The New York Giants were atrocious defending the run a season ago, finishing last in the league by allowing an average of 5.3 yards per rushing attempt. New head coach John Harbaugh has called stopping the run \u201ca must thing,\u201d and has pointed to the importance of the inside linebacker position in accomplishing that.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe inside linebacker isn\u2019t always considered a value position, but you can\u2019t stop the run without an inside linebacker making tackles in the middle,\u201d Harbaugh said the day he was introduced as the Giants\u2019 coach. \u201cYou can\u2019t do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is probably no coincidence that the Giants have remade the position during Harbaugh\u2019s first offseason. Let\u2019s take a look at the position as we continue our position-by-position \u201cbetter or worse\u201d series.<\/p>\n
Key additions: Arvell Reese, Tremaine Edmunds, Jack Kelly<\/p>\n
Key losses: Bobby Okereke<\/p>\n
The roster: Micah McFadden, Zaire Barnes, Tremaine Edmunds, Cam Jones, Jack Kelly, Darius Muasau, Arvell Reese<\/p>\n
In an ideal world, the Giants will come out of the 2026 season with two, maybe even three, off-ball linebackers better than anyone the Giants played at the position in 2025.<\/p>\n
Okereke made 143 tackles in 2025, the fourth time in seven years he has had 130 or more. Total tackles, though, is never a good way to judge a linebacker. Only two of those tackles were for loss. Okereke\u2019s Pro Football Focus run defense grade was a full-season career low of 46.2, and his missed tackle percentage was a career-worst 13.0.<\/p>\n
Edmunds, 6-foot-4, 251 pounds, is bigger than the 6-2, 235-pound Okereke. Both are fast \u2014 Edmunds testing at 4.54 in the 40-yard dash and Okereke at 4.58. Both have a 97th percentile arm length. Edmunds, though, was one of the best run-defending off-ball linebackers in the NFL in 2025 with an 80.6 PFF grade. Pro Football and Sports Network ranked him as the No. 6 off-ball linebacker in the NFL. He may not be the second coming of Harry Carson, but he should be an upgrade over Okereke as a run-defending force, and he has enough athleticism and length to help clog the middle of the field against the pass.<\/p>\n
Expectations for Reese are sky-high, as they should be for the No. 5 overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft. To be an improvement over what the Giants fielded at WILL linebacker a year ago, Reese only has to be better than Darius Muasau, Swayze Bozeman, Zaire Barnes, Demetrius Flannigan-Fowles, and anyone else who played a few snaps next to Okereke last season. McFadden\u2019s few Week 1 snaps before a season-ending injury don\u2019t really count.<\/p>\n
The Giants now pair the 6-4, 251-pound Edmunds with the 6-4, 243-pound Reese.<\/p>\n
McFadden, a former starter now relegated to the No. 3 linebacker role, will provide excellent depth. If, that is, he makes the roster. That\u2019s no sure thing with the drafting of Kelly and the special teams acumen of Muasau.<\/p>\n
In a world where Edmunds is terrible and Reese is a bust \u2014 or, where both get injured \u2014 I suppose being worse is possible.<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t see how the Giants won\u2019t be better \u2014 bigger, more athletic, more versatile \u2014 than they were at this position a year ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New York Giants were atrocious defending the run a season ago, finishing last in the league by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":664231,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[81822,25565,349,99],"class_list":["post-664230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-new-york-giants-analysis","tag-new-york-giants-roster","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=664230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664230\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/664231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=664230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=664230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=664230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}