Diagnosing what’s wrong with the Washington Football Team’s run defense
By Jonathan Eig
The Players: Beyond the numbers
Against New York and Detroit, Washington’s defense faced 56 running plays and gave up a total of 271 yards. That works out to 4.8 yards per rush. No team will win many games giving up that number. What makes it more alarming is that neither New York nor Detroit is a particularly good running team. In a loss earlier this season to the Giants, Washington allowed 5.4 yards per rush, but that number was skewed by Giants quarterback Daniel Jones’ 49-yard scamper.
In the rematch, Washington was able to limit Jones’ running, but was repeatedly gashed by Gallman and Morris for 166 total yards.
Against Detroit, Washington held the Lions to 105 yards. That is not a bad number, though it is above the Lions average coming into the game. However, that total is misleading as the Lions only ran the ball 21 times (indeed, they only ran a total of 55 plays in the entire game) and cranked out 5 yards per rushing attempt.
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Watching the damage that D’Andre Swift was able to do to the Washington defense, several things become clear.
First and foremost, none of the linebackers played well. Bostic was repeatedly out of position and KPL was rarely involved in rushing plays. Even Holcomb was often left trailing Swift as he broke through the line for gain after gain.
The concern here is that Holcomb’s good-looking numbers may be artificially boosted by his excellent game against the depleted Cowboys. His performance the past two weeks against mediocre – but largely healthy lines – has been wanting.
But we knew the linebackers would be a problem. What is most alarming was the number of times the Lions and Giants were able to carve out chunks of yards against a five-man front. With Settle, Payne, and Allen lined up directly opposite the Lions interior, Swift still managed many big runs. All three interior defenders made good plays at times, but there were too many plays in which all of them were handled, often by a single lineman.
On one Swift run up the middle, Allen, Bostic, and Holcomb were all easily handled, and Payne, WFT’s best interior run defender, was positively blown up.
The inability to stop runs between the tackles leaves Washington’s two young, aggressive edge defenders vulnerable to over-pursuit. That happened at least twice on Sunday, when Sweat crashed inside, only to see Swift easily bounce outside for long runs. Young has been equally vulnerable to over-pursuit, but he is such a freakishly good athlete that he can often recover from a false step or two.