November 06, 2026
Brad Penner/Imagn Images via Reuters Connect
The Giants blitz a lot. Can new QB Joe Milton avoid Giants edge Abdul Carter?
The identity of the Eagles' offense is change again as the Eagles are making yet another quarterback switch for their Week 9 matchup against the Giants and beyond.
Out is Tanner McKee. In is Joe Milton, a 2025 sixth-round pick of the New England Patriots already on his third team in three seasons and only with the Eagles for a few weeks.
Stylistically speaking, the 6-foot-5, 246-pound Milton plays the game much differently than McKee. Milton has a rocket right arm and offers the athleticism and quickness that McKee lacks, although Milton's preference based on tape review of his 53 career NFL passes is to stay in the pocket and only run when necessary.
Milton's mindset is less Josh Allen or Jayden Daniels and more Jordan Love and Baker Mayfield. He can maneuver around the pocket and extend plays with his legs but picks his spots when to tuck and run.
Still, the Eagles are banking on Milton's elusiveness to help them cover up their woeful season-long pass protection issues and hopefully provide a spark to what has been their worst offense this century.
But when they hit the Linc on Sunday afternoon, they won't be the only team in the midst of an identity change.
Their opponent, the upstart New York Giants, have also altered their playbook to masquerade a major deficiency. The Giants were supposed to feature one of the NFL's best four-man rushes going into the season behind three-time Pro Bowl edge Brian Burns, 2025 No. 3 overall pick Abdul Carter, 2022 fifth overall pick Kayvon Thibodeaux and hybrid rookie linebacker Arvell Reese, this year's No. 5 overall pick.
With Burns, who had 16.5 sacks last season, and three top-five picks in the pass rush, new defensive coordinator Dennard Wilson shouldn't have needed to blitz much to harass QBs.
But after Burns went down in Week 3 with a season-ending ACL and meniscus injury, and with the Giants already struggling to take down QBs, Wilson has become much more aggressive.
Since the start of Week 4, only the Minnesota Vikings have blitzed more than Giants, who per NFL Pro have the NFL's third highest blitz rate (42.0%) this season behind the Vikings and Panthers despite not being among the top blitzing teams for the first three weeks.
From Week 1-3, the highest blitz rate by the Giants was Week 2 against the Rams at 30 percent. Since then, they haven't blitzed under 41% in any week, including 62.2% against Washington in Week 5 – the seventh highest blitz percentage by an NFL team in any week this season and second highest non-Vikings blitz rate this season – and 51.5% against the Saints in Week 6.
Here's a week by week look at the Giants' blitz rate and the opposing QB's EPA against the blitz that week:
| Week | Blitz % | QB EPA Vs. Blitz |
| 1 | 25.0 | +3.5 |
| 2 | 30.3 | -4.1 |
| 3 | 27.8 | 3.7 |
| 4 | 53.8 | -19.6 |
| 5 | 62.2 | -1.7 |
| 6 | 51.5 | -3.5 |
| 7 | 41.4 | -4.3 |
| 8 | BYE | BYE |
The Giants only have nine sacks this season, putting them in a three-way tie for fewest in the NFL, but their 44.1 percent pressure rate when blitzing is far more respectable, ranking 15th overall. Their -0.29 EPA per play when blitzing is fourth-best in the NFL.
There's no chance that Wilson, a former Eagles DBs coach, sees the change from McKee to Milton as some kind of major threat to the Giants' blitz, at least not until Milton proves that he can beat it.
In 2024, playing for the Patriots against the Bills in Week 18, Milton was blitzed 12 times on 32 dropbacks. He was 9 of 12 against the blitz on 14 dropbacks, with a +0.40 EPA per dropback – sixth-best in the NFL that week – and didn't take a sack. It's important to note the game was the Backup Bowl as the Patriots were wrapping up a 4-13 season while Buffalo had already locked up the 2-seed.
That same week, McKee started a meaningless Week 18 game for the Eagles against the Giants and also performed well, with 269 passing yards, two TDs, and a 100.6 passer rating.
It's impossible to predict how Milton will perform against the Giants and the blitz based on a game two years ago with backups around him and backups on the other side of scrimmage.
The Eagles are hoping that Milton's big arm and escape skills give him a chance to create some bigger plays than they were getting from McKee. The Giants will bank on Milton's history of not taking every blitz or pressure as an opportunity to scamper.
In his lone appearance for the Patriots, Milton ran 10 times for only 16 yards, with a long of 9. In his five other appearances last year in Dallas, Milton ran 5 times for 50 yards, with a long of 23.
When the Giants come at him Sunday with extra-man pressures, the expectation shouldn't be that Milton will take off and create chunk plays on the ground more so than avoiding the rush and hoping to find a man open somewhere or the first-down marker nearby.
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