Welcome back. It's the big blue banter New York Giants football podcast. I'm Dan Schneier.

That's my co-host, Nick Vallado. And if you're wondering why there might be a little pep in my step, another PR was unlocked.

Really?

I'll know, yes, we won't talk too much about it. I'll save it for anyone who's interested. Maybe I'll come to the comments and I'll let you know what the details are.

But I'm high. And like I said, Nick, last time this happened, I thought it would carry you over to a win for the Giants. That was before week one. It did not. This time, I have a feeling it's going to carry over to a win for the Giants. Well, I shouldn't say I have a feeling. I hope. But we'll talk about that today. We're going to preview the Giants versus the Chiefs today. And I'll start this preview, Nick, by asking you one question. If there's one thing you're most concerned about in this game or the one thing that's like, I think the Giants can win. I like what I saw in week two, but what would that be? stopping Patrick Mahomes still with his defense. That's a big concern. I mean, there's so many that you can really go through with this team. Like, I was watching Steve Spagnola's defense against the Eagles. And there's a reason why Jalen Hurts did like nothing. Literally not. The reason why the Eagles often struggled. So it's so creative. We'll get into some of the things that he was doing. But I was very impressed by what I saw from Steve Spagnola against the Eagles. Yeah. So we have total, we have a little, now it's, I know you're on the board with everything, but we have different concerns for me. For me, it's two words, Steve Spagnolo. And that's, I have a bad feeling we're going to regress back to looking like our week

one offense against this unfortunate defensive coordinator in D. And it's not, it's not all going to be Russ's fault. It's not all going to be Dable and Kafka's fall. It's not going to be the receiver in the O lines fall. It's going to be a reality of playing Steve Spagnolo and the chief's defense. They've loaded up on talent through the drafts over the years. Their D line is fearsome and deep. They have talent at corners and safety. And then most importantly, like, this guy gets it, Nick. Like, it's not like watching Shane Bowen, dude. He actually understands you got to scheme a little bit on defense. You got to play aggressively. You got to take chances. You got to set your defense up to have this aggressive mindset where they are crowding the line of scrimmage and they're rotating safeties post-snap. And they're taking chances by pressing up on receiver, playing pattern match, even when they're in zone, just pressing tight in zone. Like, this guy gets it. He's like, I'm not worried about these 50-yard bombs every second of my life. I don't need to be worried about them. I can put the pressure on the opposing quarterbacks, exactly what he did to Jalen Hertz. And quite frankly, Nick, and we'll go over this in a little bit, but I was surprised at how many times I saw two things when I watched the tape of that of the Eagles offense versus the Chiefs defense. One, I was surprised how many times I wanted to get your take on so we get into it. I felt like the Chiefs were guessing the route combinations that the Eagles were running toward the end of that game. And that's kind of crazy on the Eagles front, how bad that could be. I don't worry about that one as much with Kafka. He does a better job of that. I think the Eagles coordinator is going to suck all year. I think they lost more and it's going to be big for them. but then two what I was so like not confused but I was so like

injured year. I think they they lost more and it's going to be big for them. But then two, what I was so

not confused, but what I was so like interested by was how many times they didn't really get

home because the Eagles O' line is so good. And it didn't matter. Somehow the coverage was still good

despite paging Shane Bowen, you don't need 17 guys out there for good coverage. Like they were just one on ones and they were covering them well. So sticky too, man. Like the way they just matched, you mentioned it a little earlier. The way they would match routes, it's, and then you watch the Giants do their more spot drop type of approach. It's just like, oh my. Now on the other side of this as we get more into this preview, I'm actually a little bit more confident than you are in the Giants defense against the chief's offense.

And maybe that's fool gold for me or maybe that's not the right term. Maybe that's just a fool's errand by me. But I've watched a little bit of the chief's offense, not as much. I watched the whole chief's defense or Siegel's offense. but I just think they're lacking right now in a lot of ways that we don't typically associate with the Chief's offense. Mahomes is not on target like he used to be. And I don't know what that is, but now that's like a 25 game straight sample size of this. Two, I know there was all the hype about Josh Simmons in the preseason and I get it. He was really good in his sample size of Ohio State before the injury against a lot of bad teams. I don't quite think he's ready there and I think we're going to have a good game against him. I think Brian Bird is going to have a big, big game against that, against the Josh Simmons. And then three, they don't do anything of interest in the run game to me. No, not really. And if you think about it, it's Kareem Hunt, Isaiah Pacheco, who hasn't been the same since that high ankle sprain when it comes to running the

football. They get a little bit more push than the New York Giants do at the point of attack, you know,

so I want to make that clear. But in general, people are shutting down the run while playing

too high fairly well against him.

Like most of the rushing success of the Chiefs offense is Patrick Mahomes.

He averages like nine yards of carry.

The other two are both sub four.

I think Kareem Hunt's three six and Pacheco is even worse than that.

And again, this is a small sample size, but you're not talking about these difference making running backs. There are these safety valves in the in the flat for Patrick Mahomes. And he's been hitting those. We have a bunch of stats on Patrick Mahomes from NFL pro that we can go through as well. Yep. But yet they're just not really connecting on the deep one. I think he has that one deep touchdown pass to Thornton. He is going to be running sprints the entire game.

Like the reason why the Giants are going to line up in this too high shell and spread over

the top is because of Thornton's presence.

He right now, Dan, I think leads the NFL in yards per reception and A dot.

...