ARI 26 NYG 7: Game Clips

Here is a Bird’s Eye View of a Coverage sack—-check out the Cardinals’ sticky coverage (thanks to @DDuggan21):

Daniel Jones had nowhere to go with the football.

Here’s how Dennis Gardeck and Zach Allen closed in on the sack 0n the 2nd clip:

The Cards win on hustle here—-not technique. To the left Edge Haason Reddick and DT Zach Allen are running a TEX twist, with Reddick banging inside and Allen is supposed to loop outside—-but the Giants’ RT and RG read it and switch on on it well. Plus, Allen was able to draw a double team from the C. Meanwhile, LB Dennis Gardeck is assigned to rush the A gap that is widened by the RG and C going to help on the TEX twist—-but the LG reacts quickly and covers Gardeck well—-except that Gardeck looks like a cowboy riding a busting bronco and won’t stop riding and tugging until he can get a shot at Jones’ ankles.

Allen keeps pushing the RT and converges on Jones’ escape route (which Jones, when healthy, may have busted through a second earlier)——right edge Markus Golden tries to beat LT Andrew Thomas on an inside move, but Thomas dominates Golden on this play and even spins him around. Golden gave up contain and left the door wide open for a QB escape wide to the QB’s left, but Jones didn’t see it.

On the 2nd clip here, Cardinals win on technique and execution here—-check out the same Reddick, Allen TEX twist and the sped at which Reddick gets to Daniel Jones on this key 3rd and long. Jones hurries his throw and Patrick Peterson was in perfect position to brisk up the slant pass.

Here is Markus Golden’s sack and forced fumble (2nd clip on this embedded tweet):

What is so odd about this play is that the Giants are in an unbalanced formation to the left side of the Cardinals’ defense. The Cardinals do the right thing by shifting the inside 3 DTs to account for the overloaded side—-but, look at how the shift created very good running numbers for the Giants to the right side of the Cardinals’ defense.

The play was designed to be a play action decoy off a run fake to the weak side—-but edge Haason Reddick takes too wide of a pass arc which would have opened a huge hole if they did hand the ball off. DeVondre Campbell does a good job on stepping up to try to close the holes down, but inexplicably on the overloaded side, the TE releases downfield and the RT blocks the DT head up, giving Markus Golden a clear and unabated path to Jones, who does not see him coming.

What stands out to me is that not only are the Cardinals hustling their butts off, they are playing all-out aggressive and fast. This is why i wrote in my earlier article that it feels the Cardinals were inspired by the Rams’ defense and with a little talk-to from Budda Baker, they got their mojo packed and ready to take to New York.