Can Jordan Magee help Commanders run defense improve?

Will the return of a healthy Jordan Magee help improve the Commanders run defense?

The Washington Commanders run defense was perhaps their biggest weakness last season. They ranked 30th in the NFL for rushing yards allowed, giving up an average of 137.5 yards per game. Only the Saints and Panthers were worse. There were a lot of issues with the run defense last season, too many to cover in one post alone. But one issue they had was matching up against run-heavy personnel. Defensive coordinator Joe Whitt Jr. gave a little bit of insight on that when asked about Jordan Magee during the recent OTA sessions.

“We really had a package in last year for Jordan [Magee], and then he got hurt and so it sort of took that package away versus 12 personnel.” Whitt explained. “I'm really hoping that he can stay healthy and then there's some other guys at the linebacker position that we want to have some three linebacker defenses that we can get a little bit bigger versus 12 and not play as much nickel to shore up some of the run on that aspect as well.”

Magee was someone that received plenty of praise and hype during the offseason from the Commanders coaching staff before he got hurt and missed most of the season injured. Losing their third linebacker did significantly impact their run defense because instead of being able to match up with a bigger body against bigger offensive fronts, the Commanders had to try and get by with smaller bodies. Here’s what that looked like.

On this play against the Giants back in Week 2 last season, we can see the Giants working out of 21 personnel, which consists of two backs and a tight end. One of those two backs is a fullback that inserts into the blocking scheme and adds an extra gap inside. They also use a condensed formation and have both receivers aligned tight as well. Typically against this type of personnel group, the defense would want to play what’s known as a base front. For the Commanders, that would be a base 4-3 front with four defensive lineman and three linebackers. They’d also normally rotate a safety down in the box to give them an extra body in the box to support the effort against the run.

However, with Magee injured and no viable alternative, the Commanders opt to stick in their nickel defense. At the time, rookie Mike Sainristil was playing in the slot and you can see how he is the one that effectively becomes the third linebacker. Just from a size perspective, it's a big difference. Magee is listed at 6-foot-3, 226 pounds. Sainristil, by contrast, is listed at 5-foot-10, 182 pounds. You can see as the play progresses what difference that size makes, as Sainristil tries to take on the block of left tackle Andrew Thomas, who is listed at 6-foot-5, 315 pounds. That would be a tough enough matchup for Magee, let alone Sainristil.

You can see what that size difference does. The rest of the defense fills their gaps relatively ok with Wagner stepping up and taking on the fullback head on, forcing the running back to cut back his run. He cuts it back to where Sainristil would ideally be, but because of the size disadvantage, he gets driven way back and the running back is easily able to pick up seven yards before anyone makes contact with him.

This isn’t a criticism of Sainristil, it’s just a clear disadvantage of the personnel situation the Commanders had last year when they planned for Magee to be their third linebacker and then he got hurt. Washington did recognize Sainristil was going to struggle in those situations, so they did change things up, but it didn’t always help them.

Later in that same game, we see the Giants shift to 12 personnel, using just one back and two tight ends this time. 12 and 21 personnel can be quite interchangeable in the modern NFL with tight ends often playing some fullback at times, so for the Commanders defense, they would likely try and match up the same way to 12 personnel as they would do 21 personnel. But instead of putting Sainristil in a bad situation and seeing him struggle, they switch to a big nickel defense. This brings safety Jeremy Chinn down from his strong safety position into the nickel position that Sainristil was playing, while Percy Butler replaces Chinn as the strong safety.

On paper, this is a better look. Chinn is a big safety, listed at 6-foot-3, 220 pounds, very much similar to Jordan Magee. However, Chinn is still a safety, rather than a linebacker. He’s a good run defender for a safety, but he’s still not a linebacker. The other issue with this is that Chinn wasn’t great in man coverage as a big nickel defender, meaning he struggled to match up in coverage in these looks too. On this particular play though, he doesn’t necessarily do anything wrong, the Commanders have another issue here.

Because of the coverage issues they had early in the season, they felt the need to keep both safeties back deep, leaving them light in the box. You can see that before the snap, the Commanders have seven defenders in the box, including Chinn, against seven blockers. That means that the Commanders have no spare defender free to make the tackle. You could argue about who fit which gap correctly here, but ultimately the Giants had eight gaps to work with and the Commanders only had seven defenders to fill them. On this occasion, it plays out that the Commanders leave a gap wide open up the middle of the defense, which the back runs right through on his way to the second level for a nice gain.

So what difference exactly would a third linebacker make instead of a nickel or big nickel package? Well, late in the season, we did get to see a glimpse of that three linebacker package that Joe Whitt Jr. talked about, when Magee played a handful of snaps against the Eagles.