The Washington Defensive Line Thread

[Riggo-toni]

Starting to think maybe we should have drafted Darrisaw and JOK instead of Jamin Davis and Cosmi.

[PartyPosse]

6 minutes ago, Riggo-toni said:

Starting to think maybe we should have drafted Darrisaw and JOK instead of Jamin Davis and Cosmi.

Darrisaw? The OL with a core injury that may not even play this year?

[skins4eva]

On 9/12/2021 at 5:53 PM, D’Pablo said:

Pretty sure our schemes were equally as responsible for the lack of pressure. We were way too reliant on rushing 4 all game long. Our blitzes weren’t disguised at all either. We should have been shifting guys all around that d-line, but Del Rio is a dinosaur.

 

It was piss poor scheme by Del Rio combined with lackluster effort by the linemen themselves.  With our speed up front, we should be stunting (have the LBs fill the gaps) and giving an offense all sorts of disguised pre-snap looks.  This is what a good defensive coordinator would do.  I agree that Del Rio is a dinosaur.  It's very concerning to see given the talent.  I'll grant you that our LB play is atrocious, which is exactly why we should be more aggressive and creative with our fronts.  

[RansomthePasserby]

I’m counting this week 1 performance toward our young DL feeling a little overconfident and then caught off guard having one less pre-season game to get back up to speed. After being humbled on Sunday, I expect they’ll be on their game and motivated to prove the naysayers wrong. 

[wit33]

When a person labels Del Rio as a dinosaur, what does that mean relating to a poor performance against the Chargers? Just curious what schematically or philosophically earns him the label as being a dinosaur. I ask with a bit skepticism, but also own my limitations when it comes to schemes and plans on defense. 
 

 

[PartyPosse]

1 hour ago, wit33 said:

When a person labels Del Rio as a dinosaur, what does that mean relating to a poor performance against the Chargers? Just curious what schematically or philosophically earns him the label as being a dinosaur. I ask with a bit skepticism, but also own my limitations when it comes to schemes and plans on defense. 
 

 

I assume it's something to do with the fact that this guy was roaming the sidelines.

 

Man that's a big photo. Hey Mods, can you slim it down for me?

Edited September 15, 2021 by PartyPosse

[Warhead36]

On 9/15/2021 at 4:08 PM, wit33 said:

When a person labels Del Rio as a dinosaur, what does that mean relating to a poor performance against the Chargers? Just curious what schematically or philosophically earns him the label as being a dinosaur. I ask with a bit skepticism, but also own my limitations when it comes to schemes and plans on defense. 
 

 

There are some bright young minds changing the way defenses are being played across the league. Del Rio just seems really stuck in his ways. I don't think he's a bad coach, in fact I'd say he's top half of the league in terms of coordinators but that's mostly because there are some AWFUL coordinators out there(Joe Barry for example somehow got the Packers D.C. job). But I don't think he'll ever really innovate or create something new.

[redskinss]

Anybody have any good guesses as to why this defense is worse than it was last year?

Hopefully they get better but what a letdown so far.

[Burgundy Yoda]

Jonathan Allen is our best defensive lineman, if he didn't have that unlucky 2 sack season last year we'd all be in complete agreement in this. He should have had at least 6 sacks last year and already has 3 on the season. 

1 hour ago, redskinss said:

Anybody have any good guesses as to why this defense is worse than it was last year?

Hopefully they get better but what a letdown so far.

Either our secondary has no idea what they're doing, or the play calling is completely busted on that front. Collins in no shape or form should be on the field over Curl. 

Edited September 17, 2021 by Burgundy Yoda

[Gurgeh]

3 hours ago, redskinss said:

Anybody have any good guesses as to why this defense is worse than it was last year?

Hopefully they get better but what a letdown so far.

 

It isn't just this season, IIRC the defense was going downhill at the end of last season as well. I don't believe our DL have suddenly all become mediocre at the same time; opposing coaches have us figured out to the extent that a bad Giants team with a patchwork OL almost beat us. Del Rio better figure this out fast and make changes or the next few games are going to be real ugly, but my hopes are not high. He seems the stubborn type.

[Rskins91]

I don’t think it’s the D line’s fault more than other position groups (LB, Safety). We had pressure from almost all our big 4 DL. Several plays where we were just a hair late getting to Jones. We have to figure out how in the world TEs and WRs are able to find such massive holes in the secondary, because they make for easy reads that it doesn’t matter if the DL wins their matchup. 
 

That said, they were not dominant and could still improve. They can and should play better. 

[Daniel.redskins]

I'm not worried about the defense right now.  Sure, they have looked like a bottom 5 unit.  But defenses tend to improve over the season, especially ours that has depth.  Offenses are so overpowering early in a season but once they start losing players to injuries things seem to level out.  I don't know, that's where my head is at to try and make sense of how bad our defense has been so far.  I feel like I'm watching a Jay Gruden team when I'm excited on offense and nervous on defense.  

[DJHJR86]

13 minutes ago, Daniel.redskins said:

I'm not worried about the defense right now. 

 

What?!  The way this defense has been hyped up (by themselves as well) has me extremely concerned right now.  

[Skinsinparadise]

5 hours ago, Burgundy Yoda said:

Jonathan Allen is our best defensive lineman, if he didn't have that unlucky 2 sack season last year we'd all be in complete agreement in this. He should have had at least 6 sacks last year and already has 3 on the season. 

Either our secondary has no idea what they're doing, or the play calling is completely busted on that front. Collins in no shape or form should be on the field over Curl. 

 

I don't know if he's the best among our D lineman but I think he's our best tackle.  He's really good.  I am one of the few it seems to be believe Allen > Payne.  Not that I don't like Payne but Allen to me is the more complete and consistent player.   High intangibles, too   I am glad we locked him up.

28 minutes ago, DJHJR86 said:

 

What?!  The way this defense has been hyped up (by themselves as well) has me extremely concerned right now.  

 

Yeah the defense wasn't hot last night against a team who who handcuffed by a legit good defense, the Broncos, last week.  Some silver linings including some clutch stops at the end of yesterday's game.  But they played a mediocre O line and didn't really wreak havock.   They weren't bad but not hot either against an O line that they should dismantle. 

 

https://www.sny.tv/articles/giants-takeaways-washington-daniel-jones-strong-effort-not-enough

 

Daniel Jones looked like a pretty good quarterback on Thursday night. Turns out he’s going to have to be even better than that if this Giants team is going to win.

Jones took advantage of some rare good protection in the second half and had what might have been his best game since his rookie season. The offense clicked in the second half and scored on five of its six drives.

 

But it didn’t matter, because the Giants’ defense is a shell of what it once was. The Washington Football Team came back and beat the Giants on a 43-yard field goal by Dustin Hopkins at the buzzer. The final score was 30-29 and, for the eighth time in nine years, the Giants are 0-2.

 

Can’t blame Jones for this one, though. He completed 22 of 32 passes for 249 yards and a touchdown and ran nine times for 95 yards and a score. He actually would’ve had a second rushing touchdown – a 58-yarder – if it wasn’t for a very iffy hold by receiver C.J. Board at the Washington 12. And he would’ve thrown for a second touchdown if a wide open Darius Slayton hadn’t dropped a 43-yarder in the end zone in the fourth quarter.

Those certainly would’ve helped.

 

But at least the offense looked good, right? I know. It’s a small consolation. It got off to a great start, though. It was even creative. They flashed some pre-snap motion, the moved the pocket around to keep Jones out of trouble, they did some play-action and read-option to keep Washington off-balance. All that variety energized them and they put together a game-opening 11-play, 79-yard drive that lasted 6:05. Jones was 4 of 4 for 45 yards and ran three times for 23 yards, too.

 

After that, it took a while for them to get going again. After a gruesome injury to offensive lineman Nick Gates, the line took a while to settle down. Really, for the rest of the first half the only thing that was really working was when they called a Jones run. In fact, he had 82 of their first 216 yards of offense.

But he got that passing game going in the second half. He looked strong in the pocket and confident – not skittish at all. He didn’t look like a quarterback unsure of where to go with the football or worried about how much time he had to get rid of it. He even took a couple of shots deep in the second half, including a 33-yard touchdown to Slayton that was an absolutely perfect throw.

Unfortunately there were still a few mistakes and a few missed opportunities, and with the way the Giants’ defense is playing, the offense almost has to be perfect. Clearly they’re not there yet.

Edited September 17, 2021 by Skinsinparadise

[NoVaSkins21]

As of right now, if the DL can't win their matchups, it's going to be rough on defense.  The secondary can make plays.  The LB corps is just BAD. Hopefully, things can improve over time, but it could be shootouts as far as things are concerned.    

Edited September 17, 2021 by SAli457180

[Warhead36]

Its clear the DL isn't as good as we thought it was. The sack/pressure #s last year were padded by playing so many backup QBs and/or OL. If you go back and look at the games where we played above average offenses, we got absolutely shredded. Our guys just don't win 1 on 1 matchups. They're not all getting double teamed(I rarely see any of them get doubled, maybe Young on occasion). We don't ever have a guy beat his man off the snap and collapse a pocket the way say Maxx Crosby was last week against the Ravens(against an All Pro LT and QB combo).

 

I don't fault Del Rio too much to be honest. He's banking on guys we invested a lot in(either draft picks or $ if not both)to win and win more often if not dominate and they simply haven't. He's gotta change things up now. Blitz more often because the 4 man rush isn't getting there. Put a safety over the top more because none of our CBs are real lockdown type guys. The LBs I'm not sure what the solution is(I do think Davis played a pretty decent game).

[MisterPinstripe]

I feel like we would also see some improvement benching Collins, he has not made any plays and last year we seemed better without him. 

[Spaceman Spiff]

IMO, the key to our defense and playing against us is to scheme for the front 4.  Chase Young kept getting pushed to the outside last night, he's been a non-factor in 2 games so far.  Jonathan Allen is doing well but I think opponents are going to scheme against our front 4.  If an opponent can do that, they can pass all day on us.  We can't cover, our linebackers aren't that great.  

 

If a team can nullify our front 4, it's really over for us.  

[TheGoodBits]

I’m not in full panic mode just yet. If you recall, our defense started last year pretty mediocre and came on about halfway through the season as some early personnel issues got sorted out. JDR and Rivera have been around awhile and coached defenses at the highest level. We’ve got the experience and personnel to sort this out. 
 

That said, through week 2, our defense has been a huge liability. Guys have been wide open on critical obvious passing downs. Needs to improve ASAP going into the toughest stretch of our season. 

[Warhead36]

16 minutes ago, skinsfan_1215 said:

I’m not in full panic mode just yet. If you recall, our defense started last year pretty mediocre and came on about halfway through the season as some early personnel issues got sorted out. JDR and Rivera have been around awhile and coached defenses at the highest level. We’ve got the experience and personnel to sort this out. 
 

That said, through week 2, our defense has been a huge liability. Guys have been wide open on critical obvious passing downs. Needs to improve ASAP going into the toughest stretch of our season. 

The issue is, we're mostly playing really good offenses/QBs this year. We're not gonna face the likes of Nick Mullens or Andy Dalton or an Eagles OL with 4 backups and a broken Carson Wentz. We got shredded by every decent(if not better) offense we faced last year. The proof is in the pudding at this point.

 

We're banking a lot in guys we invested a lot in and it just isn't paying off. We'd probably be better off trading Sweat and/or Payne for a couple LBs. It also appears that Fuller is regressing big time and Collins isn't 100% back from injury(and he was bad pre injury too).

Edited September 17, 2021 by Warhead36

[HigSkin]

IMO, the first team defense should have played more in Preseason. 

 

a) guys were gased

b) can't seem to get it together on communication

 

I believe the next 10 days are a blessing and the coaches will spend it fixing 'stuff'

[skinny21]

I’m not ruling it out, but I have trouble believing the game has passed Del Rio by.  I think this is at least somewhat supported by comments from RR and players about guys trying to do too much, missing assignments and fits, etc.

 

I do think it’s possible that Del Rio has some issues with talent - not necessarily from a deficiency standpoint (though I think that factors in - looking at you LBs), but things like trying to blend zone and man, running a 1 and 2 gap scheme, etc.  I also wonder if the combo of Young and Sweat are having some ego issues as well - ie selling out for the big play vs playing with more of a team attitude (total speculation of course).

 

Side note, I think Turner has some of the same issues - wanting to pass a lot, but our tackles struggling vs the pass rush and not having a capable pass blocking back, etc.

 

Both guys are relying pretty heavily on young guys that have a lot of growing to do (St Juste, Cosmi, Brown, Bates and Jamin) and newcomers that aren’t either all that talented, or that experienced in the system (Leno, Humphries, McCain and WJIII).  The bright side is that we have room to grow in both units and a good bit of depth to withstand injury as the season unfolds.

[Skinsinparadise]

 

 

[ggarriso]

I posted the below in the 20 draft thread looking like it could be another perfect prediction from everyones favorite sage of football; warning signs were strong with Chase Young.  Only player not to show for OTA, drinking his own kool aid.  Laying on the ground like dead fish Haynesworth after getting pancaked, taking plays off, not even in the game for key plays, getting handled by two of the worse OL in the entire league.  The greats on the edge like Watt have that drive, the only thing I see that has the strong drive with Chase young is his mouth.  All the talent in the world but does he have the heart?  Remains to be seen IMHO, but the signs were there for a possible overrated selection for anyone that cared to watch some OhSt games.  I think he turns it "on" as the season progresses but the first two games have been poop.

 

 

 

"Posted this earlier and saw a similar pattern in the second half, he played ultra lazy today, if this is how he gets up for a big game count me out on wanting any part of it - #2 pick in the draft needs to be highly driven - the physical attributes tend to even out at the NFL level.  We already have one ohio state player that needed "help" getting motivated, we dont need another one.. PASS"

[SemperFi Skins]

Landon Collins for a starting linebacker..... who says no?