All things defense

[Warhead36]

11 hours ago, Koolblue13 said:

After watching the Eagles and 49ers yesterday, our defense doesn't feel so special. 

 

Maybe if we had any kind of offense it be different. 

Yeah our defense is good, but its not elite. The Eagles and 49ers have playmakers on all three levels. We have playmakers on the DL but that's it. That isn't to say we don't have good players at LB(with Davis's development) and secondary, we do, but none of them are really game changing dynamic playmakers. 

[Simmsy]

20 hours ago, Koolblue13 said:

After watching the Eagles and 49ers yesterday, our defense doesn't feel so special. 

 

Maybe if we had any kind of offense it be different. 

 

They also played two terrible teams. I don't say this often, but the refs absolutely saved the Giants. If they stay out of of way, we'll be fine. I'm more worried about:

 

1. Whats the mood in the locker room? Are they excited? Nervous? Confident...overly confident?

 

2. Who will be our center.

 

3. Where is my Juste Box?

 

P.S. Chase Young, I guess.

[Koolblue13]

9 hours ago, Warhead36 said:

Yeah our defense is good, but its not elite. The Eagles and 49ers have playmakers on all three levels. We have playmakers on the DL but that's it. That isn't to say we don't have good players at LB(with Davis's development) and secondary, we do, but none of them are really game changing dynamic playmakers. 

Yeah, I saw the sack numbers from their Dline and it's pretty similar to our guys, but they also have Riddick and his 10 sacks on top of that. CB and LB and an offense and this defense becomes elite.

[Professor_Nutter_Butter]

28 minutes ago, Simmsy said:

 

They also played two terrible teams. I don't say this often, but the refs absolutely saved the Giants. If they stay out of of way, we'll be fine. I'm more worried about:

 

1. Whats the mood in the locker room? Are they excited? Nervous? Confident...overly confident?

 

2. Who will be our center.

 

3. Where is my Juste Box?

 

P.S. Chase Young, I guess.

Please never say this again. Juste Box. But really, Juste back would be huge.

 

I'd like to believe the team is locked in and ready to go, but I've seen enough over the years where they just fall flat. The center will be key -- tell Nick Martin he has the flu and needs to stay away.

Edited December 13, 2022 by Professor_Nutter_Butter

[Simmsy]

9 minutes ago, Professor_Nutter_Butter said:

Please never say this again. Juste Box. But really, Juste back would be huge.

 

I'd like to believe the team is locked in and ready to go, but I've seen enough over the years where they just fall flat. The center will be key -- tell Nick Martin he has the flu and needs to stay away.

 

My life sucks, I need to make Juste Box a thing. That or "fetch", I need a victory.

 

I think Schweitzer might be able to fill in nicely, don't know what the coaches have planned though.

[Professor_Nutter_Butter]

8 minutes ago, Simmsy said:

 

My life sucks, I need to make Juste Box a thing. That or "fetch", I need a victory.

 

I think Schweitzer might be able to fill in nicely, don't know what the coaches have planned though.

My God, it's the early 2000s all over again. But moving on, don't want to derail this topic about defense. Has any update been given on St-Juste?

[Simmsy]

12 minutes ago, Professor_Nutter_Butter said:

My God, it's the early 2000s all over again. But moving on, don't want to derail this topic about defense. Has any update been given on St-Juste?

 

Thats my concern, I haven't seen or heard a peep from him or about him. All we get are updated (wrong) statuses on whether Young will play the upcoming week.

[Warhead36]

2 hours ago, Simmsy said:

 

Thats my concern, I haven't seen or heard a peep from him or about him. All we get are updated (wrong) statuses on whether Young will play the upcoming week.

They don't practice at all during the bye and won't be practicing until tomorrow, so we'll hear something then.

[Captain James]

2 hours ago, Simmsy said:

 

My life sucks, I need to make Juste Box a thing. That or "fetch", I need a victory.

You out here trying to put the **** on the chainwax

[Simmsy]

1 hour ago, Captain James said:

You out here trying to put the **** on the chainwax

 

Had to reference urban dictionary.

[Captain James]

6 hours ago, Simmsy said:

 

Had to reference urban dictionary.

Nah, just these guys:

[Warhead36]

Sweat is the 6th ranked edge defender in the entire league according to PFF.

[Going Commando]

On 12/11/2022 at 8:38 PM, Always A Commander Never A Captain said:

 

There's a huge difference between the two. Terry has always worked his ass off developing areas he could improve. Supposedly this was the first off-season Daron was that gungho.

 

If he had that longterm contract in February, would he have tried as hard and as determined to grow in the off-season?

 

They've been with him for years, they knew who he is as a player and person, and they knew how important he is to the defense.

 

When you're building a team, you must have a long term plan.  You can't simply react to whatever happens the year before.  You should know who your foundation pieces are, and you should be working to get them locked up long term when you can first negotiate with them.  When I say Daron should have been locked up prior to this season, it's because I (correctly) identified him as a foundational piece and that we were likely to get burned on his contract negotiations if we waited.  That is exactly what is happening too.  We should've had a long term team building plan in place that included him in the same group of foundational players as Allen and McLaurin, and we should have trusted that plan.  Del Rio has been telling us how good and important he was since 2020, this should not have been too much for this FO to foresee.  Either we misjudged Daron, or we bailed on the plan to keep him here as a foundational player in reaction to something that happened in the offseason (or both), and in both of those cases, that was a mistake and a product of bad team building.  Now instead of having the dude locked up on a bargain contract long term, we're either going to have to pay him like 50% more than he would have cost before hitting the open market, or franchise tag him.  It's a really bad situation now.  You don't play contract year games with your foundation players.  It's the same **** that got us into trouble with Cousins and Scherff.

[Skinsinparadise]

Jamin Davis’s brain is unlocking his body — and his potential

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/14/jamin-davis-commanders-improvement/

Basically, Davis’s brain is unlocking his body.

Some of the reasons for this development, such as better preparation, were in his control, and others were not. Last year, an undisciplined group of linemen hurt Davis’s performance, and this year, he’s benefited from the line’s elite cohesion. This offseason, coordinator Jack Del Rio tweaked the scheme in part to help his athletic defenders — more “match” zone, less traditional coverage — and Davis has looked more comfortable.

 

Coaches pushed him, too. During Davis’s rookie year, Rivera and Del Rio preached patience and defended him despite his struggles. But in Week 1, when Davis played poorly, Del Rio criticized him sharply to reporters, in part, Rivera said, because coaches thought his military upbringing might make him more responsive to direct challenges.

“The biggest thing is how we handle him now,” Rivera explained. “It’s not, ‘Oh, he’ll be OK.’ Now, it’s, ‘Hey, come on. You’re smarter, you’re better than that. Let’s go.’”

 

Over the past three months, Davis’s steady growth has earned him trust. In October, when middle linebacker Cole Holcomb got hurt, Davis shifted from weakside linebacker to middle. Before Washington’s biggest game of the year — at undefeated Philadelphia on Monday Night Football — Del Rio gave Davis the green dot, which meant he was responsible for relaying play calls and helping set the front. Since Week 8, Del Rio has shown confidence in Davis by using just one linebacker on 39.7 percent of the unit’s snaps, more often than any other team in the league and nearly double the rate of the next team (Las Vegas, 22.8), according to TruMedia.

 

 

In Week 9 against Minnesota, in the middle of his rise, Davis tore a ligament in his right thumb. It was less physically limiting than it was a test of his pain tolerance, and Davis said he wore a small cast, “numbing [the thumb] up a little bit and playing through it.” He waited until the Monday of the bye week to have surgery and said he expects to play Sunday night in the high-stakes New York Giants rematch.

 

The Post recently reviewed game film with Rivera and Davis to understand in detail how Davis has improved this season.

“By no means is he a finished product, but he's done such a good job,” Rivera said.

 

Early this fall, Davis’s quick reactions jumped out as one of his biggest improvements. As a rookie, Davis struggled to diagnose plays presnap, which forced him to process them post-snap, which created hesitation and false steps, which made him slow and late. But through time and study, he improved at using context clues — formations, personnel groupings, field position, down and distance — to anticipate plays.

In Week 3 against Philadelphia, Davis’s presnap read suggested a sweep left, and when his post-snap read confirmed it, he bolted around the edge and cracked the pulling center. Rivera praised the speedy reaction but said Davis needed to do more; the running back still got outside for a seven-yard gain. The next step would’ve been to drive through the center, rather than just hitting him, to turn the run inside or to make the tackle.

 

Ten weeks later, against the Giants, Davis made a more advanced read. He was already suspecting a run, but when he noticed the left guard setting “really light” on his left hand, he suspected the guard might be preparing to pull on a run to the left. After the snap, read confirmed, Davis filled his gap with what Rivera called “very good” form, another improvement. Davis kept his helmet up to continue reading the play and his hands into his blocker to give himself leverage.

 

For other reasons, the running back gained five yards. Davis critiqued himself, saying he could’ve hit the inside shoulder of his blocker to make the tackle instead of allowing the gain. He credited Holcomb, a mentor, with helping his play recognition.

“Incredible jump forward, to be honest with you,” Davis said. “Now that I know those things, it’s clear as day for me. It’s easier to pick up on plays and just make them a lot faster.”

 

As a rookie, Davis sometimes had poor technique and leverage in coverage against running backs and tight ends. This season, he’s shown several examples of better man-to-man coverage against backs, particularly on wheel routes, and in a critical moment in Week 10, Davis used his athleticism to maintain good leverage in space.

 

Early in the fourth quarter, Davis realized the Eagles were running the same tight end screen they’d scored on in Week 3. He took an angle to the convoy that let him keep outside leverage and force the ball back inside. For another player, funneling the play to his help would’ve been enough. But because Davis is nimble, he planted his foot — “Look at how athletically he stops,” Rivera said — and changed direction to reach the tight end and force a key fumble. (Davis also got away with a face mask.)

In the preseason, as Davis’s progress first materialized, he started regaining swagger. In late August, he dismissed those who called his good plays “flashes” of who he could become by saying, “F--- that. That’s me.”

 

“Look how strong he is,” Rivera said. “Son of a gun. He reminds me so much of [former Carolina linebacker] Thomas Davis at his age.” Rivera nodded. “[Thomas Davis] was in that part where things were starting to come more natural, and that’s what’s happening right here. That’s what I see as a huge, huge, huge possibility for us.”

Edited December 14, 2022 by Skinsinparadise

[NoVaSkins21]

Props to Jamin for blossoming into the LB that Rivera and JDR envisioned when they drafted him in the 1st round last year.  I know he's taken a ton of crap on this board after not being an instant sensation.  

[Koolblue13]

Wish we could have traded for Roquan Smith. He would be the piece to put this defense well over the top.

[Skinsinparadise]

 

Heard two recent Darrick Forrest interviews, he comes off articulate and smart.  He was explaining how his understanding defenses is helping him get a beat on creating turnovers

[Warhead36]

5 hours ago, Skinsinparadise said:

 

Heard two recent Darrick Forrest interviews, he comes off articulate and smart.  He was explaining how his understanding defenses is helping him get a beat on creating turnovers

Yeah I liked what I saw/heard from him when he was mic'd up. He definitely has that infectious personality that can permeate through a locker room. 

 

Hopefully he and Curl can lock down our Safety position for the next 5+ years.

[Thinking Skins]

I don't think it's a secret that I'm a fan of JDR. I wanted him as the coach before we got Ron. But watching his press conference is always fun to me. He gives nothing or the absolute minimum on answers. So it becomes a chess match between him and reporters on getting more than one word answers. Yesterday's press conference was a gem to me because he was giving nothing until somebody (Nicki J?) Asked about the draft profiles of BSJ and Forrest and suddenly he gives an eloquent answer that really helps with draft analysis. It was a good watch. 

[Warhead36]

Watching Bosa last night and man, if Young can become that kind of player for us(remember Bosa also had an ACL tear), the possibilities for this defense truly are limitless...

[tmandoug1]

If he plays LB for them that may be a problem for us. The old chip on his shoulder game bull****.

[Koolblue13]

1 hour ago, Warhead36 said:

Watching Bosa last night and man, if Young can become that kind of player for us(remember Bosa also had an ACL tear), the possibilities for this defense truly are limitless...

Chase coming back and our Oline getting healthy all at the right time.

[Skinsinparadise]

Commanders’ young secondary, full of disrupters, has become a strength

 

Benjamin St-Juste caught the attention of the Washington Commanders at the 2021 Senior Bowl, where the Canadian showed his skills at cornerback and safety. That week, St-Juste quickly became a familiar name among NFL scouts and executives who coveted a defensive back with his size (6-foot-3, 200 pounds) and length (80-inch wingspan). For Washington General Manager Martin Mayhew, it was St-Juste’s aggressiveness at the line and his physicality as a tackler, two traits Washington’s defense has grown to prioritize.

 

 

The Commanders drafted St-Juste in the third round that year and, perhaps unknowingly at the time, found his running mate in the fifth. Darrick Forrest, a big-hitting safety and special teams ace out of Cincinnati, was dubbed a “culture” guy.

“One of the guys that I spoke to was Luke Fickell, his coach at Cincinnati,” defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio said. “He talked about how [Forrest] was a program-changer. He was the right kind of guy. So the speed and the physicality that he brings and being the kind of character, we thought at worst we’re going to get a really good special teams player, and we hoped to develop him into more.”

 

The Commanders got much more.

 

 

After trying rookie seasons for both players, St-Juste and Forrest have become starters and transformative players for a well-balanced defense that has become a strength of an emerging team making a playoff push entering Sunday night’s crucial home game against the New York Giants. The line still stars for the defense, but the secondary has become just as disruptive and productive.

Better yet: It has become a foundational piece of the team, with both youth and versatility.

Kam Curl, a seventh-round safety turned do-it-all defender, is the prize of the group, but St-Juste and Forrest have formed a young core around veterans Kendall Fuller and Bobby McCain.

 

“Having them communicate and play the way they have, it’s really helped us as a whole in terms of defensively,” Coach Ron Rivera said. “They’re in sync with the pass rush, and they seem to have a feel for how each other works. . . . It’s important, also, having those young, fresh bodies out there because you know they’re a little different — they’re athletic, they’re fast, they’re twitchy, and they’re more than willing.”

 

...“I don’t know what he ran in the 40,” ESPN analyst and former Washington safety Matt Bowen said of Forrest, who ran a 4.6-second 40 at the combine. “I don’t really care because I look at him on tape and he plays fast. There’s a sense of urgency to his game, and that allows him to create range to the football with his feet or make plays down the field. … He has a lot of on-the-ball production, which you want at the safety position.”

 

Washington plays the majority of its defensive snaps in nickel as most NFL defenses do nowadays, but the Commanders especially like their three-safety sets (and this year have played more dime, with six defensive backs) with Curl almost always on the field. Like Landon Collins last season, Curl has played more than 50 percent of his snaps near the line of scrimmage, up from 27 percent in 2021.

 

But classifying Curl as simply a drop-down safety would be an injustice; the third-year player has moved around to all three levels of the defense.

“A great player in terms of what he can do as a zone defender and as a man defender,” Bowen said. “ … He’s listed at 6-2, 198, but he plays much bigger at the point of attack, which is something you have to have at the safety position to be able to get into the dirty areas of the field, in high-traffic areas with a lot of bodies around, to be able to take on lead blocks, get over the top of blocks, tackle in space and tackle at the point of attack. He can do things as a zone defender, as a second-level player or as a third-level player.”

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/16/commanders-secondary-st-juste-forrest/

[Captain James]

Couple dudes still listed as questionable for Sunday. Let's heal up boys!

[Skinsinparadise]

Entertaining watch