TRENDING Ravens look ugly on 'TNF' LSU women break D-I record Week 9 fantasy sleepers NFL trade deadline buzz Ranking NBA rookie phenoms Story by Story by Giants’ offense vs. Eagles’ defense: The Vic Fangio factor New York Giants quarterback J.J. McCarthy throws a pass against the Houston Texans. | Getty Images Chris Pflum · SB Nation Fri, November 6, 2026 at 3:30 PM UTC · 8 min read About Our Ads Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The New York Giants emerge as winners from their Week 8 BYE.
They're (relatively) rested and still riding the emotional wave of a stunning overtime win in Week 7. They return to action this week as 3.5-point favorites (per FanDuel) on the road against the Philadelphia Eagles. The Eagles have been in a tailspin over the last several weeks, losing the last six games. They've lost each of the last three games by at least 11 points, including a deflating 27-10 loss to the Washington Commanders last week.
The Giants are looking to build on the momentum of their upset win over the Houston Texans, while the Eagles are just hoping to stop the skid.
What can J.J. McCarthy and the Giants' offense expect from the Eagles' defense?
Can J.J. McCarthy do it again? The last six (counting overtime) quarters of Giants' football have turned former 10th overall pick J.J. McCarthy into a national story. Most had written McCarthy off after his rookie year was upended by injury, his sophomore year was a disappointment, and he fell to QB3 in his third year.
Now? McCarthy has catapulted himself back into the "QB1" conversation with an electric 11 minutes against the New Orleans Saints and a game full of explosive plays against the Houston Texans. This of course, begs the question: Can he do it again?
The Eagles now have about a game and a half worth of tape on the McCarthy-led Giants. That isn't much to go on, but it may be enough to form a more effective gameplan.
The good news is that McCarthy also has two more weeks in the Giants' offense and more tme practicing with the Giants' starters. Not to mention, McCarthy will get to enjoy the presence of a (hopefully) healthier Andrew Thomas and Jermaine Eluemunor. It seems likely that Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio will look to contain the explosive passing plays that defined his performance against the Texans. McCarthy excelled at throwing deep against Houston, delivering some legitimate "WOW" throws. He'll need to capitalize on the opportunities to do so against the Eagles, but can't count on them being regular occurrences. Instead, the Giants' intermediate passing game will need to be more consistent on a down-to-down basis while they work to create opportunities for explosive plays.
If there was a blemish on McCarthy's game against the Texans, it's that his passing success rate* was 25th out of 25 qualifying quarterbacks .
* Success rate is defined as the rate at which a play that gains a percentage of the yards needed to convert a first down. A "successful" first down picks up 40 percent of the yards to convert, a successful second down picks up 60 percent of the yards to convert, and a successful third down picks up 100 percent of the yards to convert.
Explosive plays are great and go a long way toward making it more likely that a team scores on a given drive. However, a team can't rely on explosive plays to consistently move the ball down the field. While the Giants did an excellent job of scheming 1-on-1 opportunities and good receiving windows downfield for McCarthy, it's not something they can live on. McCarthy will need to be more consistent in hitting underneath passes to keep the offense moving and on schedule. That will be particularly true if the Giants' run game struggles with both Cam Skattebo and Tyrone Tracy injured.
The Giants finally got their run game going against the Texans. While the Texans' defense isn't what it was in 2025, they still filed one of the NFL's best run defenses, which makes the Giants' 180-yard, 3-touchdown performance all the more impressive.
The Eagles' run defense has decidedly mediocre this year. And their high Run Stop Win Rate but average YPC and high rushing EPA allowed (+11.45, 28th in the NFL) suggest that they're prone to giving up explosive plays on the ground. That would be good news for the Giants in light of their performance against the Texans, but there are suddenly doubts about the Giants' backfield.
Tyrone Tracy landed on injured reserve with a hamstring injury suffered early in the game, while Cam Skattebo is currently not practicing with a hamstring injury of his own. Skattebo's injury was suffered at the end of his final carry of the game, the 42-yard run which set up Devin Singletary's 30-yard touchdown run to win the game. Skattebo ended that run early when he felt his hamstring tighten, and while he didn't seem overly concerned after the game, he has yet to practice.
That leaves Singletary and the newly-added Greg Desrosiers as the Giants' healthy backfield, with practice squad backs Phil Mafah and Eric Gray as possible additions.
The Giants offensive line will need to play well. While the Eagles' defense has struggled this year, the trio of Jalen Carter, Jordan Davis, and Moro Ojomo remains dangerous.
The Giants will also need to depend on McCarthy's play to help unlock their running game. Not only will more consistent passing success help take the pressure off the run game, but the threat of McCarthy's legs will help unlock the running game. The Giants used a slow mesh to simulate a read-option play on Tyrone Tracy's touchdown, freezing a key Texans' defender. The Giants could make (judicious) use of the read-option with McCarthy in this game — as they did with Jaxson Dart in Week 1 against Fangio acolyte Christian Parker — to help supplement their rushing attack.
The Giants could also make use of Darnell Mooney as a pseudo-running back with sweeps and screen plays. Mooney has been disappointing as a receiver, but his athleticism and explosiveness have been apparent when he gets the ball in his hands. Doing so on schemed touches could be a way the Giants look to augment their rushing attack and adding an explosive element on the ground.
The Giants have spent most of the 2026 season facing defenses we've called "Fangio Adjacent". That is, defenses designed and called by coaches who have either been inspired by Vic Fangio, or his acolytes.
We've already been over the iterations enough to know the general shape of the "Fangio" defense.
It's based around a 4-2-5 nickel formation under a quarters coverage. He makes heavy use of pattern matching principles to add man coverage to his zone schemes, as well as using post-snap rotations to create ambiguity and doubt in quarterbacks' reads. While his defenses frequently start out in a Cover-4 look, they often rotate to Cover 3, adding a defender to the box, or a hybrid coverage like Cover-6 or Cover-8* to give them a numbers advantage to the passing strength.
* I go into more detail on Cover-6 and Cover-8 in our Week 1 preview of the Cowboys' defense .
Fangio doesn't blitz all that often, just 22.5% of the time (26th in the NFL), instead trusting his defensive front to get home.
While the details may shift with different coordinators and defensive rosters, the basic shape of the "Fangio" defense remains consistent and has become one of the most popular philosophies in the NFL. However, the biggest advantage that Fangio himself has always been that it's his . More than any other coach, Fangio not only knows how is defense is able to attack offenses, but is also intimately aware of it's weaknesses and how offenses go about attacking his scheme.
We saw that first-hand last year when Fangio deviated from his scheme on Thursday Night Football. That game he opted to blitz Dart heavily in his second start. Fangio has typically eschewed the blitz, instead trusting his defensive front to get pressure while playing coverage behind them. While the decision to blitz a rookie is typically correct, it proved disastrous against Dart. The weaknesses were easily exploited by the athletic young quarterback, and it stressed the defense in ways that it wasn't designed to sustain.
Two weeks later, Fangio went back to his roots and played his usual coverages and didn't blitz Dart. This time, the rookie struggled to identify the post-snap rotations and had one of his worst performances of a rookie year that was largely otherwise promising.
McCarthy was excellent when the Houston Texans employed MOFC (middle of field closed) looks. Whether it was Cover-1 (man) or Cover-3 (zone), single-high safety looks created defined passing lanes for McCarthy and he took advantage. While it's notable that the Giants' rushing offense finally got going against the Texans, their explosive passing attack helped carry the day when Houston's defense got them off schedule.
We should expect Fangio and the Eagles to be well aware of this and try to stick to their usual two-high shells against McCarthy.
The good news for the Giants is that the Eagles' pressure rates have been simply bad this year, as they've bled talent from their Super Bowl roster of two years ago. They might be forced to try and blitz McCarthy if he's too comfortable in the pocket, which could create weaknesses which the Giants could exploit.
We should also expect the Giants to make a concerted effort to run the ball and attack the second level of the field with Isaiah Likely, Malachi Fields, and their running backs. Doing so effectively could also help to force the Eagles out of their two-deep shells and into more vulnerable looks.
Source: Sports
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