Hey everyone,

First time poster so please be kind. Sorry for the long rant. Ken has seen some of my lengthier emails. The debacle yesterday has moved me to action. This team is in disarray and with the current cast I am not sure if it is fixable. I will post my 2 part series, first delving into the defense, or so called strength of our team.

Pressure: I don’t care what Greg Blache says about pressuring the QB being overrated. I have been saying it forever. We could have Deion Sanders, Champ Bailey, Rod Woodson, and Ronnie Lott in their prime playing in our secondary and it wouldn’t matter. If you give Quarterbacks 5-7 seconds on every play to go through their progressions, someone will be open. You especially don’t sit back and let a rookie QB get comfortable in the pocket. Blitz them, reduce the amount of time they have to go through their progressions, make them, make quicker decisions (less downfield throws), and hurry their throws (make them make mistakes). Then your secondary has to cover less time and on a shorter field.

Cushion on coverage: 3rd and 4 yards to go, 3rd and 1 yard to go, 3rd and whatever…..our secondary plays 10 yards back…..every time. We give cushions to receivers that are almost always beyond the first down markers. So, not only are we not pressuring the QB, we aren’t pressuring the WR either…….huh. We give the receivers a running start to get into their routes and breaks. Of course this makes it harder on our secondary, especially when the QB is taking their sweet old time deciding which open guy to throw the ball to.

Orakpo: Ok, so why does he get a category unto himself?????? He’s a Defensive End and yet we have this notion he will be more important as a Strong side LB. The one time they seemingly played him at Defensive End, he gets a sack, imagine that. I think our defense, especially given our non-propensity to blitz, is better if you play Orakpo at Defensive End and Chris Wilson at SLB. There is a reason that D-ends have such a high Franchise tag value in relation to the LB position. It’s because the NFL and 31 other teams have recognized that for a LB you can get away with a marginal talent who possesses certain skills (i.e. you can game plan around their deficiencies). It is much harder to game plan sacks if your players don’t have pass rushing skills. Orakpo seems to have those rare skills yet we seem hell bent on not using them and instead making him a marginal player.

I have discussed this with CJ Hutch and reiterate this here. The defensive scheme we run, seems to me, to be designed for marginally skilled players. Or in other words this defense would benefit a team that lacks talent on the defensive side of the ball and just needs to mitigate the damage the other team makes on offense. It is not a shut down defensive philosophy geared towards the bunch of War Horses we currently possess. Yes I say War Horses. We have a lot of talent on defense, albeit right now they have been hog tied by the coordinator’s defensive philosophy. With the talent we have we should be blitzing, blowing up gaps, hitting WR inside the 5 yard cushion to disrupt their routes, and in general sowing massive chaos.

Offenses rely on carefully coordinated movements of 11 players. In many instances disrupting 1-2 of those 11 players will cause a massive disruption in that choreography (think a well executed play-action pass where the Offensive tackle and RB miss their block or get beat by the Defensive End resulting in a sack or incompletion). Basically where an offense is playing a chess game, the defense should be playing smash up derby.

How to Fix the defense:

1. Orapko at DE, Daniels to the bench. CJ Hutch would argue Andre Carter to the bench, but I think, hey, teams have been running on us with Daniels in there, so it’s not like we are giving away a position of strength. Get Carter and Orakpo rushing off of the edges.

2. Haynesworth should be used as a grenade. Every play, his role should be disrupting the pocket, period. No gap assignments, only carnage and body parts. Think of him as the grenade the soldier throws in the room before everyone else runs in with weapons ready. The grenade acts to destroy, disorient, and confuse the enemy. There is nothing precision about it. Now say it with me “Haynesworth=grenade.” Let the other players handle the people the grenade missed.

3. Eliminate the coverage cushions. Play our corners up against the line and have them disrupt the receivers. Yes we would be more vulnerable to the long ball but I try to think about it this way; if the defense gets beat on a long pass play for a TD, they gave up 7 points. If they give up a 12-15 play drive for a TD, they give up 7 points, are demoralized, and are now exhausted for the next time they have to get on the field.

4. Blitz, blitz, blitz. Again, I would rather live by the sword, die by the sword. I would argue that we could manufacture as many big defensive plays as we will give up, by attacking an offense rather than letting them dictate what is going to happen after the snap of the ball. We have some hard hitters on this team, so let’s say the QB avoids the blitz and makes the throw. Let Landry, Horton, and Rogers make the receiver pay for making the catch. As noted above, if we effectively apply pressure the QB is more likely to make a hasty throw putting their receiver in a less ideal situation (hard catch, open to a big hit, eyes not up field etc. etc.).

So……..that’s my thought on the Redskin’s defense in a nutshell. Feel free to comment. Be easy on my as I’m a newbie.