The Curious Case Of The Redskins' Defense

In the last few months the Washington Redskins have made a lot of noise. They hired a future Hall Of Fame guy in former Denver Broncos head coach Mike Shanahan. They signed several big name former stars like Larry Johnson. They executed a blockbuster trade inside their own division for future Hall Of Fame quarterback Donovan McNabb and they own the 4th pick in this year's NFL Draft.

But not all of the noise has been positive. The guy they signed last year to be their franchise defensive player, Albert Haynesworth, has been in the news also for the wrong reasons. After signing a $100 million dollar contract last year and failing to live up to admittedly unreal expectations, Haynesworth came out and publicly disagreed with the Redskins' decision to switch to a 3-4 defense. Not only that, he vowed to stay away from voluntary activities and show up only to mandatory offseason practices, seemingly trying to force Washington to trade him.

Now there has been no shortage of sports pundits knocking him for this move. I admit its hard to feel empathy for a guy who just recently received an almost $20 million dollar roster bonus. But his point at the time is that he has never played nose tackle in a 3-4 and it wasn't something he felt comfortable trying to learn. I know most people would say for that amount of money he should be willing to learn how to drive the team bus. But considering the fact that the NFL truly IS a business there are also reasons to understand why he wasn't happy about the move. Yes he is getting paid an ungodly amount of money, but he also cares about his legacy. Just a few years ago he was being mentioned as a candidate for MVP of the whole league for his strong play with the Tennessee Titans and its highly likely that making a drastic move from a 3 technique to a head up nose tackle would further erode public opinion about his abilities.

I could go into a long dissertation about the pros and cons of him moving to nose tackle but that's not what this post is about. You see I happened to look at the Redskins' roster the other day and my interest was piqued. People have spent so much time knocking Haynesworth for his obstinacy and so much time focused on the holes that Washington needs to feel on their offensive line, that it seems nobody stopped to wonder just how switching to a 3-4 defense would affect a defense that was good enough to be ranked 10th in the league last year without much help from their offense.

Anthony Bryant

Phillip Daniels

Kedric Golston

Maake Kemoeatu

Anthony Montgomery

Greg Peterson

Are you familiar with any of the names on that list? Well if you are a Redskins fan you better get acquainted in a hurry because aside from Haynesworth those are ALL the guys on the current roster who are candidates to be the starting interior linemen in a 3-4 formation this year for the Redskins.

Know how many of them have played in a 3-4 defense in the last 3 years?

0

And through out their offseason spending spree the Redskins declined to being in even one guy who is experienced in playing in a 3-4 to at least help show the other guys the ropes.

To be sure it's not just a problem with the interior linemen. Two of the best performers last year for Washington, linebacker London Fletcher and defensive end Andre Carter, seemed to be poorly suited to a 3-4 defense. Yes, 2nd year player Brian Orakpo seems to be a perfect fit as a rush linebacker but as you look through the Redskins' roster who else seems to be a prototypical 3-4 defender?

But wait, its not just the players either.

Jim Haslett was hired to run the defense for Shanahan and as far as I can tell Haslett hasn't run a 3-4 defense since 1999 when he was the defensive coordinator for a Pittsburgh Steelers team that went 6-10. In the years since he has has stints as a defensive coordinator in both New Orleans and St Louis and in both of those stops he ran a 4-3. Now I'm not saying he can't do it, but its not exactly what you would think of as his forte.

So what gives?

Mike Shanahan never wasn't a 3-4 guy when he was a head coach out in Denver. His defenses consistently ran a 4-3 and generally were very good at it. I realize that lots of teams are transitioning to a 3-4 now for whatever reason but I would also remind people that both teams in this season's Superbowl ran a 4-3 and for that matter 3 of the final 4 teams ran a 4-3.

I readily admit that I personally prefer a 4-3 defense having played in that scheme most of my career, but by the same token I am a defensive scholar and with the right personnel I also know the havoc you can create with a 3-4. In this case however it would seem that the Redskins have round pieces that they are trying to stuff into square holes.

And lest you believe that the Redskins will use the draft to give their defense the extreme make over treatment, I would remind you that they only have 4 picks in the whole draft at the moment with no 2nd nor 3rd round pick at all.

At the moment Washington is in many ways blessed to have Haynesworth causing such a ruckus over playing nose tackle. It gives sports pundits a target to throw darts at and keeps them distracted. But what will happen after the draft is over and the smoke has cleared and Haynesworth is either traded or welcomed back into the fold? What happens when other people start noticing the obvious deficiencies I have just exposed? What happens if or when the Redskins take the field next year and instead of their offense being the weak link, its their once stout defense that can't stop anybody?

All I can say is stay tuned....

*Update: It turns out the Redskins made a big splash free agent signing yesterday signing former Ravens, Texans, Saints, Seahawks and Jets defensive lineman Howard Green to compete for the nose tackle position. FINALLY, a guy who has actually played in a 3-4, now the sky's the limit

If you aren't sure, yes that's sarcasm oozing through this update. You might think that the Redskins signing a guy to compete for a starting job off of a mini-camp tryout would be a HUGE red flag for the rest of the media to take notice of the state of their defense.

Guess we shall see...

Two Thoughts On the Patriots/Jets Game

First let me talk about the Patriots' defense. A lot of people are rightly concerned about their defense after seeing the Buffalo Bills run up and down the field on them Monday night. I have to say I share their concern. Now unfortunately some kind of way my DVR went crazy on me so I don't have the advantage of having seen the game twice, but watching it live there were some obvious problems with what the Pats were trying to do. The biggest problem I see is that they are trying to have their defensive line play in their 4-3 just like they did in their 3-4, the interior linemen at least. That means both defensive tackles are two gapping instead of playing a one gap defense.

Now I am about to get in the weeds a little here but I will try to be clear about what I am trying to say. In a 3-4 defense part of the reason why the two defensive ends and nose tackle can two gap and get away with it is spacing. In general on early downs they are never more than a gap away from the each other presnap so after the snap even if they get blocked then they are still usually only a gap and a half away from the next guy. This makes it easier for the two middle linebackers to cover their backs. But when you have both defensive tackles trying to two gap in a 4-3 you pretty much start out with them being a gap and a half away from each other. Not only that but they also only have one middle linebacker now to cover for them. The reason the Bills were able to gash them on the run was because their linebackers had no clue which gaps would be open nor where their defensive tackles were going to fit. For that reason at times there were gaps that simply wet unfilled and the Bills running backs took advantage.

The most curious thing about this development to me was that I figured after the Patriots traded Richard Seymour that they would actually go back to playing a base 3-4. This was prior to the game of course and before Jerod Mayo got hurt but my thing is they now have one less top notch defensive lineman but they still are stocked at linebacker, why not go back to what you have been doing so well for years now? Not only that but with the Bills basically advertising all preseason that they would be in no huddle a lot this year it made more sense to me to have more linebackers in the game who would be in the kind of shape that it would take to go against a no huddle offense instead of having more defensive linemen.

Bill Belicheck obviously didn't see it that way as they stuck with their 4-3 for the first game. But I have to wonder if they might revert back now against a division opponent who has a top notch running game after seeing the results from Monday. I mean honestly, in my opinion, they only have two ways of fixing their run defense. Either they coach the defensive tackles to play in one gap even if they play heavy into the guards or go back to the 3-4 defense. I think going back to what gave them 3 Superbowl rings is probably the best way to go but again that's just my personal opinion.


The second thing I want to talk about is the Jets' blitzing defense against the Patriots passing offense. Now although Tom Brady put up big numbers on Monday, I was troubled by something that I noticed. And it wasn't him favoring his knee which Ron Jaworski seems to be obsessed with. No the thing that I noticed was something I also noticed at the tail end of the Patriots' Superbowl run and especially in the Superbowl. Tom Brady has lost some of his nerve.

What do I mean by that? Well if you go back and look at the early part of 2007, the year Brady shattered the NFL record with 50 passing touchdowns, he attacked defenses down the field with a vengence in every single game. Most of the time those throws went to Randy Moss and it did not matter if he was double covered or even in a few cases triple covered, Brady was going to give him a chance to make a play on the ball. The outcome was generally good because if there is one guy I would ever want in the NFL making a play on the ball in the air its Moss. However right before the playoffs started and during the playoffs culminating in the Superbowl loss, Brady seemed to revert back to textbook quarterback play where he started allowing the defense to dictate where he threw the ball.

Because what he is doing now is truly what coaches coach quarterbacks to do, not many commentators are going to end up saying anything about it. But in the process he is turning one of the most dynamic players in the game in Moss into not much more than a possession receiver. If I am a defensive coordinator I now know that if I show even a semblance of double coverage on Moss that Brad is going away from him. And that gives all the advantage in the world to secondary guys for the other team.

The Jets however are an agressive, nasty, blitzing team and that means they will be showing a lot of single high safety. I am sure the will still double Moss on occasion but they will do it with a whole lot of camoflauge. Ironically because of this the Jets may well find themselves on the wrong side of an asskicking. See the Bills had a pretty good scheme against the Patriots on Monday whereby no matter what they were doing they still made it look as if they had Moss doubled. So Brady just threw the ball underneath and didn't really take any shots down the field. But if the Jets have a gameplan similar to what they did against the Texans the are going to give Brady the green light to go up top early and often. And if they do all you are going to hear is "INCOMING!!!"

Now I know most commentators will focus on the way the blitzes will affect Brady and the offensive line but generally the teams that actually bother Brady are those who can rush with just a four man line. When teams bring blitzes he can usually identify which receiver will have a one on one match up or if he will be able to push it down field. So all I am saying is pay attention to the times the Jets blitz this week and how much Brady makes the play with a big play downfield to Moss. As an alternative he may go downtown to Joey Galloway too who will definitely end up with the better match up of cornerbacks usually when teams blitz and he still has the wheels to get open on the deep balls.