The Giants didn’t wait around for their pass rush to show up. Dennard Wilson stopped waiting, too.
With Brian Burns sidelined by a torn ACL and the front four producing next to nothing, New York’s defensive coordinator has turned into one of the league’s most aggressive play-callers almost overnight. The Giants sat in the top 10 in blitz rate by mid-October, and that’s not because everything is humming along smoothly up front. It’s because the pass rush has gone missing.
Wilson’s usual background suggests a more measured approach. In Tennessee, his defenses lived in a press-zone, bend-don’t-break world and blitzed roughly 21-22% of the time.
But that kind of patience only works when the line can get home on its own. New York’s front managed just one sack in three games, so Wilson changed the script.
The payoff has been real. The Giants blitzed on 53.8% of dropbacks in their Week 4 win over the Arizona Cardinals, then raised the number to 62% in Sunday’s overtime tie with the Washington Commanders.
That was New York’s highest blitz rate since Wink Martindale ran the defense in 2023. Across those two games, the Giants piled up seven sacks and went 1-0-1.
Wilson didn’t just blitz more against Washington. He got creative with it. On Sunday, he sent a defensive back on 41% of Jayden Daniels’ dropbacks, and slot corner Dru Phillips was a major beneficiary, finishing with two sacks and four pressures.
The pressure ramped up as the game wore on. According to Next Gen Stats, 14 of the Giants’ 24 blitzes came in the fourth quarter and overtime, when the blitz rate jumped to 74%.
Wilson also leaned heavily into Cover 0. On 10 of Daniels’ dropbacks, New York brought no safety help, left the corners on islands and went hunting.
The result: three sacks. Washington didn’t score on any of its final three drives, and Daniels finished 2-of-8 for 23 yards under pressure.
Of course, this kind of gamble comes with real danger, especially against a mobile quarterback like Daniels. The Giants paid for it on the ground, giving up two touchdown runs of 38 and 26 yards and surrendering 202 rushing yards overall.
Still, the aggression has changed the look of this defense fast. The Giants now own the ninth-highest blitz rate in the league at 39.2%, and based on the last two weeks, that number doesn’t seem ready to come down anytime soon.
It may not be the defense Wilson pictured when he took the job, but it’s helping New York survive. And with the Giants sitting atop the NFC East at 3-1-1, that’s the part that counts.
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