All the swag and bravado of this defense.....

Yet, they consistently fold at the end of tight games this season. We've still won some of them thanks to Russ but where's that swag at the end? Clearly this defense misses Earl when he's out and it shows but these guys are suppose to be elite. It's clear to me that they can't seem to close games out when needed anymore.

And all seasons w/Richard as DC. Seems like he rarely gets any blame.

Shaquill Griffin. Rookie play.

Defense was fine yesterday, Redskins had two drives all game. Yeah the last one was crucial but realistically Earl is there to at least contest it. Shaq had decent coverage, WR made a tremendous play on the ball. Cousins also got hammered on a couple big time throws, nothing you can do but tip your cap on those.

Defense was fine yesterday, but I no longer feel confident with them late in games. The last couple of years we haven't been able to stop a nosebleed late against decent offenses. I know the offense struggled but our defense is paid BIG money, and I expect more late

We also need to switch things up a bit. Teams have figured us out. Our defense relies on very talented players doing their jobs but we need to be unpredictable sometimes

This was disappointing by the defense for years they closed out games and dominated at the end seo this bothers me more than anything.

mistaowen":wkbsjqng said:

Defense was fine yesterday, Redskins had two drives all game. Yeah the last one was crucial but realistically Earl is there to at least contest it. Shaq had decent coverage, WR made a tremendous play on the ball. Cousins also got hammered on a couple big time throws, nothing you can do but tip your cap on those.

Click to expand...

But why go press cover on the last drive, I don't get it.

Play zone, keep it in front of you. Both of the Skins long pass plays were their receivers beating press cover. I give Cousins credit, two great passes...........but what the hell were we doing in one high safety press cover in the first place?

Also Sherman is pissing me off. Half the time he doesn't even look engaged in the play when he gets beat, like "eh, lucky play." Not lucky Sherman, you're getting beat and need to get fired up or something. Idk, but we're paying you to make plays, make some damn plays.

The no respect "poor us" card that was played for fuel has been washed out by mega million $$ contracts (except Wagner and Earl). This is what you get when that razor thin edge between good and elite is lost. We now lose some of those close ones because arrogance makes it so.
Norman is a complete punk.....but he has it.

I'll go 1 step further. Norman > Sherman.

Sgt. Largent":1qly5eoa said:

mistaowen":1qly5eoa said:

Defense was fine yesterday, Redskins had two drives all game. Yeah the last one was crucial but realistically Earl is there to at least contest it. Shaq had decent coverage, WR made a tremendous play on the ball. Cousins also got hammered on a couple big time throws, nothing you can do but tip your cap on those.

Click to expand...

But why go press cover on the last drive, I don't get it.

Play zone, keep it in front of you. Both of the Skins long pass plays were their receivers beating press cover. I give Cousins credit, two great passes...........but what the hell were we doing in one high safety press cover in the first place?

Also Sherman is pissing me off. Half the time he doesn't even look engaged in the play when he gets beat, like "eh, lucky play." Not lucky Sherman, you're getting beat and need to get fired up or something. Idk, but we're paying you to make plays, make some damn plays.

Click to expand...

Agree with the bolded section. It was just awful situational football. When the opposing team needs a TD to get back into the game, you HAVE TO keep everything in front of you. It's like in baseball when the outfield plays super deep so the ball can't get past your players and give any extra bases away on a hit.

Poor play calling on Richard's part to not be playing something like a cover-4/cover-2 man (hard to tell what was called from the broadcast view) and poor effort by Coleman/Griffin/McDougald to not keep everything in front. With that said, that was an insanely clutch catch by Docston.

Sgt. Largent":pyedoqc1 said:

mistaowen":pyedoqc1 said:

Defense was fine yesterday, Redskins had two drives all game. Yeah the last one was crucial but realistically Earl is there to at least contest it. Shaq had decent coverage, WR made a tremendous play on the ball. Cousins also got hammered on a couple big time throws, nothing you can do but tip your cap on those.

Click to expand...

But why go press cover on the last drive, I don't get it.

Play zone, keep it in front of you. Both of the Skins long pass plays were their receivers beating press cover. I give Cousins credit, two great passes...........but what the hell were we doing in one high safety press cover in the first place?

Also Sherman is pissing me off. Half the time he doesn't even look engaged in the play when he gets beat, like "eh, lucky play." Not lucky Sherman, you're getting beat and need to get fired up or something. Idk, but we're paying you to make plays, make some damn plays.

Click to expand...

Agree on the last play call, especially with Earl not in the game. If Earl is out there and they hit that play, kudos. Again, he definitely made a great play on the ball and Cousins threw a dime... I just wish they didn't even give them an option for that deep sideline play. I don't recall seeing much single high safety even when he sent pressure but could be wrong.

Point of my post was just to say defense outside a few mental lapses played great. 6 sacks, safety, almost a strip fumble TD, 3 should have been interceptions, frequently gave the offense terrific field position.

mistaowen":3qfyeyij said:

Point of my post was just to say defense outside a few mental lapses played great. 6 sacks, safety, almost a strip fumble TD, 3 should have been interceptions, frequently gave the offense terrific field position.

Click to expand...

They did, I agree. This loss is on the offense...........I was just pissed about the defensive playcalling on the last drive.

But 16 penalties, 3 missed FG's and 2 turnovers? Yeah, this debacle is on the offense.

Scorpion05":196g15fb said:

Defense was fine yesterday, but I no longer feel confident with them late in games. The last couple of years we haven't been able to stop a nosebleed late against decent offenses.

Click to expand...

What about Houston and St. Louis?

Sgt. Largent":ng1hvzxa said:

mistaowen":ng1hvzxa said:

Point of my post was just to say defense outside a few mental lapses played great. 6 sacks, safety, almost a strip fumble TD, 3 should have been interceptions, frequently gave the offense terrific field position.

Click to expand...

They did, I agree. This loss is on the offense...........I was just pissed about the defensive playcalling on the last drive.

But 16 penalties, 3 missed FG's and 2 turnovers? Yeah, this debacle is on the offense.

Click to expand...

I agree and then I don't. Our identity is supposed to be defense. Our salary cap reflects defense. You should be able to depend on your defense to make a stop in an "ugly" game. If we were spending big money on offense, with a Julio Jones, Todd Gurley, Odell Beckham like cast, I'd agree. But the Legion needs to play to what they're being paid in money time.

MontanaHawk05":1p2r0zjn said:

Scorpion05":1p2r0zjn said:

Defense was fine yesterday, but I no longer feel confident with them late in games. The last couple of years we haven't been able to stop a nosebleed late against decent offenses.

Click to expand...

What about Houston and St. Louis?

Click to expand...

Houston we had 30 seconds left...but they allowed Watson to drive down the field late in the 4th..before Russell came back again and scored. Our offense should not need to put up that many points to win, that's not sustainable.

In the Rams game, they failed to make a Doctson like catch. But the Rams still drove down the field. My general point is, if the defense isn't going to make those critical stops we should start spending more money on offense then. For what we're paying closing out a game after your offense takes the lead should be expected. And for some reason we've lowered our standards

Yes very aspect of this game stunk and everyone made mistakes. Yes the offense had a lot of penalties and Blair missed three kicks but our VERY EXPENSIVE Defense lost us this game. Three plays to get all the way down the field is inexcusable. To play bump-n-run coverage was also a huge mistake. Play zone and keep everything in front of you.

Our defense has some huge holes. If you watched any ESPN early Sunday morning, Herm pointed out how to beat the Seahawks defense and Washington's last drive was exactly what Herm was stating. We have issues with out routes and with slot receivers.

Yep, I don't care how the D does for 58 minutes, if you can't finish, it's plain not good enough.

Sgt. Largent":3txjpfti said:

mistaowen":3txjpfti said:

Defense was fine yesterday, Redskins had two drives all game. Yeah the last one was crucial but realistically Earl is there to at least contest it. Shaq had decent coverage, WR made a tremendous play on the ball. Cousins also got hammered on a couple big time throws, nothing you can do but tip your cap on those.

Click to expand...

But why go press cover on the last drive, I don't get it.

Play zone, keep it in front of you. Both of the Skins long pass plays were their receivers beating press cover. I give Cousins credit, two great passes...........but what the hell were we doing in one high safety press cover in the first place?

Click to expand...

I disagree.

Look at the ending of the Houston game last week. O'Brien was grilled after the game for playing conservative on the last HOU drive of the game (run-run-run). People absolutely killed him for not calling a pass to get the ball in Watson's hands. O'Brien played it conservative, and he was blasted for not being aggressive ("he wasn't playing to win, he was playing not to lose").

Now look at the ending to this game. Rather than playing a a soft, prevent defense, we were very aggressive on defense. Look what happened: it burned us. Now a coach was aggressive at the end of a game, and fans still grilled him ("why was he being so aggressive here? 'The Book' says to not give up anything deep here!")

Basically, if a coach is aggressive and it doesn't work out, fans will complain that it was the wrong decision. If a coach is conservative and it doesn't work out, fans will complain that it was the wrong decision. Hindsight is 20/20. Coaches will be scapegoated no matter what.

MontanaHawk05":22gchg3w said:

Scorpion05":22gchg3w said:

Defense was fine yesterday, but I no longer feel confident with them late in games. The last couple of years we haven't been able to stop a nosebleed late against decent offenses.

Click to expand...

What about Houston and St. Louis?

Click to expand...

Lol. Was this serious? Apologies if I missed the sarcasm.

The Houston game where we gave 400 yards to a rookie and won thanks to the most conservative playcalls in the history of the league giving us the ball back, and the St. Louis game where a sophomore drove the entire field and a dropped pass was our only saving grace?

We definitely need to change our late game strategy moving forward to taking knees instead of touchdowns and not leaving ANY time on the clock if possible. Today was the "score because you just don't know" test, and we failed miserably. Time to play with the clock as our biggest enemy and our defense as NOT the same lockdown force.

In fact, 2012 was essentially the youthful, hungry prime of these stars and how'd that season end?

Even Kap was driving down big time in the NFCCG and made a dumb decision late or else we could have an entire different history, let alone the fact that tips are extremely difficult to control, so that just happening to land in Malcolm's arms is an amazing miracle in itself. I can promise you Richard wasn't passing that like a basketball to him.

Obviously there is an Achilles heel in our D. Yes, I saw your point about Shaq making a rookie mistake, but how is there single coverage there? I just don't understand how there isn't help over the top and forcing them to run 8 plays instead of 3. Didn't we teach that lesson last week? I was wondering last week- "how did they let Paul Richardson alone in single coverage", obviously without the Paul bomb we wouldn't have that W. How did the Texans let any receiver 1 on 1 so deep like that? Why did we do the same? I know they want to see the rookie lock down there, but that's just too big a situation to not keep everything in front at all costs.

Richard is kind of pissing me off lately. I don't like the conservative look when I see it sometimes, I think the past 2 weeks we should have blitzed a little more, and I thought we should have been overly conservative at the end yesterday and I could have sworn we didn't make a single adjustment given the situation.