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Storylines to follow on Monday Night Football

STORYLINES-WEEK-8-STEELERS

The Giants will look to snap a two-game losing streak when they travel to Pittsburgh to take on the Steelers on Monday Night Football in Week 8.

After falling to the Bengals in primetime in Week 6, the Giants took on the Eagles for their third divisional game of the season last Sunday. The Eagles emerged with the 28-3 victory, dropping the Giants' record to 2-5 on the year.

Meanwhile, the Steelers will attempt to extend their winning streak to three games as they play under the lights for the second consecutive week. Mike Tomlin's team defeated Aaron Rodgers and the New York Jets, 37-15, on Sunday Night Football to bring their record to 5-2. Following this week's game, Pittsburgh will have their bye before taking on the Commanders in Week 10.

Here are five storylines to follow on Monday Night Football.

Getting back on track

In Week 5, the Giants traveled across the country to Seattle and defeated the Seahawks, 29-20, in the team's most complete performance of the season. However, the Giants were unable to carry that momentum over to their next two games. In Weeks 6 and 7, the offense scored a total of 10 points.

While the offense's struggles can be credited to several areas, two in particular have stood out – the unit's lack of explosive plays and their struggles on third down. In Week 6, the Giants' longest play of the game was 15 yards. The following week, their longest play went for just 14 yards. It's difficult to win games without the threat of big play, and it's even harder when struggling to sustain drives (but more on that later). Earlier in the week, coach Brian Daboll said the offense is working to improve in those areas.

"You never accept where we're at," Daboll told the media Monday. "Whether you're on top or obviously where we're at right now, which is not good enough. I've clearly stated that. We'll do everything we can do to improve the things we need to improve on to correct some of those issues that we're having and ultimately score points. That's the job. And we're not getting that done, again, two of the big things we need to keep working on to correct to help those things are explosives and third down. And going back and evaluating those things. We're just off a little bit here."

The offense will face its toughest test to date with Monday's matchup against the Steelers' elite defense. The unit ranks second in points and eighth in yards allowed while boasting the league's fourth-best red zone defense.

View photos of the history between the New York Giants and Pittsburgh Steelers.

Dexter's dominant start

What Dexter Lawrence has done through the first seven games of the season has been nothing short of spectacular. Heading into Week 8, Lawrence has already set a new career-high with nine sacks, beating his previous high mark of 7.5 set in 2022. Reminder, we are only seven games into the season. Not only has Lawrence set a new personal best, but he also leads the entire NFL with his nine sacks. It is the highest sack total by a Giants player in the first seven games since Michael Strahan had 12.5 in 2001, the season in which he set the NFL record with 22.5 sacks.

What makes Lawrence's performance in the pass rush even more impressive is how he is coming about his sacks. The 6-foot-4, 340-pound lineman has faced a double-team rate on 63.3 percent of his pass rushes this season. Not only is this the highest in the NFL, but it is also the highest double-team rate any defender has faced dating back to at least 2018.

"It's not just me, honestly," Lawrence said. "It's the game plans, it's the DBs covering, it's the guys outside of me rushing as well. I do what I can when I can. Whenever I get that one-on-one or whenever I got to hustle to a ball – effort plays - is more than what the numbers say that goes along with me getting sacks."

Lawrence wasn't the only pass rusher to find success against Philadelphia's talented offensive line. Brian Burns and Azeez Ojulari added a sack apiece for the second consecutive game, combining with Lawrence to produce four of the team's five sacks. The trio combined for 13 pressures, according to Pro Football Focus, while totaling five quarterback hits. Hurts had just 14 pass attempts and 21 dropbacks on the day, and yet PFF had the Giants down for 21 total pressures. The Giants' 31 sacks on the season are three more than the next highest team.

Sustaining drives

As Brian Daboll mentioned in the quote above, the Giants' offense struggled in two areas in particular against the Eagles. We already discussed the explosive plays, now let's dive into the third down offense. The Giants were able to convert just three of 14 third down attempts in last week's loss, including five sacks allowed on third downs alone. This inability to pick up first downs in key situations led to the Eagles dominating the time of possession battle, 35:20 – 24:40.

Part of the reason for the team's struggles on third down was the distance needed in order to extend the drive. Of the team's 14 third down attempts, only two could be classified as third-and-short, meaning the offense only needed one or two yards to gain the first down. The Giants converted on both of those attempts. Avoiding third-and-long or even third-and-medium would go a long way in helping the Giants improve in these key situations. And what better way to get to third and short than by being productive in the run game.

"It's hard to sustain drives if you're not creating big plays and you're not converting on third downs," Daboll said after the game Sunday. "Some of that is a result of first and second downs, some of the sacks and negative plays that we took. We haven't been going backwards a whole bunch. But, not good enough any way you look at it."

Over the last two games, Giants running backs have gained 106 yards on 32 carries, good for an average of 3.3 yards per carry. It's not a coincidence that during that same stretch, the offense has converted on just eight of 29 third down attempts. Gaining more yards on the ground on early downs would help put the offense in better third down situations, which in turn would likely help the team convert on more of these attempts. Accomplishing this could be a tough task this week, as the Steelers come into this game ranking second in rushing yards allowed per attempt (3.6 avg.) and third in rushing yards allowed per game (81.0).

Stopping the run

Equally as important as establishing the run game on offense will be stopping the run on the defensive side of the ball. Despite handing the reigns of the offense to Russell Wilson after Justin Fields led the team to a 4-2 start, the Steelers make it no secret that they want to run the football. Pittsburgh comes into this game with 235 rush attempts on the year, the second-most in the NFL. Even with Wilson starting at QB and throwing for 264 yards last week, the Steelers still ran the ball 36 times for 149 yards and two touchdowns.

Over the last few seasons, the Giants had struggled to limit opposing team's run games. However, over the first six weeks of the season, the unit had done a much better job against the run. The Commanders (215 yards) were the only opponent to top 121 yards on the ground against the Giants over the first six weeks of the season. The recent success against the run came to a halt in last week's matchup against the Eagles, though. Philadelphia ran for a total of 269 yards and 3 touchdowns, including 176 yards and a score from Saquon Barkley, who averaged over 10 yards per carry against his former team.

Leading the way for the Pittsburgh run game is running back Najee Harris. The former first-round pick from Alabama has run the ball 117 times for 478 yards (4.1 avg.) and two touchdowns. Harris has topped 100 yards rushing in each of his last two games, marking just the second time in his career he's done so in consecutive weeks. Dating back to last season, Harris has split backfield touches with Jaylen Warren, who finally appears to be back at 100 percent health after missing time with a knee injury. Warren carried the ball a season-high 12 times against the Jets while adding three receptions. His 59 total yards from scrimmage were two short of his season-high.

Scouting the Steelers

As previously mentioned, the strength of the Steelers lies in its defense. Pittsburgh has the No. 2 scoring defense in the league, aided in large part due to the unit's dominance in the red zone. Opponents have gotten inside the 20-yard line 21 times this season, but have been able to punch it into the end zone on only nine occasions. Their 42.9 percent red zone defense is the fourth-best in the NFL.

While Pittsburgh has talented players on every level of its defense, the unit's success starts up front with outside linebacker T.J. Watt. The four-time All-Pro and former Defensive Player of the Year leads the team in sacks (4.5), quarterback hits (12), tackles for loss (eight) and forced fumbles (three). Not far behind Watt in each of those categories is defensive tackle Cameron Hayward, who's second on the team with his three sacks, 10 quarterback hits and four tackles for loss. Watt and Hayward, along with linebackers Patrick Queen and Payton Wilson and safeties Minkah Fitzpatrick and DeShon Elliott, have helped the Steelers form one of the league's top run defenses.

Sticking in the secondary, cornerback Joey Porter Jr. will likely spend a lot of the game covering Malik Nabers. Across 40 coverage snaps last week, Porter matched up against Garrett Wilson on 16 routes and Davante Adams on 12 routes. According to Next Gen Stats, he allowed just one reception for nine yards as the nearest defender in coverage. Opposing teams have typically stayed away from Porter in coverage, as he has only been targeted on 12.8 percent of his coverage snaps this year, the seventh-lowest among cornerbacks with at least 100 coverage snaps.

Russell Wilson will start his second game of the season on Monday after the veteran found plenty of success in his first start last week. Wilson completed only 16 of 29 passes (55.2 percent) but for 264 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions for a passer rating of 109.0. The 35-year-old attempted three passes 20+ yards down the field and completed two of them for 81 yards and a 109.7 passer rating. On passes of 10-19 air yards, Wilson went three for four for 68 yards and a touchdown, earning a 156.3 passer rating on those attempts.

The biggest beneficiary of Wilson starting appears to be wide receiver George Pickens. The third-year wideout finished with 111 yards on five receptions against the Jets' talented pass defense, which marked just the second time this season he's topped the 100-yard mark, in addition to scoring his first touchdown of the year. Wilson also got his tight ends involved with Pat Freiermuth and Darnell Washington combining for six receptions and 87 yards.

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