The New York Giants have made another coaching staff shakeup, firing assistant defensive line coach Bryan Cox. This is their third such move in the past four weeks, following the Giants’ firing of head coach Brian Daboll and defensive coordinator Shane Bowen.
The move was first noticed by Doug Analytics on X and reported by Pat Leonard of the New York Daily News. New York had a historically poor run defense while also struggling to rush the passer, with the exception of Brian Burns.
Cox Had a Successful Playing and Coaching Career
Bryan Cox had a long and storied career as a linebacker, playing in the NFL from 1991 to 2002. He broke out in his sophomore season with the Miami Dolphins, recording 127 tackles, 14 sacks, and five forced fumbles. Cox made three Pro Bowls with Miami, as he led the Dolphins in tackles from 1992 to 1995.
He went on to play seven more seasons in the league for the Chicago Bears, New York Jets, New England Patriots, and New Orleans Saints. Through 165 games in his career, Cox had 764 tackles, 51.5 sacks, four interceptions, and forced 22 fumbles.
Cox began his coaching career with the Jets under Eric Mangini as an assistant defensive line coach. When Mangini was fired and took the head coaching job with the Cleveland Browns in 2009, he brought Cox with him.
He became a defensive assistant with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2012, a job that he held until 2014. He was then hired by the Atlanta Falcons as their defensive line coach, reaching the Super Bowl with Atlanta in the 2016 season. After the Falcons blew a 28-3 lead to fall 34-28 in overtime, Cox was relieved of his duties and was out of the league until 2022.
Upon joining the Giants, he worked under defensive line coach Andre Patterson, who remains with the team. There have been questions raised internally about whether Charlie Bullen’s ties to Joe Schoen led Mike Kafka to promote him over other assistant coaches with defensive coordinating experience.
Giants Have League’s Worst Rushing Defense
Part of the reason for the firing likely has to do with the state of the Giants’ run defense, something that the defensive line has direct control over.
The Giants have the league’s worst rushing defense, allowing 154.2 yards per game on the ground. They are also allowing an NFL-worst 5.8 yards per carry, with that number having gone up to a jarring 6.7 yards per carry allowed over the past three weeks.
Dexter Lawrence has struggled in the middle this season, while the pass rush has also played very poorly despite having loads of talent in their front four and on the edges. Outside of Brian Burns, who has 13 sacks on the season, Abdul Carter has 1.5 sacks and Kayvon Thibodeaux has 2.5 sacks.
The defense as a whole has played poorly, ranking 30th in the NFL by allowing 28.2 points per game and 385.8 yards per game. They are also allowing opponents to score 65.96% in the red zone and score 3.2 touchdowns per game, ranking 29th and 30th, respectively.
Charlie Bullen has attempted to simplify the Giants’ defense, blitizing on 38.9% of passing plays while focusing on Cover 3, Cover 4, and Cover 1 as opposed to Bowen’s balanced coverage sheet.
He also brought back a tackling circuit, with the defensive backs doing tackling drills in front of the defensive line coaches. However, it will likely just be Patterson doing the supervision going forward as Cox was let go during his fourth season with Big Blue.
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