After their Week 6 loss to the Saints, head coach John Harbaugh sent a message to his running back room in his post-game press conference:
“One of those guys needs to step up.”
The Giants entered Week 7 ranked 19th in rushing yards per game and 22nd in yards per carry. But on Sunday against the Texans, who had the 3rd-best run defense in the NFL, they racked up 188 yards and 4 touchdowns on 34 carries.
Each of their running backs (Cam Skattebo, Devin Singletary, and Tyrone Tracy) scored a touchdown.
Clearly, the message was received.
It wasn’t just the running backs who stepped up, though. The offensive line did a great job and wore Houston down. Defensive-tackle-turned-fullback Patrick Ricard also continued to be a weapon as a blocker for the Giants.
But the approach that offensive coordinator Matt Nagy took might have played the biggest role in the turnaround of their rushing attack.
Specifically, the Giants leaned on “22” personnel (2 RBs, 2 TE’s) to generate yards on the ground. New York leads the NFL in usage of this personnel grouping, but they went into overdrive against Houston, using it a season-high 22 times.
They called run plays on 19 of those snaps, picking up 158 yards (8.3 yards per rush) and 3 touchdowns:
One of the great aspects of the Giants’ game plan was that they used this personnel grouping to set a tendency, get the Texans into a predictable defense, and then attack it.
For instance, with 5 minutes left in the 2nd quarter, the Giants came out in 22 personnel for the 6th time to that point in the game. They had run the ball on each of their first 5 snaps.
On that drive specifically, they had used 22 personnel on 1st-and-10 three times. Each time, even against a few different formations, the Texans aligned with 5 defenders on the line of scrimmage and ended up rotating to single-high.
They appeared to be playing it the same way on this next 1st-and-10, which is exactly what the Giants wanted:
After setting the trap with nothing but runs out of this look, the Giants of course went with play-action. The Texans rushed 5 and played 3-under 3-deep zone behind it. Because of the way they played it with 5 on the line to match up to the run look, there were fewer defenders at the second level: