmage” again when explaining what went wrong in the run game, including in the red zone.
“At the line of scrimmage, they had some guys in the backfield,” Daboll said. “We had a couple of perimeter plays, if you will, down there [in the red zone], the screen to Malik [Nabers] that they played well. Overall, just run game in general, if you have 15 carries for 30 yards with the backs, we need to be better.”
Being better against Dallas won’t be easy. The Cowboys defense held the Eagles to 18 rushing yards on Philly’s 12 carries between the tackles in Week 1 (1.5 yards per carry), per NFL NextGen Stats.
As for Lawrence on the Giants defense, his presence on the field always helps because of how much attention he draws. The Commanders double-teamed Lawrence on a ridiculous 69.2% of his pass rush snaps (18 of 26).
That’s an even higher rate than last season’s 63.8% double team rate from last season, which was the highest rate in the NFL and more than 10-percentage points higher than any other defender with a minimum of 150 pass rushes.
Lawrence was doubled on one of Brian Burns’ two sacks and on the split sack shared by Abdul Carter and Kayvon Thibodeaux.
But the Giants’ best player finished with only three tackles, no sacks and no quarterback pressures in 49 snaps, playing 70% of the defense’s snaps.
The Giants’ defense wasn’t the reason the team lost the game. They still held the Commanders to 21 points. But they’ll need Lawrence to make an impact if they want a chance to beat the Cowboys.
Lawrence generated 14 pressures when facing a double-team last season, tied for the fifth-most in the NFL, and he needs to turn it up against a Dallas front that looked solid in its season opener against the Philadelphia Eagles.
Tyler Smith, Cooper Beebe and Tyler Booker, from left to right, are the interior linemen tasked with handling the disruptive Lawrence.
Lawrence said the Giants as a team are determined to get a result in Week 2 after their season opening disappointment.
“Don’t make it two, simple as that,” Lawrence said of the vibe in the losing locker room. “There’s no need for ‘rah rah.’ We got the players, and we got each other. And that’s all we need.”
What the Giants need is dramatic improvement on “the line of scrimmage” on offense — and a dominant performance from their two-time second-team All-Pro on the D-line.
