Breaking down Chase Young’s performance against the Saints
Taking a closer look at how Chase Young played against the Saints.
Much has been made of the performance of Washington’s star defensive end Chase Young. He’s had a slow start to the season and didn't register a sack in any of Washington’s first four games. Washington’s defense in general has struggled and Young has been a part of that, but while the defense overall continued to have issues against the Saints on Sunday, Chase Young appeared to find his rhythm.
Young has struggled with a variety of things so far this season. He received lots of extra attention to start the year, regularly seeing the protection slide his way and having a tight end or running back chip him before releasing into a route. That extra attention combined with a solid dose of play-action and quick game passes minimized Young’s impact on the game early in the season. Over the last few weeks, we saw teams start to pay a little less attention to him, but his performance didn’t rise.
It made sense then that the Saints decided against giving Young extra attention early in the game, opting instead to trust Ryan Ramczyk, one of the best right tackles in the league, to handle Young mostly on his own. However, Young had his best game of the season so far and from his first rush, he looked ready to cause some trouble.
This was Young’s first pass rush rep. He initially works up the field but notices Ramczyk has opened his hips towards the sideline just slightly more than he’d ideally like. Young knows that leaves Ramczyk slightly vulnerable to an inside move, so he quickly transitions into an inside rush. He does a great job using a side swipe to clear Ramczyk’s hands and skip by him inside. Unfortunately, as he works inside, he trips on the right guard’s leg, which causes him to fall over. However, he still generates pressure on the quarterback, and his tripping on the right guard enabled Matt Ioannidis to rush freely and pressure the quarterback into throwing the ball away.
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