Cowboys' DTs vs. Giants' O-Line: A Massive Week 1 Mismatch? | Blue Rush

Oh my gosh, this Giants interior offense line have a nightmare of a duel to deal with. Prime time, week one, John Michael Schmitz, John Runyon Jr. and CeCe Maui with Noah. Get yourselves ready and geeked up for Quentin Williams and Kenny Clark. Now that interior three opened their season against arguably the toughest interior pass rush run-stop duel in the league and that's going to be on some Sunday Night Football. Three-time Pro Bowler Quentin Williams is and has been a problem in both the run and pass games since he sneezed, blessed and thanked himself after being drafted by the Jets in 2019. But last season after he was traded to Dallas just ahead of the trade deadline, he posted a 90.8 PFF grade which made him number one among all D linemen in that span. His 15 pressures, well that was also number one. 27.1 pass rush win rate, yep that was number one as well. And he's paired up with a three-time Pro Bowler in Kenny Clark who is the perfect interior defensive tackle to complement and play off of Williams disruption. In 2025 alone, 17 games, 36 tackles, three sacks. Now I know that's not really eye-popping box score type stats and numbers but his overall value in Dallas's defense isn't only about stats. Where he causes the most problems is his ability to hold his gap and clog running lanes. That's a run game problem just as much as it is a pass rush one as well. Pairing him next to Williams means you can't slide protection or even double team one guy without opening the door for the other. The Giants drafted Maunoa, the ACC's top blocker, 10th overall to help Runyon and JMS sure up the interior of that offensive line specifically for these two dudes. So let's take a look at how the Giants big interior three as I like to call them have their work cut out for them week one and this blue rush opponent breakdown. All right we'll start here with Kenny Clark. This guy needs a lot more credit than what I feel like a lot of people are giving him. Again three-time Pro Bowler. They traded for him. I think he was in that Michael Parsons trade. They traded for him for a reason and this guy has been wreaking havoc or wrecking havoc wreaking havoc in Dallas since he got there. We'll watch him here lined up right over top of the Minnesota Vikings center so this will be JMS. He will be going on a one-on-one with JMS. We're only going to watch the tight. No need to watch the receivers on these because it's all about what's going to go down in the trenches particularly in between the tackles and you see him right there he puts this center this Viking center on skates and he does it with violence and he does it with power and this could one not only disrupt the Giants run game but it could put Jackson Dart especially year two Jackson Dart first game it could put him in some pretty disadvantage disadvantageous situations especially if you're not gaining positive yardage on the run game at any point you see the get off there you see he's able to lock those two arms you see him kind of just bench pressing this this Viking center into the backfield and here's what he's he's controlling the gap he has a three-way goal on this play right here he could go with the bull rush right through him he can then shed him get off make a play here to the left or if the back decides to cut back or even I think that's JJ McCarthy decides to play action try and roll out he's in full control right here of this center of this gap he can he can then dump this center and get off and make a play right over here to the right as well so we're just watching throws him off and then he gets the tackle for loss in the backfield the Giants cannot afford to have that in the running game on primetime football on Sunday nights let's just watch it one more time again it's these big three that we'll be watching and this was the one-on-one the one-on-one block that's going to have to be made against a Kenny Clark you can see Williams here you see the double team I believe double team goes there which makes Kenny Clark one-on-one with the center and you guys already saw the outcome all right we'll watch him on a pass play this one was the Giants I believe this was Giants Cowboys week two Russell Wilson is the John Runyon gonna have to see him again one-on-one in a pass in a passing situation let's watch the play and then we'll go back and we'll break it down Kenny Clark here 95 one-on-one with John Runyon gets there and he gets that Russell Wilson I think the difference and I'll talk about this later it's well I'll get into that I get into that in a little bit right now lined up out here shaded inside of Marcus Bowe I believe Andrew Thomas was out at this time this is a favorable this is him kind of on that on that line so he's not really playing and as an interior nose tackle he's playing more as an as an end but you've got the one-on-one with John Runyon here again you can see his initial the initial hands how his initial hands get under Runyon's elbow we get taught like that as wide receivers when we're dealing with press man if you want to control well and as a receiver if you want to control that defender's arms and elbows when they're trying to press you with their hands in this situation it's a defender controlling this offensive player you want to get under that elbow if you get under that elbow and grab you can now control the hand placement of who it is that you're going up against so you can see with his hands off the line not only does it get off the ball fast Runyon's hands are kind of dropped here his hands are up we get taught to keep our hands up like a boxer because it's harder to deliver a blow from all the way where your hands are dropped and down than they are when your hands are up and in the ready position so already he's going for John Runyon's outside elbow he knows he's rushing towards this outside right here and he's going for that outside elbow to control because now you control the leverage you control what what where it is that you want to go because this right hand no longer has any sort of effect John Runyon's right hand has zero effect on Kenny Clark here it's this outside this left elbow that he wants to control to get through here with as much ease as possible and because of the splits and uh and and how this pocket is forming you'll have space here to beat Runyon and uh and get inside so boom so here this is the reset right here so now they're back to square one with both hands both sets of hands now pretty much reset now watch okay Runyon gets gets into the pad gets into the chest here watch clean Clark now it's a strength thing now here's the difference between Jackson Dart and Russell Wilson Russell Wilson was was a statue uh this game towards the end of his career in his tenure with the Giants Jackson Dart would actually help John Runyon here and he'd take off he'd get outside this pocket that's the difference between having you know a statue quarterback versus a quarterback that's a dual threat that has mobility to him so I think in fairness the sack okay I think Kenny Clark won this rep but I think the quarterback could have helped the pocket and the protection at this point by getting out of there getting escaping the pocket escaping the which is a pretty I mean if you look at it right here it's a pretty clean pocket right now now you can see the leakage now you can see Kenny Clark kind of come off take a swipe at Russell Wilson and then boom you get the sack right there so looking at it John Runyon did I would say okay to good not great on that rep but a mobile quarterback like a Jackson Dart could have helped the protection there but either way Kenny Clark gets the sack he and Runyon are going to be going at it again all right switch over watch Quinnen Williams who I mean he was a dog when he got traded from the to Dallas you can see him here they line these guys up so now you see again you see Kenny Clark lined up head up with the center and now you see Quinnen Williams here off in this off in this up in this b-gap here with the shaded towards the inside of this tackle they move these guys around a lot move them around there's different ways you can play them get one to draw the double team while the other one gets the one-on-one they can do so many different things within this front for Dallas well let's watch the play my bad let's watch the play and then we'll break we'll break it down some slant hard to the inside boom beats with speed he the get off his elite guys for him to be that big the way he gets off the football with speed here and the way he gets skinny I mean he makes this play if he doesn't get there this could be a big play for Saquon in this Eagles run game so this right here someone's going to have to get hat on someone's going to have to get low you're going to have to be lower than a Quinnen Williams to be able to move him and to drive him out of there like if you look at it if you've got the Goddard coming and pulling Goddard is supposed to insert here to get up to this second level or usually third level but the safety's down so much to where the backers are if Goddard gets through here and gets up on this safety that's come down Saquon has a little bit of lane here but the fact that Quinnen Williams is causing this much disruption and chaos there's nowhere for Saquon to go he runs up into the back of Goddard because of Williams disruption Williams gets in there there's nowhere to go and now instead of a promising run which I think could at least gotten about four to five and you know knowing Saquon Barkley that four to five could have maybe turned into 20, 25, 40, 45 Quinnen Williams shuts this down for a tackle for loss lastly here's a play to watch him in the pass game let's watch when we get back to it dude dude dude this is this is elite this is elite this is why you trade and you give up what you gave up for him because he made an immediate impact you see where he's lined up and we talk about how they move these guys around they line these guys up now watch the loop around and now he gets the one-on-one with the center so this would be John Michael Schmitz here again you've got to watch these type of games that they play the stunts that they play within the line of scrimmage here on the Dallas Cowboys defensive line in that front you've got to watch this this front for the Cowboys because they've got guys that can move around in different places and they have the speed power and the athleticism to win and win their one-on-ones elite get off gets under the center and now he gets that and he gets that Gino Smith here Gino were they former teammates I don't know he was drafted in 2019 was Gino still there I don't believe so all right he goes from here one two three that's about four yards that's about three and a half four yards to now get the one-on-one and now he just bull rushes the center you can see the center you watch watch the center watch the center's arms watch the arms flail up flail up got him you've got no power you're now playing too high but it wasn't like you made yourself high it's because of the bull you got hit with the horn of the bull the bull rush here gets the center off of his feet now the guard should have helped him out a little bit more but he's so worried about this second level rusher here now Quentin Williams has the edge he's got him on the stage gets Gino gets him down that's a sack for the Cowboys cannot have that primetime football at MetLife Stadium the interior three has to lock this up both in the run game and the pass game you see the tape that interior three have their work cut out for them week one but if the Giants want to gash runs between the tackles against these dudes then I think they should want to attack Clark with double teams not the one-on-ones you can use Runyon and Maunoa or even Maunoa and Schmitz on combo blocks to possibly effectively move him and then you can climb up to the second level they have to have low pad level against Quentin Williams in football we say it all the time the lowest man wins and Williams is great with winning with both his leverage and his hands guards that play too high against this man get absolutely erased at the point of contact and attack lastly these are the type of matchups you draft CC Maunoa in the top 10 for the kid wants that challenge he's got dog in him in fact his Miami tape showed that he can win reps clean at the point of attack and contact the rookie is going to have to be baptized by fire it just is what it is in the past game though you can protect Jackson Dart by go quick game at first get the ball out stay in rhythm use quick game as an extension of the run game you can also chip Williams off the edge because he lines up there sometimes or in an interior gap with the running back before you release him to his route or the check down that's gonna buy Schmitz and Runyon just a half a second more that they didn't consistently have back in 2025 look this week one matchup is Runyon and Schmitz proving that they can handle that Cowboys interior talent Maunoa is the wild card in this matchup and has a chance to show that he can be one of the top rookie offense alignment in his draft class but either way this interior offensive line is gonna find out who it really is in week one