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Blue Liar.

Welcome back.

This is the big blue banter.

New York Giants football podcast.

I'm Dan Schneier.

It's always my co-ist, Nick Vallado.

And tonight, we are joined by a special guest tonight.

It is Sean Syed of Syed Sched Schem.

So you could follow him at Syed Sched Scheme, that's S-Y-E-D, S-C-H-E-M-E-S. And I would suggest doing this right now, literally pause the podcast, go follow him on Twitter. No, no, you're laughing over there, Sean, but you're one of the first people that I found when I started really diving into the X's and O's and the film side of football, which is the side that I'm obviously obsessed with. That's really what our podcast is all about at its core. And so you can learn a lot. You listen. And by you,

I mean, listening to the podcast right now, you can learn a lot. And he is this week, I mean, obviously it's Giants Vikings. He covers the Vikings, but this week there's been some stuff on the Giants and the Vikings matchup coming up. But you'll learn just anything, just following his film breakdown. So we're really excited to get him in today.

We're really excited to talk X's and O's. And this is going to be a different kind of preview than we've had basically all year. Basically, from this, you know, until this point, we've had some players on. We've got some analysts on. But we haven't really dove much into the X's and O's of this and the film stuff. So I'm very excited to actually get the take of the opponent,

the take from someone who knows this stuff about the opponent they're playing coming up. So, Sean, without further ado, let's just dive right into this thing. The first thing I want to ask you about, this may not be, you know, as nitty gritty. But one thing I've heard all season, and I haven't really watched any Vikings tape too much at least until this point is that they play a lot of off coverage and they're really bad in off coverage. Their numbers are really bad on defense and off covers. This, when I hear it, I think, well, maybe the Giants can finally unlock their passing game this week against this style defense. So what do you think so far of the scheme on defense this year? I believe it's a first year coordinator on defense, obviously, with the first year at coach. And what about that off coverage? Like anything you've seen lately that's changed or anything they should do differently. Nick and Dan, so glad to be here. Awesome intro. Really do appreciate that. So the defense, it's, it's an interesting kind of conundrum. So it's a Fangio tree defense. Ed Donantel has worked with Vic Fangio for a really long time. As you said, first year of the scheme were what? Like 14, 15 games into the scheme. And the easiest thing to point to you is to say, hey, this is a defense that they want to put kind of a ceiling over the offense, right? We want to make you check it down. We want to make you take snap after snap. Eventually, we think one of our rush guys in Zadarius Smith or DeNiel Hunter is going to make a play or we think you're going to mess up, right? And that has happened to the bike's advantage. The games where the Vikings defense hasn't looked as good, it's particularly when they don't get pressure. You know, all of your defensive calls look way, way better when the quarterback's on the ground, right? Whatever you call, if you're getting pressure, it, it just makes it better. I know Giants fans love to think about, you know, the OCD days, the tough days where Tom Brady's on his back, right? Your defense looks better when your defensive line is playing well. In terms of off coverage, what's changed a little bit just really in that last game that we saw from against the Colts, obviously it's hard to kind of do a one-to-one with how much is this going to relate to the future because that was such a wild game and how many of those things are like, hey, we really need to speed this, speed the other team's offense up. But they did play a lot tighter coverage. And so part of that, I think, is you're playing the same coverages. It's just in your match, you're playing that a little tighter, right? That is one thing. But they also did use man coverage a little more. I think that zone coverage is a beautiful thing, and every team uses it, will use it, and will continue to use it. But particularly in two high structures, that, of course, the Vikings, that's their base. And that's something that the Fangio tree loves. Those flat defenders, those quarter flat defenders, they are asked to do a lot. But again, that is by design, right? We're not going to let up home run balls. If you run for avert status, we're not going to have an issue with that. But every single defensive call has a weak point. So what I love that I saw last week was that that tighter coverage, a little bit more man, a little bit more pressure. And that's something I know that Giants fans love. And it's such a funny convergence for the Giants and Vikings to kind of cross over now, where I think maybe last week for the Giants where they had those kind of double teams built in versus Terry McLaurin and seeing a little bit different stuff there. And then it seems like the Vikings picked up Wink Markendale's kind of menu and went to more man coverage and blitzing. So it's funny that we're crossing over at this point, but I will say I'm going to 100% admit I have a pro ad di Donatel bias. I know that in every article I've written, I think there's been someone to comment like, man, like Dona-Shell or Fire Donatel, but it's a system that takes time. It is for a purpose. Things look worse when you don't get pressure or when you don't turn over the ball. But, you know, I think that it is, it is a system

that showed particularly last week, it is adaptable. And you do look better when you're playing against maybe an aging quarterback with receivers that are a little bit of a less of a threat. So it is going to be interesting against the Giants who, you know, no shot, of course, they're receivers. But I think our receivers may be a little bit better on this one. just a little.

Sean,

I think this is a good,

...