2025 Washington Commanders- All Things Defense

DWinzit said:
It is a great point that this season could be a great long term benefit for the staff, FO and players in learning how to handle different obstacles.

I do wish we would have seen more of some of the younger players (like Medrano) so they gain more game experience. There is still time for this and defensively it did seem like Magee may have played more
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A. They were exposed as to what can go wrong without WR depth

B. They learned not to patchwork edge

C. They learned Whitt sucks and there is a value to a top playcaller on defense

D. They allowed Conerly to grow, Paul to develop and arguably have one of the top O lines in the NFL headed to 2026

E. Developed some depth perhaps with Burks, Jacob Martin

F. Developing Magree. Realizing Luvu isn't an edge

G. Kinlaw and Armstong are a good foundation for the D line -- neither is great but they both can be very good

H. Hopefully they learned don't use training camp as a rest warm up for the playoffs -- take it serious;y, preseason, joint practices, all of it

I. McCaffrey before his injury was leading the league at some point as to kick returns

J. How to use heavy personnel to make the running game work -- that was sort of the spirit of Logan's point, they've had to find alternate methods

K. Learned how offenses exposed their heavy man scheme and how to counterpunch it

L. Lattimore is not a #1 corner, was a mistake to double down on it, unless Whitt was the issue with him too

M. I don't think it will be lost on Peters that some of the teams namely NE who had the balls to be more aggressive in FA really benefited from it

N. Felt Quinn and Peters albiet nice guys had some arrogance about them before the season after months of people sucking up to them saying how great they are. I was afraid they'd lose their edge this season. And it felt like it did. Having everything go wrong, I think will ensure that doesn't happen again. Quinn. flat out said a lesson from this season is how to avoid it going down like this again

 
Mikey and Noah seemed to have a good games last night. Was Mikey playing outside by chance?

I am wondering because the staff has told us he is beer in he slot butt he seems to play better outside if no lined up against giant receivers
 
skinsinparadise said:
Felt Quinn and Peters albiet nice guys had some arrogance about them before the season after months of people sucking up to them saying how great they are. I was afraid they'd lose their edge this season. And it felt like it did. Having everything go wrong, I think will ensure that doesn't happen again. Quinn. flat out said a lesson from this season is how to avoid it going down like this again
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That's the biggest difference between Quinn and Rivera, and his predecessors: Quinn and Peters seem like the type to be pissed off about it and correct what was wrong. Rivera et al would have pointed to the injuries and run it back again and declare problem solved. I said before, I fully expect them to have a 2024 offseason, with some key signings. Nothing like 5 yr $110m or anything, but 3-4 years, $60-70m type deals.
 
Riggo44 said:
Games like last night give me hope for next year. The defense is down to its studs due to injury and it battled so hard, Davey Martinez would be proud!

I thought they played really well. There were still coverage break downs--Wagner in OT was the most glaring. You could tell there was something different going on--and Mikey looked like he enjoyed football again.
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Our defensive roster was certainly not great - lacking a stud or 3 at minimum - coming into the season, but I’ve had trouble buying that all of the guys that have played poorly are suddenly bad players - Wagner, Sainristil, Quan, Luvu among others. So yeah, to your point, thankfully it no longer feels like we need a full-on overhaul… start with a quality DC and we can address personnel from there.
 
Riggo44 said:
That's the biggest difference between Quinn and Rivera, and his predecessors: Quinn and Peters seem like the type to be pissed off about it and correct what was wrong. Rivera et al would have pointed to the injuries and run it back again and declare problem solved. I said before, I fully expect them to have a 2024 offseason, with some key signings. Nothing like 5 yr $110m or anything, but 3-4 years, $60-70m type deals.
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Absolutely and its part of the reason why I think this off season will be a blast.

Everything we talk about here will be of course super obvious to this regime.

I think we will have one heck of an aggressive off season.
 
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DWinzit said:
Nice post SIP.

Last night emphasized that the biggest off-season emphasis needs to be on applying pressure.

Secondly on defense, that we will need a new aggressive smart sure tackling captain at LB or S.
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They got the QB. They got the O line. I rewatched some drives this morning and the O line looked even more impressive if you go clip by clip -- the only pause I had on the rewatch was Conerly got some help from Bates which helped him. But so many clean pockets. Yeah Mariota got the ball out fast. But he also dropped back 50 times which is insane against that defense and it was far from all dink and dunk.

Running backs OK. they can improve it but am not sweating it.

WR and Edge -- if they add a stud to both spots I think both spots evolve from below average to above average.

Safety -- I hate the coaches treating Will Harris as if he's Ed Reed. Add another one.

CB: Add another, doesn't have to be a stud, can be solid

MLB -- replace Wagner with a younger FA.

TEs -- Ertz is fine but there are plenty of younger fish in the sea in this FA corp.

The key in this mix for me is an edge and a WR.
 
skinsinparadise said:
They got the QB. They got the O line. I rewatched some drives this morning and the O line looked even more impressive if you go clip by clip -- the only pause I had on the rewatch was Conerly got some help from Bates which helped him. But so many clean pockets. Yeah Mariota got the ball out fast. But he also dropped back 50 times which is insane against that defense and it was far from all dink and dunk.

Running backs OK. they can improve it but am not sweating it.

WR and Edge -- if they add a stud to both spots I think both spots evolve from below average to above average.

Safety -- I hate the coaches treating Will Harris as if he's Ed Reed. Add another one.

CB: Add another, doesn't have to be a stud, can be solid

MLB -- replace Wagner with a younger FA.

TEs -- Ertz is fine but there are plenty of younger fish in the sea in this FA corp.

The key in this mix for me is an edge and a WR.
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It’s going to be an interesting offseason for sure.

I’m a little concerned about FA cost/availability. It can be argued that only the edge/wr are going to require big contracts, but…
Even though their market value is lower, I’d hope we don’t settle for just an ‘ok’ backer. Ditto Safety (we need an upgrade, not just another decent safety) and to an extent TE. A quality 3rd wr is a need as well (along with corner, as you said). Obviously, those contracts will eat into the cap.
And then of course there’s Tunsil’s extension and rolling over money for Daniel’s extension.

Point being, that money can dry up pretty quickly and the market will be competitive (as usual), so no guarantee we can find/afford those guys. And of course, add in the fact that we’re missing draft picks. We also need to be a bit better prepared for injuries, and a lot of our young guys haven’t really proven themselves to be quality depth (as of yet)… which means more money. Though this is where the short term deals should come into play.

On the bright side, aside from Paul (who shouldn’t be that pricey given he’s been more decent than good), we don’t have much in the way of re-signings to account for. You have to think we won’t have the same injury impact - multiple injuries to one position group (x3 - wr, de, corner). To your point, regardless of my reservations, we can definitely improve in a hurry, and we aren’t nearly as bad as our record shows.
 
I realize there is a lot of desire here to shit on Daron Payne and to get him out of town… but something Logan Paulsen said on the post-game show stood out- that London Fletcher has been saying all year that Payne is the team’s most consistent player on defense.

Now it’s only London Fletcher so take that with a grain on salt. 😉
 
Yeah Payne is so annoying but when he is motivated, as he was this year, he can be pretty good. I'm fine bringing him back next season in a true contract year and milk his motivation for one more season. No way I sign him again.
 
Chris said:
I realize there is a lot of desire here to shit on Daron Payne and to get him out of town
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I am fully on board with bringing him back on a contract year--let him ball out, like he did in 2022, and someone else can give him a big contract, we'll take the comp pick down the road. We are really only saving $16.8m after cap hits/penalties. That's pretty cheap for an above average, starting DT.
 
I’d like to keep Payne on his last year next season.

Also the D Coord. Pick is gonna be huge. We have to get that right.
 
Commander Wraith said:
It’s going to be an interesting offseason for sure.

I’m a little concerned about FA cost/availability. It can be argued that only the edge/wr are going to require big contracts, but…
Even though their market value is lower, I’d hope we don’t settle for just an ‘ok’ backer. Ditto Safety (we need an upgrade, not just another decent safety) and to an extent TE. A quality 3rd wr is a need as well (along with corner, as you said). Obviously, those contracts will eat into the cap.
And then of course there’s Tunsil’s extension and rolling over money for Daniel’s extension.

Point being, that money can dry up pretty quickly and the market will be competitive (as usual), so no guarantee we can find/afford those guys. And of course, add in the fact that we’re missing draft picks. We also need to be a bit better prepared for injuries, and a lot of our young guys haven’t really proven themselves to be quality depth (as of yet)… which means more money. Though this is where the short term deals should come into play.

On the bright side, aside from Paul (who shouldn’t be that pricey given he’s been more decent than good), we don’t have much in the way of re-signings to account for. You have to think we won’t have the same injury impact - multiple injuries to one position group (x3 - wr, de, corner). To your point, regardless of my reservations, we can definitely improve in a hurry, and we aren’t nearly as bad as our record shows.
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They should have post letting Lattimore go 100 million plus in cap room.

If all what happens is a normal amount of injuries, versus leading the league in it
normal schedule versus one of the hardest in the league
Jayden and Terry don't miss any games or miss very few
They have a better defensive coordinator than Whitt

All of that IMO = playoff team.

So to me the bar isn't that high. Last off season Peters IMO had four main assignments

A. Improve the O line
B. Load Jayden up with weapons
C. Improve the pass rush
D. Improve the secondary.

He did A and did it well. Tried D but failed albiet that might be on Whitt. And IMO made B worse let alone better. And he didn't take C seriously.

So now fast forward to this off season. I disagree with some fans who think gosh we have to do so much. They have the QB. They got the O line. In a lost season, that's the one good thing that transpired. This off season sign or draft 1-2 pass rushers. Sign or draft a true good Z WR.

If that's all they do, this team should be majorly better. But if they also add a safety, CB and replace Wagner with a marquee LB -- I think they got a shot at the SB. They don't need studs everywhere, every team has weak spots.
 
One of the LB FAs I was thinking about: Nakobe Dean, I am not sure how he would fit our defense, but has wheels, is very athletic--even though the PFF run defense and coverage grades are poor.
 
skinsinparadise said:
Exactly. And I'd add to convince Whitt to do this at the jump, I'd guess he told him dude this is going to be your baby, your moment to shine, I am not micro manage you at all, you are the coordinator, not me.

Part of my concern about this was I was afraid that even this off season that he'd talk himself into giving Whitt another year. So him pulling the plug a half a year into this, feels big. I can't see how Whitt is the coordinator after this.
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What you said 3 weeks ago, before the noticeable defensive improvements, seems about right. Doc Walker on the post game show was actually upset about this, saying that he gave Joe Whitt way too much slack based on their personal relationship, and that it’s a head coach’s job to make hard decisions without considering personal relationships. So the fact that the defense is doing better shows that Quinn should’ve made that call long ago. Ironically, it’s a knock on his management.

This all being said, the Dolphins and Broncos are not Dallas, KC, Seattle, and Detroit on the offensive side. It could all be smoke and mirrors once again.
 
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