How NY Giants Can Beat the Saints: Three Keys to Week 5

The Giants’ vaunted pass rush finally came alive against the Chargers, leading to a dominant performance that mirrored the positive debut of quarterback Jaxson Dart last week. 

New York was all over Justin Herbert’s case in Week 4, accumulating 20 pressures and sacking the quarterback two times to hold their talented offense to 18 points.

The key was that the Chargers’ offensive line was banged up along its starting front, and the Giants took clear advantage of that. 

Now, the Giants' quadruplet of pass rushers has another great opportunity to feast on the opposing backfield and potentially double their efforts from last Sunday.

The Saints, sitting at 0-4, own one of the league’s worst offensive lines as well, and their early numbers for pass protection leave a lot to be desired. 

Through the first four games of the season, New Orleans quarterback Spencer Rattler has only been sacked nine times, and his mobility to escape the pocket is something that has helped keep his sack number down. 

Still, his protection is often porous, allowing opposing edge rushers to get in his face pretty easily and disrupt their offensive game plan.

The Saints rank 29th in team pass block win rate entering Week 5, allowing pressure to successfully reach the backfield on 48% of their offensive snaps. 

On the other side, the Giants' defense has been climbing the league standings, sitting 17th in pass rush win rate and 12th in run stop win rate.

Two of their sack artists—Brian Burns and Abdul Carter—sit among the top 15 edge rushers in pass rush grade and have collected a combined 39 pressures and six sacks.

Burns is having a dominant start to his second season in blue, and the rookie Carter is starting to come into his own within the Giants' defensive system.

We should expect both to be active again on Sunday and make life difficult for Rattler and the Saints' offense to get the passing looks they want.  

Open Up the Passing Game

Jaxson Dart’s debut was pretty positive as the novice held down the command and tempo of the Giants’ offensive huddle and flashed the strength of his legs to bolster the ground effort and even put points on the scoreboard in that phase of the win over the Chargers. 

However, the one disappointing element that wasn’t shown enough in the Giants' game plan was his arm, which had been highly touted coming out of Ole Miss.

Dart threw the ball just 20 times in the whole game last Sunday, completing 13 of them for 111 yards and his other touchdown on the day to tight end Theo Johnson in the fourth quarter. 

Part of the absence of more passing statistics could have been attributed to the fact that Dart was without his No. 1 target in Malik Nabers, who left the game early with a torn ACL.

The Giants' offensive line also had a pretty good outing, but the rookie gunslinger held onto the ball too long at times, and it created six total sacks at the end of the day.

The loss of Nabers for the rest of the season cannot be a barricade that prevents the aerial attack from operating, though, as the Giants have said all week, they believe they still have a capable arsenal of receiving weapons that can stretch the field and create separation to allow Dart to keep slinging it and building his confidence. 

It is time for the Giants to show that on the field at a higher level, and they have a solid matchup against the Saints to do that.

Their group has some playmakers who can frustrate an opposing quarterback, but they largely struggle to slow down the passing game with an average of 8.0 yards allowed per play and nine touchdowns to just one interception forced.  

In coverage, the Saints rank 29th with a 57.5 grade entering Week 5, and their secondary has been heavily tested by their other opponents. They have five players who have allowed an average catch above 11.0 yards per play, and that same deep secondary has been responsible for 23 of the Saints’ missed tackles this year, which could bode well for earning extra yards.

With that amount of leakage the Saints tend to display, this matchup is a good opportunity for the Giants’ remaining pieces to step up in their roles and open up the passing game again.

The last time the Giants faced a weaker defense was against the Dallas Cowboys in Week 2, and that fared well with nearly 500 yards of aerial production and three touchdowns. 

In terms of individual roles, one should expect the Giants to rely on Darius Slayton for the deep field shots with the range at which he can run routes.

The team has also mentioned trying to find situations to utilize Jalin Hyatt, who has to enter the receiving corps more definitively in the absence of Nabers.

The Giants can add in Wan’Dale Robinson, Johnson, and Beaux Collins, who should see more snaps as well, and they have options to not just become a one-dimensional offense, especially when opponents will soon catch onto their ground aspirations and look to turn the water off, leaving the Giants in trouble if they can’t adjust.  

Mitigate the Vulnerabilities

It’s very often in games between two struggling franchises who don’t commonly light up the scoreboard in bunches every Sunday, the most important thing is not to lose the matchup by screwing up the little things in between the lines. 

In other words, don’t make silly mistakes that will cost your team at the end of what figures to be a tight contest. If the Giants were to do some self-reflection ahead of Week 5, they’d realize they aren’t doing a good job in that area of the game. 

Through the first four weeks of the season, the Giants have been penalized a total of 35 times, averaging 8.8 yellow flags per contest, which is the fifth-worst average in the NFL. This is approximately two extra flags per game compared to the organization's total in the 2024 campaign. 

Last Sunday, the Giants committed eight infractions in the friendly confines of MetLife Stadium, which, although they only backed the team up 43 total yards, can’t happen regularly if they want to win more games this season.

A good majority of those tend to be either pre-snap penalties or killer illegal contact calls on the defense that will only help spur the enemy to the endzone. 

Where things could get tricky in the matchup against the Saints is that they are now on the road in a dome environment that is always loud.

Even with the Saints' terrible start, their fans are likely to come loud for a game that could go either way, and the Giants must come poised and ready to play above the crowd noise. 

On the same note, New Orleans is just as guilty for the number of penalties they pick up each week, averaging the same amount as the Giants and a whopping 10.5 total in their last three games, which all resulted in losses. 

One could expect both sides to test the other’s patience and discipline before the snap with different cadences designed to draw the enemy offside and earn free yards. Still, the path to victory could be assisted by which side doesn’t fall for the trickery the best. 

Neither team has shown that in the first quarter of the season, and for the Giants, they should strive to be the franchise that reverses this trend in this game as they seek to add another win to their record.