Steel Curtain. Purple People Eaters. Fearsome Foursome. Orange Crush. New York Sack Exchange. Monsters of the Midway. Big Blue Wrecking Crew.
The best pass rushes and defenses in league history all came with fitting names. In a perfect world Wednesday will mark the beginning of a new era and perhaps eventually a new nickname as rookie Abdul Carter and Giants veterans open training camp.
I’m sure Giants fans would even “settle” for a “NASCAR 2.0” as Carter joins Brian Burns, Kayvon Thibodeaux and Dexter Lawrence in what could be one of the league’s most dangerous pass rushes. Carter made his presence felt during offseason events.
“Man, he’s a beast,” Thibodeaux said in June. “He’s been doing his thing. He’s fast, explosive, smart, excited.”
They’ve got the credentials to do something special collectively:
- Carter has drawn comparisons to Micah Parsons and Lawrence Taylor. He was the Giants’ highest drafted pass rusher (third overall) since Taylor in 1981 (second pick) after he ranked top 10 in the FBS in sacks (12.0), tackles for loss (24) and pressures (66) last season. He clearly has the tools to be the most dominant force in the entire draft class.
- Thibodeaux was the fifth overall pick in 2022 and has the fifth-most sacks (21.0) among players from that draft class.
- The Giants traded for Burns last offseason and signed him to a five-year extension worth $141 million. He’s one of eight players with at least 7.5 sacks in each of his first six seasons in NFL history along with Reggie White, Derrick Thomas, Jared Allen, DeMarcus Ware, Ryan Kerrigan, Aaron Donald and Yannick Ngakoue.
- Lawrence was the Giants’ 17th overall pick in 2019 and has the third-most pressures (164) by a defensive tackle since 2022. Lawrence had 9.0 sacks last season, the most by a 340+ pound player in a season in NFL history.
This foursome is made up all former first-round picks. All are still in their primes at under 28 years old and all are signed for at least the next two years. So yeah, the upside is there and they have the runway to inflict some damage.
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Abdul Carter | 21 | 2025 (third overall) | 2029 |
Kayvon Thibodeaux | 24 | 2022 (fifth overall) | 2026 |
Brian Burns Jr. | 27 | 2019 (16th overall) | 2028 |
Dexter Lawrence | 27 | 2019 (17th overall) | 2027 |
Still, plenty of questions remain for this group. Will Carter be as good as Parsons? How will playing time work out? Can they all stay healthy? Will any of it even matter or will the Giants quarterback situation be so bad I’m just an old man yelling at the clouds? It’d be a shame if the Giants weren’t in enough close, late games for this group to flex their muscles.
I don’t have the answer to those questions because I don’t have a crystal ball, but I can give you a picture of what success could look like for this potential elite pass rush by looking at 10 other notable pass rushes that share at least one notable characteristic with the 2025 Giants.
1. New York Sack Exchange
Location, location, location. I could talk about any of the iconic pass rushes throughout NFL history here as inspiration for this Giants group but we have to stay in New York.
In 1981, the four members of the “New York Sack Exchange,” Mark Gastineau, Joe Klecko, Abdul Salaam and Marty Lyons, unofficially combined for 54.0 sacks for the Jets. That’s according to Pro Football Reference as the NFL didn’t officially track sacks as a statistic until 1982.
The “next man up” mentality is always a staple of any Bill Belichick defense and they had plenty of depth to work with in this Super Bowl-winning season with Richard Seymour, Mike Vrabel, Willie McGinest and Rosevelt Colvin all capable of bringing pressure off the edge. All four notched at least 5.0 sacks and were part of a physical Patriots defense that overwhelmed the competition. 2004 must have been a great year for deep edge rushing groups too, because the names Dwight Freeney, Robert Mathis and Raheem Brock for the Colts might ring a bell. So might Darren Howard, Will Smith and Charles Grant for the Saints.
3. 2007 Giants
In 2007, the Giants used Michael Strahan, Osi Umenyiora, Justin Tuck and Mathias Kiwanuka together to pull off one of the largest upsets in Super Bowl history. The group combined for 36.5 sacks in the regular season and three in the Super Bowl as they harassed Tom Brady throughout the game.
4. 2011 Giants
In 2011, the Giants “NASCAR” package featured the same group except Jason Pierre-Paul replaced Michael Strahan. They got the nickname because they frequently played the four speedy edge rushers at the same time. They once again stymied Tom Brady in the Super Bowl and were great all season long, too, combining for 34 of the Giants’ 48 sacks.
The Ravens were seemingly an edge rusher factory for much of the 2000s and 2010s and in 2014 they got incredible results from a trio of edge rushers as Elvis Dumervil (17.0 sacks), Terrell Suggs (12.0 sacks) and Pernell McPhee (7.5) combined for 36.5 sacks, the most by any trio in the league. Haloti Ngata made their jobs easier by eating double teams as the Ravens racked up 49 sacks as a team, tied for second in the NFL.
In terms of blue-chip talent and production the 2019 49ers’ pass rush set the bar high. Nick Bosa, Dee Ford, Arik Armstead and DeForest Buckner combined for 33.0 sacks to lead one of the league’s best defenses. It would have been more too if Ford was healthy, but he only played 11 games and this foursome was only on the field for 19% of the pass plays vs. their defense. Still, when all four rushed the passer San Francisco got pressure an absurd 46% of the time.
The 2019 49ers are still the last team to have four different first-round picks rack up at least 6.0 sacks in a season. No team has ever had four first-round picks with 8.0 sacks in a season, something this Giants group could change if they are clicking on all cylinders.
If they want to set the bar even higher, 40.0 sacks by this group would be historic. The most sacks by a first-round pick foursome is 39.5 (minimum 1.0 sack by four different players).
- 1992 Chargers: Leslie O’Neal, Chris Mims, Burt Grossman and Junior Seau
- 1985 Cowboys: Too Tall Jones, Jim Jeffcoat, Randy White and John Dutton
That 49ers pass rush was a more conventional group featuring two edge rushers and two defensive tackles, but the 2022 Eagles had three stud edge rushers like this Giants team has. The 2022 Eagles are the only team in NFL history to have four different players with double-digit sacks (Haason Reddick, Josh Sweat, Brandon Graham and Javon Hargrave). They combined for 49.0 sacks, the second-most by a foursome in NFL history. The 1989 Vikings got 59.5 from Chris Doleman, Keith Millard, Henry Thomas and Al Noga.
The interesting part is they rarely all shared the field together. They were in the same pass rush on just 1% of the time. They staggered playing time as Reddick took 74% of the snaps. Sweat was on the field 53% of the time and Graham 43%. The Giants won’t split playing time like this given everything they’ve invested in their big four. They are going to want to have them all on the field more frequently on obvious passing downs. However, the success of this group does speak to the value of using a rotation to keep the trio of edge rushers fresh.
8. 2022 Cowboys
In terms of how they might share the field and the bar for effectiveness we can look to the 2022 Cowboys, headlined by Parsons. They used a true NASCAR package with four edge rushers between Parsons, Demarcus Lawrence, Dante Fowler Jr. and Dorance Armstrong. The foursome all rushed the passer 67 times (11% of pass plays vs. Dallas) in 2022 and they got pressure staggering 54% of the time. Philadelphia may have led the NFL in sacks (70) that year, but this Dallas team had the highest pressure rate (43%) and quickest time to pressure (2.4 seconds) in the NFL, in part because of the all edge rusher package.
In terms of a young, promising group the Rams set the bar high with the work they put in last season. Jared Verse, Braden Fiske, Byron Young and Kobie Turner combined for 226 pressures in 2024, the second-most in the NFL. All four were drafted by the Rams in 2023 or 2024. When all four rushed the passer in the playoffs the Rams got pressure 67% of the time. Small sample, but that is insane.
Most pressures by foursome last season
246 | Nik Bonitto/Zach Allen/Jonathon Cooper/John Franklin-Myers | |
Rams | 226 | Jared Verse/Byron Young/Braden Fiske/Kobie Turner |
198 | Aidan Hutchinson/Za’Darius Smith/Alim McNeill/Levi Onwuzurike | |
195 | Boye Mafe/Leonard Williams/Derick Hall/Jarran Reed |
The Giants’ four pass rushers come with more pedigree than that foursome so there’s no reason they can’t replicate that production. They should immediately be one of the best pass rushing groups in the NFL judging off last year alone. Burns, Thibodeaux and Lawrence combined for 23.0 sacks and 135 pressures in 2024 and that’s with Thibodeaux and Lawrence combining to miss 10 games. Add in a productive rookie year from Carter and this group would crack these type of lists.
10. 2024 Eagles
The 2024 Eagles continued a blueprint that worked for the last two Giants Super Bowl champions. They got pressure with an elite four-man pass rush. They were the only team to rank top-10 in pressure rate and bottom-10 in blitz rate last season. They amazingly racked up six sacks and got pressure over 40% of the time in the Super Bowl without blitzing a single time. It’s not hyperbole to say Patrick Mahomes was running for his life all night in that game.
The foursome of Josh Sweat, Nolan Smith, Jalen Carter and Milton Williams pressured quarterbacks 44% of the time last year when all four rushed the passer. That number jumped to 58% on third downs and 58% in the Super Bowl. Those are the types of numbers the Giants’ foursome will want to replicate if they are planning on giving Dak Prescott, Jalen Hurts and Jayden Daniels fits in 2025.
Bust beware?
Of course, I can’t hype up the Giants’ group without at least giving you a buyer beware. Look no further than 2023 for the type of company the Giants want to avoid. Four teams stood out to me that drafted an edge rusher in the first round of 2023 with two quality edge rushers already on the roster (much like the 2025 Giants). Somehow they almost never used those edge rushing trios together.
- The Packers drafted Lukas Van Ness 13th overall. Van Ness only played 33% of the team’s defensive snaps that year and the foursome of Lukas Van Ness, Rashan Gary, Preston Smith and Devonte Wyatt were all in the same pass rush just once.
- The Jets drafted Will McDonald IV 15th overall. McDonald only played 16% of the team’s defensive snaps that year and the potential formidable foursome of Will McDonald, Bryce Huff, Jermaine Johnson and Quinnen Williams only were all in the same pass rush five times that season.
- The Bengals drafted Myles Murphy 28th overall. Murphy played only 28% of the team’s defensive snaps that year and the group of Myles Murphy, Sam Hubbard, Trey Hendrickson and B.J. Hill were all in the same pass rush on just nine plays that year.
- The Eagles drafted Nolan Smith 30th overall (after taking Jalen Carter with the ninth pick). Smith played just 17% of the team’s defensive snaps that year and Nolan Smith, Haason Reddick, Josh Sweat and Carter all rushed the passer on the same play only one time. Obviously, the Eagles enjoyed the fruits of the Smith and Carter picks more in 2024.
So there were four potential polarizing foursomes (which included a trio of edge rushers and a rookie first-round pick just like the 2025 Giants) that combined for only 16 plays where their quartet all rushed the passer.
I highly doubt the Giants’ foursome will be underutilized like that. Abdul Carter should be much better and more versatile than the rookies mentioned above. But whose to say Thibodeaux won’t underperform and get squeezed out of playing time.
Giants’ foursome should aim for pressure on half their pass rushes
The biggest question here is how often the Giants will use this trio of edge rushers at the same time (Carter, Thibodeaux and Burns) in tandem with Lawrence. As this video suggests, the Giants will put the trio on the field at the same time.
Carter gives the Giants the versatility to keep Thibodeaux and Burns on the edge while playing Lawrence and Carter in the middle at times. Carter was an inside linebacker in 2022 and 2023 at Penn State before switching to edge rusher last season. He could play off the ball at times like Parsons did as a rookie in 2021.
Playing time will obviously be tied to effectiveness. When you consider the Giants faced 88 pass plays on third-and-long and 242 pass plays on second or third-and-long last season, it wouldn’t be crazy to suggest this foursome rushes the passer 10 times per game. If they can do that and actually generate pressure half the time it’s going to be an electric group to watch.
Of course, a franchise quarterback is the most important thing for an organization and the Giants search is currently fixed on Jaxson Dart. But, as the 2007 and 2011 Giants, and most recently the 2024 Eagles proved, the next-best thing is a dominant four-man pass rush. New York has the foundation for that and their return to relevance has to start somewhere.
Why not return to their roots with a top-notch pass rush?
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Author: Douglas Clawson
July 23, 2025 | 10:01 am
