MNF - Giants @ Steelers Pregame Thoughts
The Pittsburgh Steelers are hosting the New York Giants tonight on Monday Night Football. Outside of the wide receiver chatter throughout the week, it has been a relaxing week for Steelers fans, watching the Ravens take a loss knowing that we have a REAL opportunity to take control of the AFC North heading into the bye week. Standing in our way is rookie star Malik Nabers and the Giants who are…quite frankly…not very good.
On one hand, this has trap game written all over it. The Steelers come into this thing with a legit quarterback competition going on, spearheaded by two guys that have played some awesome football for us, our run game moving up and to the right, and one of the best defenses in football. The Giants are handcuffed to QB Daniel Jones who has regressed since signing his big contract extension a couple years ago, and have a bad offensive line that can’t create running lanes for their RBs. Meanwhile, the Steelers are the league's best team in allowed rushing efficiency, according to NFL Next Gen Stats. The matchup between the Giants’ offense and the Steelers’ defense, to me, is just SO lopsided that I can’t imagine an upset happening in this one.
In anticipation of this Monday Night Football matchup, I went back and watched every play from the Giants game from a couple weeks ago against our division rival Cincinnati Bengals. It was an absolute snoozefest that resulted in a 17-7 Bengals win, and the big difference to me, in that game, was the quarterback position. The Giants defense played excellent ball, and RB Tyrone Tracy Jr. and WR Darius Slayton made great plays in that game. However, Daniel Jones made the costly mistakes, and Joe Burrow didn’t, which is why the Giants lost. Daniel Jones is simply not a good quarterback, and that becomes exacerbated when he’s under pressure. And now, he’s going to have guys like T.J. Watt, Cameron Heyward, and Alex Highsmith to deal with, and I just feel like it’s going to be a long night for the Giants QB. I fully anticipate he’ll make a mistake or two, and we’ll win the turnover battle, which should secure us a fairly “easy” win.
Where the Giants can make things interesting is with their defense. They are one of the league's best pass rushing units, featuring some real STARS like Brian Burns and Dexter Lawrence II. According to Next Gen Stats, the Giants are one of only two teams in the league to have three different EDGE rushers with 15 or more pressure: Kayvon Thibodeaux (who will be out of tonight’s game), Azeez Ojulari, and Brian Burns. This stat doesn’t even consider the impact that Dexter Lawrence has, and he’s coming into this game with 9 sacks on the year so far. Interestingly enough, the Steelers are right next up in that EDGE rusher stat with T.J. Watt (18 pressures), Nick Herbig (14 pressures), and Alex Highsmith (11 pressures), despite the fact that Herbig and Highsmith have both missed time with injury. But, I digress…the Giants pass rush can create some SIGNIFICANT problems for offenses, and they’re not afraid to blitz either; something they do at a high rate. Russell Wilson, who is known for holding on to the ball for a while, is going to have to keep his head on a swivel, and protect the damn football. Also, even though they’re a little beat up in their secondary, they trust their corners to cover behind these blitz. It’s going to be hard to get off those quick throws for the Steelers. An interesting matchup to watch will be George Pickens vs. Deonte Banks, who has shadowed opposing WR1s on at least 85% of their routes in every Giants game this year. He doesn’t have good ball skills, but he is a STICKY corner that is capable of making life difficult for opposing receivers when he is actually interested in playing football. With that being said, he has been caught on film giving up on plays several times this year, appearing a little uninterested to give his best effort in presumptive losing situations.
I’m not going to overthink this game too much. The Giants have some good players on both sides of the ball, as does every NFL team, but they aren’t necessarily good in offense, defense, or special teams. The game plan in this one is simple: run right at the Giants (they rank 31st in allowed rushing efficiency on defense), WRAP UP their skill players in space (Daniel Jones sucks but his receivers and backs DO NOT), and take care of the football. I think the Steelers defense will force two turnovers, and that’ll be the difference in this game. Naj and the defense should both eat tonight. Let’s ride.
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