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

It's always my co-ist Nick Vallado. It's almost time, baby. Training camp on the way.

And I'm excited to see it because we have the defense to talk about today. We're previewing what we want to see from the defense, our biggest question mark.

And I'll say this as we go into Camp Nick, the expectation on both of our ends,

and you know this if you listen to our offensive preview podcast before this.

So the defense is going to have the upper end for at least the start of training camp.

And in my mind, most likely all of camp with the exception of the practices where both

Daible and Bowen agree to tilt it in the favor of the offense by doing different things and not allowing things from the defense. Because let's just be honest, there's a massive talent difference, I think at least, on the defense versus the offense. I mean, the last year proved it. The defense was so much better than the offense. We've added Abdul Carter to it. And then also, like you mentioned last podcast, these quarterbacks, it's going to take them some time to get this offense out. You know, Daniel Jones last year was going into what year three of this offense. That helped a lot in training camp, but we saw it. Jones had his best training camp ever. I think last year, was that his best. He was pretty decent in training camp. Then obviously it didn't carry over.

But that, you know, that type of advantage plays out in the early parts of camp. Guy like Russ, a guy like Dart, they don't have that experience in the offense. It could be ugly at first. We can be seeing bad communication issues, incomplete passes, interceptions, balls bad at the line of scrimmage. late plays where people are saying and you know you know, who are watching practice, there would have been a sack, but they didn't, you know, there's no sacks in camp. So I'm excited to see it from that standpoint of just can the defense be that dominant? Because that'll make us think, Nick, are we going to be that dominant in defense when the real regular season hits? I can see a lot of, oh, well, that would have been a sack. I could see a lot of that.

There's going to be a lot of, oh, well, that would have been a sack.

I could see a lot of that. There's going to be a lot of discussion around that with Dexter Lawrence, Brian Burns, Kvon, Tibido, Chauncey Goldston, and obviously, which leads into my first question about the Giants training game, Abdul Carter. Right. What is his usage? That's what I want to know. That's what I want to see.

We're going to be able to get some information from Shane Bowen by just seeing how he aligns Abdul Carter. Does he use Abdul Carter, Kavon, Tibido, and Brian Burns in the same defensive packages? And if so, how is he aligning them? Is Abdul Carter over the A gap? Is he playing linebacker? Is he a quarterback spy in third and long situations? Is he out wide with the wide nine with Brian Burns with Dexter Lawrence running and Kay Montibito next one? There's so many different formations that you can utilize with this much defensive talent. And I am so curious to see, and we'll talk about the back end, but I'm so curious to see what Shane Bowen does from a personnel standpoint and from an alignment standpoint with his

current personnel and we're going to get like not to fast forward too much but we're going to get

the most fun example of that when we get those giant jets joint practices at some point in camp

because that's when you could just let it really rip and fly you don't have to worry about kind of like embarrassing your offense because you can afford them. And Justin Fields is going to really, really struggle to process those guys, I think, and the past rushes that we can kind of put out there. But with that said, I think the key thing here is I was thinking about this, Nick, because we watched so much Abdul Carter tape and then we watched the rest of this edge class. I think you would agree with me when you say there was a massive stark difference in contrast to watching Abdul Carter versus the rest of this past rushing class. To me, it was like one guy stood out completely above the others. There were a couple guys that are like can somewhat bend the edge and get around and up the arc. As a rock who are guys who can sort of do it, but not at the level and not the movement skills that Carter had and not the diversity. The way that Penn State. And Carter, he played edge one season. He was a linebacker for the Nittendenh lands. That's a good point, too, just to think about the upside.

So I think when you're talking about a player like him, he's not someone who, like as Araaku, for example, or some of these other guys might play some kind of role in year one and in camp. It's like he's starting out. He's getting some reps with the ones and then some twos, a lot of twos. this is like a guy that you just put in with the ones right away and he may very well be i'm not

going to say he, and he may very well

be.

I'm not going to say he is, but he may be one of your best players on your entire team, let alone your defense in year one. That's not a guarantee. He may not be, but there's obviously and clearly that upside for him to be. So I think in camp, he just, I'd love to see them just have him hit the ground running.

Have every for every rep for Carter be a first team rep. A few reps with the twos, I guess, just fine, whatever. But like, get him with those ones. Let's see how it works. Let's see how these guys work together. Absolutely. And also, Abdul Carter, how is he against the run now? Look, it's not, you know, full on tackling and just hitting and all that kind of stuff and you're going to

nail the court. also, Abdul Carter, how is he against the run now? Look, it's not, you know, full on tackling and just

hitting and all that kind of stuff and you're going to nail the court. It's not like that,

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