NOWHERE TO RUN
Giants DC comes aboard with reputation for shutting down ground games
New Giants defensive coordinator Shane Bowen runs a unit with roots that extend through Mike Vrabel, to Dean Pees, to Bill Belichick.
Brian Daboll has a comfort level with that, having worked 11 seasons for Belichick in New England, three with Pees and six with Vrabel as a player.
Bowen’s zone-heavy, 3-4 scheme places an emphasis on playing fast and downhill, and being physical at the point of attack, with a concentration on stopping the run. He is known for some creative pressures, too.
“Shane’s a good coach,” one NFL coordinator said. “He runs some good blitz packages.”
Run defense was an area that Giants co-owner John Mara and GM Joe Schoen prioritized in free agency last year to no avail. The Giants’ defense allowed 4.7 yards per carry and 24 rushing touchdowns last season, per NFL Next Gen Stats.
The Titans’ defense, meanwhile, allowed only 3.8 yards per carry and 10 rushing TDs. Tennessee, in fact, has allowed the fewest rushing yards in the NFL (89.7 per game) the past three seasons.
So if Bowen does nothing else in 2024, he is expected to help the Giants stop the run.
The offense would help that effort by scoring more points. Opponents weren’t forced into many obvious passing situations against the Giants defense last season because Daboll’s team was typically playing from behind.
Improving the roster would help, too. Schoen needs to reinforce the line around Dexter Lawrence, find an outside linebacker who sets the edge, bolster his inside linebacker depth and add a few corners who are both willing and sound tacklers (It’s a long list, for sure).
That’s part of what happened to help Bowen’s Titans defense improve from 2020 to 2021.
In 2020, Bowen’s first season as the Titans’ play-caller, Tennessee’s defense allowed 27.4 points per game, 4.5 yards per carry and 18 rushing TDs. The Titans also surrendered an NFL record 51.9% third-down conversion rate and tied for the fewest sacks ever by a playoff team (19).
But Bowen simplified his terminology and pre-snap reads that offseason, when Vrabel officially elevated him from outside linebackers coach to defensive coordinator in title. Tennessee’s talent improved, led by the free-agent signing of end Denico Autry.
And Bowen’s 2021 Titans defense allowed only 20.8 points per game, 3.9 yards per carry and 14 rushing TDs. Harold Landry, Jeffrey Simmons and Kevin Byard all made the Pro Bowl, and Byard was voted first-team All-Pro.
That set the foundation for a consistently strong run defense three years running. And in 2023, Tennessee boasted the NFL’s No. 1 red-zone scoring defense (37.7% of drives ended in a TD), goal-to-go scoring (42.9%) and third-down conversion rate in the red zone (23.4%).
That said, there could be a major drop-off in takeaways by the Giants defense in the transition from Wink Martindale’s man-to-man heavy scheme to Bowen’s zone-based system in 2024.
Martindale’s Giants recorded 31 takeaways and scored three touchdowns in 2023, compared to 14 takeaways and one touchdown by Bowen’s Titans defense.
Martindale’s defense had almost as many interceptions (17) as passing touchdowns allowed (21), and quarterbacks posted a 84.1 rating against them.
Bowen’s Titans defense allowed 20 passing TDs, recorded only six interceptions and allowed a 96.4 QB rating. And the Titans finished in last place in the AFC South, one of the worst divisions in football, which prompted Vrabel’s firing and the staff-wide changeover.
The Titans did hold opponents to 21.6 points per game, though, more than two points less on average than the Giants (23.9). And sources say Bowen has creative ways to get to the quarterback.
He likes to use odd fronts to confuse the offense, spread out the offensive line and create one-on-one mismatches when it’s time to make a splash play. He also simulates pressures and sends different players while dropping guys in coverage.
Not that the pressures will be anything as exotic, varied or consistent as Martindale’s, whose system once had the Baltimore Ravens defense ranked second, third and second in scoring from 2018-20, respectively.
But the Titans defense had a higher QB pressure percentage (34.9%) than the Giants (31.4%) in 2023 — and a higher sack percentage, at 6.9% to the Giants’ 5.4% — despite Tennessee blitzing less than half as frequently (22.6% blitz rate to the Giants’ 49.2%), per NFL Next Gen Stats.
Again, personnel matters. It remains to be seen whether Bowen’s blitz rate will increase if he needs it to create pressure with his new Giants defensive roster.
Bowen, to be sure, does not compare to Martindale in experience, pedigree or in how much control he has had of his defense. Vrabel was involved on that side of the ball in Tennessee, while Martindale is more of a defensive head coach.
There were other candidates ahead of Bowen in this search before they chose other destinations, as well.
The primary difference between Bowen’s defense and Martindale’s systems, though, is that Bowen plays a lot more zone and a lot less man-to-man.
Martindale’s Giants defense played 45% of its 2023 passing-down snaps in man-to-man and 55% in zone. Bowen’s Titans played 28.4% of their passing-down snaps in man and 71.6% in zone.
The amount of zone Bowen plays is actually similar to what former Giants defensive coordinator Pat Graham did in 2020 and 2021 under Joe Judge. The Giants were in zone 74.5% of the time in 2020 and 73.2% of the time in 2021.
Graham’s system has roots with Belichick, too. He coached in New England for seven years, three of them with Daboll.
Daboll tried to keep Graham on staff when he got the Giants job in 2022, but Graham bolted for Las Vegas, where he is now Antonio Pierce’s defensive coordinator.
So two years later, Daboll has hired someone who runs a scheme he is more familiar and comfortable with, entering a pivotal season for the future of this Giants regime.
Bowen’s defense can’t just be familiar, however. It has to be an improvement. Stopping the run would be a good start.