New York Giants defensive lineman Dexter Lawrence II is pretty good at what he does.
Ranked as Pro Football Focus’s third-best overall interior defensive lineman and third in total pressures among his position group (23), Lawrence is by far the Giants’ best player on defense, and it’s not even close.
But sometimes, even the best of the crop needs a little help, particularly if the rest of the league starts to catch up on how to neutralize the threat players like Lawrence pose, particularly on the pass rush.
Lawrence, who is no stranger to double-team blocks, came into the Giants’ Week 4 game against Dallas having faced a higher double team rate this season when lined up as a zero-tech 56% versus last year (44%), according to NextGen Stats.
Because of the extra attention he’s faced–this year, he’s been double-teamed on 65.30% of his snaps, the third most among his peers with a minimum of 50 run defense snaps, Lawrence had generated just one pressure from the zero technique (or nose guard) position this season through four games.
“That's some of the things that he's going to have to do is be able to fight through those double teams, which he has,” head coach Brian Daboll said.
“It's not an easy thing. I mean, there were times last week where there were three guys on him. So, again, he understands that. When he gets his opportunities, he's got to make them go.”
For Lawrence, it’s the price he has to pay for being so good at his job.
"I embrace it, and I tell them to double-team me honestly," he said, laughing. "It’s my world and I'm just going through it and each week I'm getting better at going through it."
“To be one of the top two D-tackles in the league, a team is gonna take you out,” said Giants defensive line coach Andre Patterson, whose influence on Lawrence since his arrival has helped the defender take his game to a whole other level.
“That's what Aaron Donald, and that's what you go through when you get that title put on. That's just, and you gotta accept it and you gotta fight through it. And you gotta be mad.”
Being mad about double-team blocks will only take Lawrence so far, which is why Patterson and defensive coordinator Shane Bowen worked together to devise ways to help counter the roadblocks other teams have thrown against Lawrence.
That meeting of the minds resulted in a small tweak to how they deployed him in last week’s game against the Seahawks.: they lined him up more as the 3-technique on the front.
Per PFF, Lawrence, who had lined up at nose tackle for 120 of his snaps through the first four games, routinely found himself double-teamed by the guard and center to slow him down, saw a little more movement along the defensive line.
According to the snap counts, Lawrence played 15 snaps at his usual nose tackle spot but saw an uptick in his snaps at end, where he played 15 (13 to the left and two to the right).
The move paid off. Lawrence, per NextGen Stats, finished with five quarterback pressures, three of which were sacks. The pressures were the most since Week 1 against the Vikings when he recorded seven, and the three sacks were the most he’s had in a game this season, topping the two-sack performance he posted in a Week 3 win over the Cleveland Browns.
He also doubled his season sack totals and is now tied with two other players (Kyle Van Noy of the Ravens and Will McDonough of the Jets) for second place in sacks with 6.0, a half sack behind league leader Aidan Hutchinson of Detroit.
Lawrence downplayed the tweak in his role. "I think this whole year I've been playing a little bit more. It wasn't necessarily just the game plan last week. I've been moving around a lot each week. But last week we just attacked the plan well and we executed well. It helped."
As good as Lawrence has been, he said there's still more work for him to do.
"I don't think I've scratched where I can be," he said. "I left some plays out there Sunday that I want back. Each week, I’ve just got to keep proving myself right and go to get it."
