Last week’s blockbuster trade for pass rusher Brian Burns didn’t just energize the New York Giants fan base, but some hallowed alumni, too.
“I wish I was 13-15 years younger,” two-time Giants Super Bowl champion and Ring of Honor member Justin Tuck (66.5 career sacks) said with a laugh.
“I’m obviously biased, but we were very successful as a team when we had multiple pass rushers. And again bias, but I would say the strength of our Super Bowl runs was our D-line play, and I am excited to see us get back to that — especially with how offenses are built now with these phenomenal quarterbacks.
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“If you can’t pass rush, man, you just don’t have a chance in this new league.”
Fellow Giants Ring of Honor member and two-time Super Bowl champion Osi Umenyiora (85 career sacks) couldn’t agree more.
“That’s a big move for New York,” Umenyiora said. “He’s an outstanding football player. I think when you look at their (pass rush) now, especially with the way Dexter (Lawrence) is in the middle and Kayvon (Thibodeaux) playing the way he played last year, I think they have the makings of an outstanding (pass rush).”
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GM Joe Schoen didn’t make the bold move because he’s trying to rebuild Giants teams of yore, but he does seem to want to give his defense a new identity — one that is indeed familiar to fans and former players. The Giants are going to get after the quarterback. They’re going to make teams spend game weeks worried about how they’re going to handle Burns and Thibodeaux speeding off the edge with Lawrence charging through the middle.
They’re going to hunt quarterbacks. And the plan is to do it for years to come with all three starting the season at age 27 or younger and under contract for the foreseeable future.
They didn’t get after quarterbacks so well last season. Despite former defensive coordinator Wink Martindale’s blitz-happy tendencies, the Giants didn’t generate much pressure last season. They ranked 27th in the NFL with a 31.8% pressure rate and 28th in sacks (34).
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New defensive coordinator Shane Bowen isn’t going to blitz nearly as much as Martindale did — Schoen confirmed as much as the NFL Scouting Combine — so the Giants are going to be heavily reliant on their front to generate pressure.
“If you want to run the defense they want to run,” NFL Network analyst Brian Baldinger said of Bowen’s scheme, “you’ve got to have two edge monsters.”
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Hence the hefty price Schoen paid for Burns, who was acquired for a 2024 second-round pick (No. 39), a 2025 fifth-round pick and a fifth-round pick swap this year — then was handed a five-year, $141 million deal.
But the price will be well worth it if the Giants defense plays anything like it did in the days of Tuck and Umenyiora.
“If you have (one predominant pass rusher), it’s very easy for them to slide the line, chip him, send it back to his side, etc.,” Tuck said. “So you got two of those guys mixed in with like, obviously what Dexter has been able to accomplish in the middle, that’s tough to defend. And when those three guys are rocking together, man, I’m a living witness of how dominant that can be. You can have a defense that can really take over games.”
There’s reason to believe Burns can help the Giants become that kind of defense. Burns, who ranks 12th in sacks (46) and quarterback hits (99) since entering the league, will be a huge upgrade to New York’s pass rush plan, which last season primarily centered around Thibodeaux, who carried a heavy load playing 87 percent of the defensive snaps. Thibodeaux, the No. 5 overall pick in the 2022 draft, recorded 11.5 sacks last year but saw his consistency fall off with his pressure rate dropping to 8.8% last season after producing pressure on 10.3% of his rushes his rookie season.
Meanwhile, the oft-injured Azeez Ojulari all but disappeared last season. In 11 games, he tallied 2.5 sacks, and his pressure rate dropped from 14.1 percent in 2022 to 9.8 percent. But with Burns’ addition, Ojulari now bumps down to No. 3 on the pass rush depth chart, which should serve him well in terms of staying healthy and being more productive on a per-snap basis.
It should be mentioned, too, that Burns, unlike Ojulari hasn’t had trouble staying on the field. The two-time Pro Bowler, who put pressure on QBs on 11.1% of his rushes last season, has never missed more than one game in a season.
“What I see from him is consistency,” Tuck said. “Obviously, the sack numbers are always the focal point when it comes to pass rushers. But he’s constantly putting pressure on quarterbacks. He’s constantly making quarterbacks feel unconfident. Obviously he has the sack numbers to back it up.”
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But as Tuck alluded to earlier, his excitement is less about Burns himself and more about his pairing with Thibodeaux. That tandem had him reminiscing about his playing days with Umenyiora.
“It’s gonna be very hard to double team (Burns),” Tuck said. “He’s versatile where you can move him around and really be able to allow him to pick his spots along that defensive line. I really think the sky’s the limit as far as him being able to confuse some offensive linemen, with him and Kayvon being interchangeable.”
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Tuck talked about how he and Umenyiora used to line up on the same side or even at inside linebacker, anything to confuse offensive linemen and confound quarterbacks. If Burns and Thibodeaux move in a similar fashion, Tuck expects similar frustration from offenses.
Umenyiora remembers those days, too. But what he remembers was that the Giants’ fearsome pass rush also featured hall-of-famer Michael Strahan for that 2007 Super Bowl along with Fred Robbins and Mathias Kiwanuka.
“We always had a few pass rushers and really good players, so you couldn’t really focus on on any one of them,” Umenyiora said. “And if you did, the other one was going to make life hell for you.
“If you only have one guy who can come off the edge, the way offenses are these days, they can just neutralize you if they really wanted to. If you’re not playing with the lead, they can slide protection your way. They can chip, they can get the ball out of their hands quick. But when you have people who can play complimentary football, especially on the defensive side of the pass rushing game, it makes things that much more difficult. (Offenses) essentially have to pick their poison and that’s something we were able to do before, and it looks like the Giants are getting back to that now.
How quickly and how well the Giants’ pass rush comes together next season remains to be seen. But those legends of the past are predicting good things for the future.
Said Umenyiora, “I think they’re gonna be outstanding,”
(Photos of Kayvon Thibodeaux, Dexter Lawerence and Brian Burns:
Michael Owens, Jim McIsaac and Perry Knotts / Getty Images)
