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Redskins Defense

SilentThreat

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Sitting back and looking at things, I have a very high level of hope for our defense this season. It's dawned on me a bit with the additions via the draft, that we have the chance to truly have a potent defensive football team. So I ask you this...

Is this the best DEFENSIVE Redskins team we've had in a long time? And if yes... how long?

I'd say it's at MINIMUM the best we've had since 2005 where we were top 10. Obviously health is going to be the question, but day 1 starters, this unit has a chance to be REALLY good. I understand that Payne and Settle are question marks, but if they can do some of the things we feel are very possible for them we could be in good shape. The only real question mark I have is at CB2 and CB-Nickle. Dunbar looks like he's progressing, but I'm not ready to say he's on the same level as Bree.... yet. Nickle corner concerns me as well with how talented the TES are, (thank god we won't see Witten anymore) as well as the influx of slot receivers that, thanks to New England, has become a very important part of the offense.
 
Well, as you said, health is a big issue. Also, Payne, Settle, and all the other rookies, are just that. Rookies.

But if we can stay healthy....

If Allen and Ioanidis continue to progress...


And if the rookies can give us anything...….then the dline will cover any slight secondary issue. By providing stout run support, for a change. And with the addition of McPhee to an already damn good pass rush, the interior linemen should provide constant push up the middle, on presumably longer 3rd down yardage requirements for the opposing offense....


Then yes, we have the potential be a potent defense. One that can actually dictate the pace, and help WIN games. More often than not.
 
It's not only going to be about the overall health of the defense but the scheme's we run, both sides of the ball have been bad at making adjustments in game or just piss poor game planning. Obviously superior talent can mask bad adjustments and game plans, I'm excited to see what the d-line can do this year for the first time since, what 1991 lol. Here's what I also believe, the defense has had to deal with the ill-fated bad decisions and no desire to be here Cousins for a long time, if you think that doesn't have an impact on the defense, I'd wager against it. Demoralizing for a defense to know the guy controlling the other side of the ball has no skin in the game, how'd you like that pun.
 
The Raiders game last year - on national television - with a rare healthy defense, is the measuring stick I use for how good they can be.
And that's not even including the improvements we made in the offseason.
 
If we're healthy and Payne and Settle are the real deal when they step onto an NFL field.....

This defense will be top five.

Yeah, I said it. Top five.
 
For our defense to get any better Jay HAS to call a better game and utilize the ****ing run. My fingers are crossed that The Guice will be in his ear all week wanting the ball.

A consistent run game would of elevated last years D atleast 3-5 spots imho. Another year of the majority of players & coaches in the same system coupled with our additions should put us middle of pack at minimum.
 
I'm not sold. I am glad we're adding to the DL through the draft, but we still do not have anything proven along that DL and could have gotten a lot better with just one more addition with the 2 or 3 players available this past free agency(at modest cost). I like Allen, am glad to have Payne, but neither has proven anything at the NFL level except potential. Allen was hurt for the majority of last season, he fell to #17 in his draft because of injury concerns, he is unproven. It sounds like Payne is making a name for himself, but is that typical Snyder Communications selling us?

Who else? Settle? We're pinning hopes on a 5th round rookie to be another dominant force? I was extremely happy with the pick in the 5th, from many accounts he was a late 3rd or 4th round talent...but he's a 5th round pick. Matt Ionnides? Yeah, there's improvement, but how much?

I agree that it all starts with the DL because if teams continue to get OL down field into our LB's we will struggle, Brown and Foster cannot handle the big guys, and it will depend on our secondary to make the tackles.

I'm optimistic, just not as optimistic as many of you. I still see a fair to midland defense at best. There is definite improvement, but we're not going to see a top 10 defense. I think Manusky can get them motivated, but what scheme does this defense run? I'm sorry guys, but there is no such thing as a hybrid 3-4 defense, it's either a 3-4 anchored with a dominant NT or it's not. If Manusky came out and said, we're running a 4-3 with the guys we have, I'd feel a whole lot more confident. Unfortunately, this is one of those areas I feel Snyder and Allen still have too much influence.
 
We were only in the 3-4 like 30% of the time last year. It may be our "base" but it's not what we line up in the most frequent

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Some serious weight right there
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Amazing potential for this squad, but that's on paper. We could easily be a top 5 D, but you don't play the game on paper. Before all the injuries last season, we were showing some solid signs of improvement, so I do have high hopes.
 
I'd just add to this....

This Defence feels 'new' if that makes sense. There's ALOT of rookies or 2nd year players on it in key positions.
Now on one hand this could be a bad thing if they struggle, but I'm hoping we have enough veteran leadership in there to keep the boat upright. People like Kerrigan, Norman, Swearinger and Brown will be key to that.

IF things go well, then this is a defence that can grow together for years to come and start developing the kind of swagger and style that leads to units getting nicknames.

A couple of years ago the Skins D tried to foist nicknames upon themselves and I always thought it seemed backwards. Forced. Units get an identity from playing together and being successful and then earning a nickname from the fans or internally organically.

This feels like a unit we'll be referring to by some clever nickname hallway through the season.
 
We were only in the 3-4 like 30% of the time last year. It may be our "base" but it's not what we line up in the most frequent

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Which concerns me more than if we were lining up in the 3-4 like we actually were running it with a player who does the job nominally well. The current "scheme" just lends itself to my assertion there really is no scheme, just good hard nosed defensive football coaches, who will get the most out of their players, but not a scheme for Manusky to call his own...to match up with different styles of offense week in and week out.

Like I said, we do not have a NT to eat up the middle of the OL, to allow the rest of ther defense to do their job, so stop with the "hybrid 3-4" altogether and line up to get the most out of what we have. Ryman and I have been saying it for almost 8 years now and our defense is not getting significantly better.

Call it a 4-3, run it as a 4-3, we'll likely see a strong defense. Play around with some hybrid scheme that Manusky has never run before last season, and we aren't getting the most out of what we have.

The way it is, if this defense is better than top 15 I will be absolutely shocked.
 
Which concerns me more than if we were lining up in the 3-4 like we actually were running it with a player who does the job nominally well. The current "scheme" just lends itself to my assertion there really is no scheme, just good hard nosed defensive football coaches, who will get the most out of their players, but not a scheme for Manusky to call his own...to match up with different styles of offense week in and week out.

Like I said, we do not have a NT to eat up the middle of the OL, to allow the rest of ther defense to do their job, so stop with the "hybrid 3-4" altogether and line up to get the most out of what we have. Ryman and I have been saying it for almost 8 years now and our defense is not getting significantly better.

Call it a 4-3, run it as a 4-3, we'll likely see a strong defense. Play around with some hybrid scheme that Manusky has never run before last season, and we aren't getting the most out of what we have.

The way it is, if this defense is better than top 15 I will be absolutely shocked.


Why do they need to 'call' it anything. In fact I've never seen a sound bite or transcript where anyone in Ashburn actually identifies what our 'base' scheme is.

The vast majority of the time we run out of a Nickle formation because most offenses have a lot of talented receivers either in the form of a slot WR or a receiving TE. It would be very difficult to run a traditional 4-3 system because we'd then have to either put an OLB in coverage or run strictly single high safety and be restricted to man to man on the outside at all times. We could go quarters defense and drop an OLB back but then you only have a limited box if they run the ball. If we had more talent at SS (and maybe Nicholson can do that) then we can run a 4-3 and trust the FS or SS to play coverage on that interior receiver.

I do think we're better in the middle now with Payne / Settle, so we may be better suited to actually run a 3-4... but they're rookies so there's a lot left to learn about them.
 
Why do they need to 'call' it anything. In fact I've never seen a sound bite or transcript where anyone in Ashburn actually identifies what our 'base' scheme is.

The vast majority of the time we run out of a Nickle formation because most offenses have a lot of talented receivers either in the form of a slot WR or a receiving TE. It would be very difficult to run a traditional 4-3 system because we'd then have to either put an OLB in coverage or run strictly single high safety and be restricted to man to man on the outside at all times. We could go quarters defense and drop an OLB back but then you only have a limited box if they run the ball. If we had more talent at SS (and maybe Nicholson can do that) then we can run a 4-3 and trust the FS or SS to play coverage on that interior receiver.

I do think we're better in the middle now with Payne / Settle, so we may be better suited to actually run a 3-4... but they're rookies so there's a lot left to learn about them.

Have you seen Prston Smith, Ryan Kerrigan, Trent Murphy drop back in coverage? I know I have. They are defensive lineman, for all intents and purposes.

It doesn't have to be "called" anything, but it has to be more than coaches who seem to be great at motivating their players...lacking any clear plan, scheme on defense. I just haven't seen anything that doesn't resemble what has been run since Haslett was here.

We just disagree how good we think the defense will be. I simply refuse to ignore what is in front of me long enough to believe we are better than we are...top 5 defense? Come on man, you really believe that?
 
Have you seen Prston Smith, Ryan Kerrigan, Trent Murphy drop back in coverage? I know I have. They are defensive lineman, for all intents and purposes.

It doesn't have to be "called" anything, but it has to be more than coaches who seem to be great at motivating their players...lacking any clear plan, scheme on defense. I just haven't seen anything that doesn't resemble what has been run since Haslett was here.

We just disagree how good we think the defense will be. I simply refuse to ignore what is in front of me long enough to believe we are better than we are...top 5 defense? Come on man, you really believe that?
Lol yes I've seen them drop and I really don't want that to happen... and the numbers would provide evidence that the coaches dont want it to happen. That's why we run more out of nickle than we do anything else.

I hate to use the crutch but I think the overall clear cut plan got messed up with the injury to Mason Foster. Zach brown has his abilities, but man to man coverage is not on his list of things he excels at. Imho I think their plan was to move foster around as the coverage ILB with Brown attacking the line. This would have cleared up the OLB to remain as pass rushers and given us a bunch of flexibility. When foster went down we were forced go keep an extra DB in and it stunted our plan to have smith and kerrigan crashing from the outside

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I can't wait to see what the D can do with the combination of Allen & Payne. When JA was healthy he was a big difference maker for the unit. Now with Payne, on board even if, heaven forbid, Allen misses time he can step up and fill the void.
 
I can't wait to see what the D can do with the combination of Allen & Payne. When JA was healthy he was a big difference maker for the unit. Now with Payne, on board even if, heaven forbid, Allen misses time he can step up and fill the void.

Yep. Think we're going to be blown away by how good our new DL is. Welcome to the site! :cheers:


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The defense will certainly be improved, but I'm hoping we can avoid the injury bug this season. Bad luck, karma, evil spirits, gremlins, coodies, zombies - whatever the reason - we just need good things to happen. So tired of all the bad things that seem to plague the Skins each year.

But...

I'm still not over the Wade Phillips thing. That could end up being Jay's achilles heel.
 

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