Snap Judgments: Week 12- Redskins @ 49ers- DEFENSE

The Redskins losing to 49ers on the road was not at all surprising; however, what was not expected, was the defense putting forth such a strong effort after two extremely lackluster showings against the Vikings and Buccaneers.  The Washington defense had a season-high three takeaways, was penalized only once and held the 49ers to 17 points.  The offense, however, is performing at near epically inept levels and was only able to produce 77 net passing yards and three points off of the defense's three turnovers.

The defense did allow the 49ers to score the game winning touchdown with three with minutes left, but unlike the last few weeks, I don't believe that there's much of an argument to be made that the defense was one of the major problem areas in this game.  They did their part and most of the time when a defensive unit does this well the offense and/or special teams does enough to help pull out a win.  As Rich Tandler pointed out: since the start of the 2013 season, a team has held their opponents to 17 or fewer points while also forcing 3 turnovers on 91 occasions, and those teams are 87-4 (96%).  So don't blame Jim Haslett and the defense for this loss; it should fall squarely on the shoulders of the offense and Robert Griffin.

61 Snaps were run against the Defense

32 Passing Snaps (52%)

29 Rushing Snaps (48%)

• The defense was on the field for 13 drives.  They allowed the 49er's offense to score on three of them (TD, FG, TD) and created takeaways on another three drives (Fumble, Interception, Fumble).  The 13th and final drive consisted of two kneel-down plays by Colin Kaepernick.
• This was the fourth time since the start of the 2013 season that the Redskins have forced 3 turnovers.  Somehow they managed to lose three of those games.
  
• The lone defensive penalty called against the Redskins' defense was a 15-yard unnecessary roughness infraction against Ryan Clark.
  

Downs

• Fourteen of the 49ers' twenty 2nd down snaps (70%) were from seven or more yards to go.
  
• The defense forced a 3rd down on over half of the 25 sets of downs.  That's a very respectable rate of 52%.
• Unfortunately, almost 40% of those 3rd downs were of the 3rd-and-short variety.
• The 49ers' offense converted on five of their thirteen 3rd down attempts (38%) and both of their two 4th down attempts (100%).  The combined 3rd and 4th down conversion rate of 47% negated a lot the positive things that the Redskins' defense did on 1st and 2nd down.

Defensive Snaps

• Philip Thomas (15 snaps) and Greg Ducre (11 snaps) recorded their first defensive snaps of the season.
• Barry Cofield (41 snaps) and Tracy Porter (36 snaps) also saw season-high snap totals in this game.  Both players returned from injury last week.
• Frank Kearse, on the other hand, only recorded ten snaps - his second lowest total of the season.  The returns of Barry Cofield and Stephen Bowen have clearly come at the expense of Kearse's playing time, as this is the 2nd week in a row that he has been in on ten or fewer snaps.

Special Teams Snaps

• The Redskins finally gave DeSean Jackson a shot at returning punts.  Unfortunately, all of his returns were either fair catches or were negated by a penalty.
• Special teams players were called for four penalties, three of which were accepted for a total of 27 yards.  Washington has one of the most penalized special teams units in the NFL.
• To add insult to injury, the Redskins lost special teams captain, Adam Hayward, for the season with a broken bone in his knee.  The hits just keep on coming.

**Statistics derived from ESPN, NFL GSIS, Pro Football Focus and Pro Football Reference**