Giants aim to contain Titans’ Henry, and extend win streak
The Giants watched film of Adrian Peterson’s 90-yard run against the Eagles, then proceeded to hold him to 16 yards on 10 carries last Sunday. This week, they have the opportunity to approach Derrick Henry in a similar manner.
The Titans’ 247-pound bruiser rushed for a franchise-record 238 yards and four touchdowns on 17 carries against the Jaguars last Thursday, including a 99-yard run which tied the NFL record.
“When that stuff’s on tape, it’s certainly a great example about maintaining gap integrity, playing with great leverage, and finding a way to get someone on the ground when you’ve got to tackle him in space,” said defensive coordinator James Bettcher, whose unit hosts Tennessee on Sunday at MetLife Stadium with New York’s slim playoff hopes still alive.
During that explosive run, Henry stiffarmed three different defenders in the open field. Jacksonville made a habit of trying to tackle him too high, and the Giants took notice.
“You got to have the whole army with you and it just takes everybody, all 11 of us rallying to the ball like we’ve been doing and making sure we try not to have any oneon-one tackles with him,” linebacker Alec Ogletree said. “You can’t try to arm tackle him because like I said, he’s a big back and he can break tackles and obviously you can see he has speed with it, so he can hit the homerun ball. But for us it’s just going to be go out, doing what we’ve been doing and keep executing.”
Still, that breakout performance was an outlier. Henry, who has split carries evenly with Dion Lewis (145 apiece through 13 games), didn’t even post 60 rushing yards in any of Tennessee’s first 12 games. The former Alabama star has topped 100 yards just four times in 46 career games.
And while the Giants’ run defense has struggled overall since New York traded nose tackle Damon Harrison in Week 8, the unit has shown positive signs of improvement. The Redskins gained 84 yards on 22 attempts last week — only the third time and the first since Week 7 that the Giants limited an opponent to fewer than 100 rushing yards. The previous week, the Bears averaged merely 3.7 yards per carry.
The defense also has six forced turners in those games, although stacking the box and creating takeaways is an easier task when you’re facing backup quarterbacks. Chicago started Chase Daniel and Washington started Mark Sanchez before turning to Josh Johnson in the third quarter.
Former No. 2 overall pick Marcus Mariota is completing nearly 70 percent of his passes along with 339 rushing yards on 61 carries for the Titans.
“The (pass) rushes have to have great integrity, and that’s both on the edges and the perimeter, because he’s going to scramble both places,” Bettcher said. “Really, the second thing is those off-schedule downs, you’ve got to cover a few more seconds longer. It might be, we use the word ‘plaster’ like a lot of people do, we’ve got to plaster in coverages, downs, extend themselves, and understand how and where different receivers are going to break.”
Defensive end Olivier Vernon has reemerged in the past two games with 3.5 sacks. In the wake of the Harrison trade and safety Landon Collins’ season-ending injury, young defensive ends RJ McIntosh and Mario Edwards have played increased snaps as well as safety Sean Chandler.
As the Giants attempt to extend their winning streak to three games, the next opportunity for the defense comes against a Titans team averaging only 16.4 points in seven road games (five losses).
“We’re hungry,” cornerback Janoris Jenkins said. “We understand that we started off slow and like coach always tell us, important football is played in November and December, so we just have to keep playing.”