Chalk Talk Discussion Topic: What's the issue with our defense?

[HailToTheRedskins14]

We've allowed 326, 301, 385, 293, 338, 327 yards passing in each of our games this year. That's ONE game under 300 yards. We're allowing 7.3 yards per attempt on passes. That is unacceptable. I don't care who you play. And a lot of those yards were to open receivers. Not spectacular throws and catches, but a total lack of coverage.

I'm not worried about destroying my argument or not. I'm just talking. My first three sentences, I admitted the D has been bad this year. It isn't fair to say that there were no good throws/catches. We've played the #1, #8, and #10 passing O's in the league.

And you're right, Minnesota couldn't run when down 31-12. As I said, our D went to a prevent, like most teams in the league will do, and the Vikes padded stats trying to come back. It happens. They held them to under 230 yards total for the first 3 quarters.

Let's see some other teams in the bottom 10 of the NFL in passing defense. Green Bay, New York Giants, New England Patriots, Baltimore Ravens. Maybe having leads late in games is tied into this somehow? Does it suck ass to be the worst passing defense, statistically, in the league? Obviously we'd all rather be #1 (Dallas Cowgirls happen to be #1 right now). But we're more in the rebuilding phase than any of the teams I just mentioned. There's definitely room to grow, but I'm just not ready to blow it up on D yet.

EDIT - Just to throw out another random stat I just looked at. Of the teams I posted in the bottom 10 in passing defense (GB, NYG, NE, BAL), the Giants are #2 in interceptions, Green Bay is tied for #5 with us and a couple other teams, Baltimore is #9, and New England is #14.

We also beat New England and Baltimore in sacks, and we beat all of them in fumble recoveries.


---------- Post added October-15th-2012 at 09:44 AM ----------

So what do I think the solution is? I think it's simple.. A legit NT to crush the front end of the pocket... as you can see when we do bring edge pressure we have 2 running lanes that always develop for the QB to squirt out of.. the reason for those lanes is the NT is just getting ate up at the hike of the ball. I love Cofield.. but they need to find a Ngata or Raji for that spot.

I agree with that. Cofield is a good stop-gap at that position, but I always thought a NT was a big piece of the 3-4.

[slaga]

I think the problem with our lack of talent in the secondary was the 36 mil cap penalty on the eve of free agency. I think it crushed the plan Mike and Bruce had for last offseason. They had to improvise on the fly and went all in on offense...

[SlobberKnockinFootball]

Vice versa, good coverage makes pressure look better. If the QB can literally drop and let one sail to a wide open receiver on one step, the coverage did something completely wrong and/or the coverage called was suspect. You gotta have the underneath stuff covered up when you blitz because that's going to be the quarterback's hot read.



This is easier said than done, but that would be great

I agree with most of what you're saying, but I have an issue with coverage making the pressure look better. I've seen too many teams from around the league with just an average secondary looking a whole lot better than what they are just because the QB is forced to make decisions faster. My belief you can have the best secondary out there, but they can't cover for 6-9 seconds on a particular pass play. That's asking too much for any player in the secondary.

But I do agree with you on the fact that, if you're bringing pressure on a designed blitz you better have the underneath stuff covered or you're going to see that quick outs or those bubble screens light you up... as we saw them doing with Harvin all day yesterday and Gonzalez in the ATL game.

I'm not a big proponent of people saying, well they are special players or they're unique.. no, i don't buy that.. the last time I checked we paid our guys to stop guys like that. So I don't buy that argument from anyone.

---------- Post added October-15th-2012 at 10:02 AM ----------

I think the problem with our lack of talent in the secondary was the 36 mil cap penalty on the eve of free agency. I think it crushed the plan Mike and Bruce had for last offseason. They had to improvise on the fly and went all in on offense...

I too agree, because I'm pretty positive we'd have Eric Winston anchoring our O-line at RT right now. But what was out there for the secondary to scoop up besides Finnegan? Which I'm not sure we had a shot at anyway with his connection with Fisher.

[Lavarleap56]

Problems start with scheme, play calling, and game planning. LeBeau runs more 2 gap than 1 gap usually. Redskins are and have been running mostly 2 gap as well. Our problems show up mostly in our 2-4-5 package due to lack of creativity by Haslett. Most of our pressure on Ponder yesterday was a result of Haslett finally stacking the A and B gaps with Lbs creating OL confusion.

Secondary has talent issues but they are left out to dry a lot by bad blitz schemes. Toward the end of the game the CB blitzes and sending 4 guys straight thru the middle returned and like always was not effective. I was surprised and shocked when Haslett actually copied and ran one of the steelers blitzes I featured last week. He overloaded one side and stacked SS on the other side off the DE hip and got a free run at the qb. Amazing what they can do when they are not blitzing from 15 yards away. Haslett's issue is he still plays some coverages that do not match what the front 7 is doing.

[KDawg]

I'm not worried about destroying my argument or not. I'm just talking. My first three sentences, I admitted the D has been bad this year. It isn't fair to say that there were no good throws/catches. We've played the #1, #8, and #10 passing O's in the league.

I didn't say there were no good catches or throws. I said a lot of those yards were to open receivers, not spectacular throws and catches.

And for what it's worth, our defense helped them achieve those rankings as well. Using ranking in pass offense to defend the point isn't a great correlation.

And for the record, I don't see the same rankings you do.

I see New England ranked #1 in passing offense. We haven't played them.

We've played the #3 (Cincinnati: 1,697 yards/282.8 per game), #4 (Atlanta, 1649 yards/274.8 per game), #6 (New Orleans 1634 yards/326.8 yards per game), #16 (Minnesota, 1381 yards/230.2 yards per game), #23 (St. Louis, 1217 yards/202.8 per game), #30 (Tampa Bay, 1058 yards/211.6 per game)

Now let's look at these teams averages without us playing them:

New Orleans:

We allowed 326 yards passing. They have 1634 in five games. That's 1308 yards without us in four games, averaging: 327 yards per game. Right on their average. So we did an average job against them, which is actually pretty good.

St. Louis:

We allowed 301 yards passing. They have 1217 in six games. That's 916 yards without us in five games, averaging: 183 yards per game. We allowed a ton more yards than other teams they've played.

Cincy:

We allowed 385 yards passing. They have 1697 in six games. That's 1312 without us in five games, averaging: 262.4 yards per game. We allowed a ton more yards than other teams they've played.

Tampa:

We allowed 293 yards passing. They have 1058 in five games. That's 765 without us in four games, averaging: 191.1 yards per game. We allowed a ton more yards than other teams they've played.

Atlanta:

We allowed 338 yards passing. They have 1649 yards in six games. That's 1311 without us in five games, averaging: 262.2 yards per game. We allowed a ton more yards than other teams they've played.

Minnesota;

We allowed 327 yards passing. They have 1381 yards in six games. That's 1054 without us in five games, averaging: 210.8 yards per game. We allowed a ton more yards than other teams they've played.

But let's look further.

New Orleans: In their five games, we have allowed the third most yards. Not bad, especially versus New Orleans. I'm good with that.
St. Louis: We've allowed the most passing yards against them. To be fair, Miami allowed 300. We allowed 301.
Cincy: We've allowed the most passing yards against them.
Tampa Bay: We've allowed the second most (in 5 games)
Atlanta: We've allowed the most passing yards against them.
Minnesota: We've allowed the most passing yards against them.

No matter how you slice it, our coverage and pass defense has been unacceptable.

[darrelgreenie]

I too agree, because I'm pretty positive we'd have Eric Winston anchoring our O-line at RT right now.

We knew about the cap hit prior to FA. And to be fair, choices were made. Priorities were set. We could have signed Eric Wintson if we had not prioritized acquiring Garcon.

[slaga]

I too agree, because I'm pretty positive we'd have Eric Winston anchoring our O-line at RT right now. But what was out there for the secondary to scoop up besides Finnegan? Which I'm not sure we had a shot at anyway with his connection with Fisher.

I am not sure who they might have had an eye on. Josh Morgan was not on a lot of people's radars either but he seems to be doing well in our scheme. Bruce and Mike like finding younger talent that fit their schemes as opposed to the already known players that are obvious to all.

[KDawg]

I agree with most of what you're saying, but I have an issue with coverage making the pressure look better. I've seen too many teams from around the league with just an average secondary looking a whole lot better than what they are just because the QB is forced to make decisions faster. My belief you can have the best secondary out there, but they can't cover for 6-9 seconds on a particular pass play. That's asking too much for any player in the secondary.

This is true. But I think you're condemning the secondary without seeing it. You're right, an average secondary can look better due to fast decisions made by the QB. Our secondary is a lot worse than average. If we had an average one, we'd be much better.

But it's definitely a give/take relationship. Pressure needs to be better and the coverage needs to be better. No question.

[MartinC]

First of all I think the defense needs to get credit yesterday for first keeping us in the game in the first quarter by holding them to FGs not TDs. Being only down 9 at the end of the first quarter was huge after being dominated the way we were. Then they scored a defensive TD and created 3 turnovers from which we scored 14 points.

They played their part in the win.

That said all is not well. We are giving up too many cheap completions, way too many passing yards and of course too many points.

I agree we seem to be running too many coverages and that's leading to some mental errors and blown coverages. We also are asking linebackers to cover receivers in the slot far too often with predictable results - Kerrigan covering Harvin being one glaring example. We are also not generating enough pressure and when we do blitz it's predictable and being picked up.

That's a combination of talent and coaching. But talent is the biggest issue IMO - we just don't have the horses back there especially at safety to make up for an average pass rush and an average pass rush is not good enough to cover up the cracks (chasms) in our secondary. Haslett could be more creative in designing blitzes and we do sometimes run some strange coverages - which can be simplified - behind what we are trying to do up front but better talent is essential whoever is coaching that side of the ball next year.

[SWFLSkins]

LeBeau does use some 1-gap stuff, but I think he's considered more of a hybrid coach, if not 2-gap.

I agree the front 7 isn't the "problem".

The back end has problems in talent, scheme and scheme discipline/coaching.

If there is something to take from Wade maybe its fewer coverages?
His teams typically keep it simple and run a Cover 4 & Cover 8 and of course man.

Maybe there are simply too many hands in the soup? Trying to do too many things and not mastering anything yet?

The staff has 3 guys that cut their teeth in the secondary, its ironic that our secondary is our weakest unit.

Here are my thoughts from the Rams game:



In the end I would pick fewer coverages and rep them ad nausem.
Everyone must RE-ROUTE!!!!
I would play more man both 2-man and 1 man and mix up who get's doubled.

Some great points added to an awesome OP. I watched yesterday as the DB's again on short yardage third downs played beyond the first down marker maybe six to 8 yards off trying to prevent the homerun while giving up the first down. Trying to count on the space to allow closing on the ball? This has never seemed to work for us as teams just run screens, WR screens or slants of some kind and end up hitting the seam for not only the first down but bigger gains. In your opinion KDawg and DG is that due to the knowledge that our personnel is not competent or is it just a bend don't break mentality?

---------- Post added October-15th-2012 at 10:36 AM ----------

Problems start with scheme, play calling, and game planning. LeBeau runs more 2 gap than 1 gap usually. Redskins are and have been running mostly 2 gap as well. Our problems show up mostly in our 2-4-5 package due to lack of creativity by Haslett. Most of our pressure on Ponder yesterday was a result of Haslett finally stacking the A and B gaps with Lbs creating OL confusion.

Secondary has talent issues but they are left out to dry a lot by bad blitz schemes. Toward the end of the game the CB blitzes and sending 4 guys straight thru the middle returned and like always was not effective. I was surprised and shocked when Haslett actually copied and ran one of the steelers blitzes I featured last week. He overloaded one side and stacked SS on the other side off the DE hip and got a free run at the qb. Amazing what they can do when they are not blitzing from 15 yards away. Haslett's issue is he still plays some coverages that do not match what the front 7 is doing.

Great points LL, I remember seeing the three guys all overloaded on the right and thought gee where has this been on third and long. And yes those coverage packages seem to be plaid when stripes would work.

[KDawg]

That's a combination of talent and coaching. But talent is the biggest issue IMO - we just don't have the horses back there especially at safety to make up for an average pass rush and an average pass rush is not good enough to cover up the cracks (chasms) in our secondary. Haslett could be more creative in designing blitzes and we do sometimes run some strange coverages - which can be simplified - behind what we are trying to do up front but better talent is essential whoever is coaching that side of the ball next year.

I'd agree that we have a lack of talent: Either in the coverage unit or on the defensive line, depending on what Haslett values most... But doesn't that also mean that Haslett needs to use the NFL level talent that he has more effectively? It's hard to pin the entire defensive struggles on him, we've been almost historically bad and that's never just on the coach... But I think he could do some things to mask the deficiencies. Such as utilizing Hall as an attacking player. He's not a "Smash you in the face" kind of guy. But he likes sticking his nose in there. I'd like to see him utilized more like Charles Woodson in the blitz game and more short coverage oriented in the coverage game.

Same with Zo. Zo isn't a great pass rusher or coverage guy. But he's smart. And aggressive. I think he fits at outside backer right now better than Rob Jackson does due to our personnel.

---------- Post added October-15th-2012 at 10:42 AM ----------

Some great points added to an awesome OP. I watched yesterday as the DB's again on short yardage third downs played beyond the first down marker maybe six to 8 yards off trying to prevent the homerun while giving up the first down. Trying to count on the space to allow closing on the ball? This has never seemed to work for us as teams just run screens, WR screens or slants of some kind and end up hitting the seam for not only the first down but bigger gains. In your opinion KDawg and DG is that due to the knowledge that our personnel is not competent or is it just a bend don't break mentality?

I mean, it almost has to be a lack of confidence in personnel. But most likely it's because those guys are playing a cover 3 type look and their coverage responsbility is deep thirds. I'd have to see film to be sure of that, but its my guess. I'd like to see us, if we are using cover 3 looks more often than not, mix who the deep defenders are. Utilize DHall closer to the LOS. Bring Mr. Wilson on blitzes from time to time with coverage rolling his way.

It's a combination of things in my eye.

[MartinC]

I'd agree that we have a lack of talent: Either in the coverage unit or on the defensive line, depending on what Haslett values most... But doesn't that also mean that Haslett needs to use the NFL level talent that he has more effectively? It's hard to pin the entire defensive struggles on him, we've been almost historically bad and that's never just on the coach... But I think he could do some things to mask the deficiencies. Such as utilizing Hall as an attacking player. He's not a "Smash you in the face" kind of guy. But he likes sticking his nose in there. I'd like to see him utilized more like Charles Woodson in the blitz game and more short coverage oriented in the coverage game.

Same with Zo. Zo isn't a great pass rusher or coverage guy. But he's smart. And aggressive. I think he fits at outside backer right now better than Rob Jackson does due to our personnel.

No argument - like I said its a combination of talent AND coaching. There is no question in my mind that we are not getting the best out of what's available and that's on Haslett.

[rk3025]

Morgan and Garcon are great blockers and our offense was terrible.We did the best possible with the loss of millions.

[KDawg]

Morgan and Garcon are great blockers and our offense was terrible.We did the best possible with the loss of millions.

If you're arguing that Morgan and Garcon were poor additions (I'm not sold on that, but to your point) then did we do the best possible with the loss of millions?

[Warhead36]

The big disappointment to me has been our interior pass rush. Cofield and Bowen haven't been getting it done consistently. The edge rush with Kerrigan and the other LBs has been pretty good but so many times they get there only to have the QB step up into a clean pocket because there is no inside push.

Without a consistent rush, the secondary will get eaten up. They just aren't talented enough to cover guys.