Giants’ biggest problem on defense? Not enough edge — just ask team legend Carl Banks: ‘This is awful’

New York Giants linebacker Lorenzo Carter (59) celebrates intercepting a Dallas Cowboys' Dak Prescott pass in the first half of an NFL football game in Arlington, Texas, Sunday, Oct. 10, 2021.
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Carl Banks is tired of watching the Giants make the same mistakes on defense, over and over again, especially at outside linebacker. He’s one of the greatest to ever play that position for the Giants, and he takes a lot of pride in how ferocious he and his teammates (like Lawrence Taylor) were when it came to playing with edge. That’s a big reason why those Giants defenses in the 1980s were so formidable.

The Giants haven’t been playing with that same edge. That was especially clear in a 44-20 loss to the Cowboys in Week 5, when running backs Ezekiel Elliott and Tony Pollard gashed the defense for 185 combined rushing yards, without much resistance from the linebackers. The tackling was subpar, and has been for a few weeks.

“It’s typical. You’ve seen it a thousand times,” said Banks on his “Bleav in Giants” podcast with Bob Papa. Banks and Papa are the Giants’ radio broadcast team.

The Giants’ outside linebackers have clearly struggled, and are one of the main culprits in the decline of a defense that came into the season with high expectations. Now it’s allowing 27.7 points per game, gave up 515 total yards to the Cowboys in Week 5 and 371 combined rushing yards overall the last two weeks.

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Even worse: The defense only has eight sacks, tied for second-fewest in the NFL. None of them have come from outside linebackers Lorenzo Carter or Oshane Ximines, who have played 175 combined pass rushing snaps. They have two hits and 11 total pressures between them, per Pro Football Focus. Rookie Azeez Ojulari had three sacks in the first three games — and none since. Rookie Quincy Roche has played 16 snaps and has zero pressures, sacks or hits.

Defensive coordinator Patrick Graham has pushed the narrative that sacks aren’t the only way to create pressure — and his players are parroting that philosophy too.

“We do more than rush the quarterback,” Carter said. “We affect the game in multiple ways. We try set the edge, play the run and do different things. We drop (in coverage), we help in different ways more than just sacks and there’s different ways to affect the game.”

Roche told NJ Advance Media that he knows people view sacks as “the pretty thing. You get to celebrate, you get your name posted everywhere. But there’s a lot of things that come before sacks, and those are the things that we’re trying to tackle.”

And that’s the other issue: Tackling. The Giants’ performance in that area is what had Banks the most riled up on this week’s episode of his podcast. The main point: On running plays when Ximines, Ojulari or Carter are running from the opposite side of the field toward the ball carrier, unblocked, they’re not making any impact on the play. That makes it easier for offenses to double team defensive linemen Leonard Williams and Dexter Lawrence without fear of the outside linebackers making them pay for it.

“If I’m not blocked on the backside, I’m sprinting down the line of scrimmage to knock the s--t out of somebody,” Banks said on the podcast. “The running back doesn’t see you. You haven’t been accounted for. And it’s like they (Ximines, Ojulari and Carter) sprint down there just to kinda put two-hand touch on them.”

Banks said that if the offensive line has to actually account for that extra player coming from the opposite side of the field, it frees up players like Williams or Lawrence to take on blocks one-on-one.

“But if you’re running down the line of scrimmage and you’re not in full sprint to hit that running back, you’re not helping your defense,” Banks said. “Then when you sprint down there and you don’t lay that guy out, you don’t get a good shot on him, you’re not helping your defense.

Banks added later: “That’s my message to Ojulari, Carter and Ximines: Be that other guy when they aren’t counting on you to be that other guy. Because once they have to account for you, then you just made two or three other guys better.”

The numbers back up what Banks is saying too.

Carter, Ojulari and Ximines have a combined 11 missed tackles this season, per Pro Football Focus. Carter has a missed tackle percentage of 25%, per Pro Football Reference, which is one of the worst marks among all edge rushers. Of 98 edge rushers to play at least 100 snaps, all three of them rank near the bottom of the NFL in PFF’s tackling grade: Ojulari (84th), Ximines (88th) and Carter (90th).

In run defense, Carter ranks 84th.

“It’s a point of contention with me because it was a point of pride when I played,” Banks said on the podcast. “The tackling is awful. There’s no way to sugar coat it ...

“It’s bad. You can’t be this bad of a tackling team. Not with the players you have ... This is awful. You can’t sit there and say: ‘Well, the backs that we’re facing have all been great.’ No, they’ve been great against you.”

But the problems aren’t only in stopping the run. The Giants have had serious issues rushing the passer too. Per ESPN, they have 33% pass rush win rate, the third-worst in the NFL. Only one team has fewer sacks. The Giants’ win in Week 4 against the Saints is even more surprising when you consider the defense produced zero sacks or QB hits.

Banks said that the edge rushers aren’t the only issue — “Leonard Williams, where are you? Dexter Lawrence, where are you?”, he said — on a defense that has struggled on all three levels. But the edge rushers might be the biggest problem through five games.

It won’t get much easier. Sunday, the Giants face the Rams, a Super Bowl contender, at MetLife Stadium. PFF ranks them third in pass blocking, 10th in run blocking, running back Darrell Henderson is averaging nearly five yards per carry and quarterback Matthew Stafford is an MVP candidate.

The Giants need the defense — especially the edge rushers — to step up.

“Get off your ass and let’s go,” Banks said. “There’s too many games left for you guys to be this f---king bad.”

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Zack Rosenblatt may be reached at zrosenblatt@njadvancemedia.com.

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