Giants prove three's a swarm

"I was a little bit surprised [by Tuck]. Coming out of college, I didn't think he'd be that good. But he showed how good he is. That was the difference in the Super Bowl. He got some inside pressure [and two of the Giants' five sacks] and then you had those other two guys coming outside."

The Giants hardly are the first team to rush three ends in their nickel package. Buddy Ryan used to frequently move Richard Dent into the middle when he was the Bears' defensive boss in the 1980s, and former Eagles defensive coordinator Bud Carson used to do it with Reggie White. The Packers did the same thing with White when he signed with them.

Johnson did it last year with Darren Howard. The two differences: Tuck is a better inside pass rusher than Howard, and Johnson didn't have two edge rushers like Umenyiora and Strahan to keep the pressure off him.

"When you've got two guys like Osi and Michael on the outside, a lot of times you've got to double at least one of them," said the Giants' Reese. "Because at least one of them is going to be a matchup problem [for the tackle]. So that gives Tuck some one-on-one opportunities inside.

"The thing about Justin is he's got an unusual body type. He's big enough and strong enough that he could play full-time inside. He's what we call a left end. A 3-4 end or a bigger guy you put on the left side of your line. He has unusual quickness for his size. So he's a matchup problem inside."

Johnson had planned to use second-year man Victor Abiamiri the same way the Giants use Tuck. Line him up at left end on first and second down, then slide him inside to tackle on passing downs. But the 6-4, 267-pound Abiamiri injured a wrist in training camp and is out indefinitely.

Tuck said it took him a while to get acclimated to moving inside on passing downs.

"Inside was a whole different world initially," he said. "Things happen a lot quicker inside. Your steps are different. Outside, you can take longer strides rushing the passer. Inside, you've got to make your mind up real quick.

"Outside, you have so much more room to dictate what offensive linemen are going to do to you. Inside, you really can get blocked by any one of three people. That kind of makes it difficult to figure out what you want to do. Everything inside is off reading."

Because of the Giants' pass-rushing success last season, more teams probably will try rushing three d-ends on passing downs this season. But that doesn't mean it will work as well for them as it did for the Giants.

"If you've got a guy with quickness and athleticism and strength, you want to do it because he's going to be able to overpower guards with his strength, and then when he gets them a little off-balance, he can run by them," said the Vikings' Frazier. "It was especially effective in New York because of the two guys they had on the edge. Tuck got a lot of one-on-one blocks inside against guys he was more athletic than." *