Commanders create 5 turnovers to beat Lions

Breaking down all 5 turnovers created by the Commanders defense in the playoff win over the Lions

The Washington Commanders continue to shock the NFL this season. Their latest surprise was beating the top seed in the NFC, traveling to Detroit to knock the Lions out of the playoffs. Jayden Daniels had yet another spectacular performance and I’ll be writing about him plenty this week, but I first wanted to highlight the defense. Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson is among the top playcallers in the NFL right now, which is why he’s in such demand as a head coach candidate. His schemes combined with a great offensive line, two fantastic running backs and a bunch of good wide receivers make this offense incredibly hard to stop. For the Commanders to win this game, it was always going to require a shootout with the defense getting a few turnovers to give the offense an extra possession or two.

As it turns out, the Commanders defense managed five total turnovers. Those five turnovers were all hugely impactful and played just as big an impact in the game as Jayden Daniels. So I thought I would break down each turnover and highlight the key players involved.

Dorance Armstrong sack/fumble

The first turnover of the game came from defensive end Dorance Armstrong. On third and one in the red zone, the Lions looked set to score on consecutive drives, but Armstrong had other ideas. The Lions motion out to an empty set and run two slot fades on either side of the field. The outside receivers both run quick hitches to occupy the outside corners while the slot receivers run fades. To the right of the formation, the Lions have star slot receiver Amon-Ra St.Brown on a choice route. It’s a well designed play because the empty formation spreads the defense out and the slot fades take all the coverage away from the middle of the field. The Lions are hoping to isolate linebacker Bobby Wagner on St.Brown’s choice route, which is a huge mismatch.

The Lions get the exact look they want, but St.Brown slips as he goes to cut outside on his choice route. That slip causes him to stumble out of his break and make him no longer an option for quarterback Jared Goff. As a result, Goff is forced to hold onto the ball and look for another target, which is all the Commanders pass rush needs. From the end zone angle, you can see the Commanders rush five, with defensive end Dorance Armstrong shifting inside to work against the left guard while linebacker Frankie Luvu works on the edge against the left tackle. With five defenders rushing against an empty formation, the Lions offensive line essentially has five one-on-one matchups without any help.

Armstrong comes off the snap low, while the guard pops up fairly high. Armstrong uses that to his advantage as he swipes with both hands to clear the guard’s hands. The guard tries to hook him, but Armstrong stays low and that enables him to turn the corner and break free of that hook as he closes quickly on Goff. Armstrong does a great job attacking the ball, knocking it loose from Goff. Full credit to Luvu on the edge too. He saw Armstrong winning his rush inside and peeled off to work back inside and follow up the rush. Once Armstrong knocked the ball out, Luvu was in the perfect spot to immediately fall on the ball and complete the turnover.

It was a critical turnover because the Lions were knocking on the door of scoring more points. At that point in the game, the Lions were up 7-3. A touchdown there would have put them up 14-3 early with all the momentum going their way. That would have been a very tough position to come back from.

Quan Martin pick-6

After the Armstrong sack/fumble, the Commanders and Lions traded scoring drives. The Commanders jumped out to a 17-14 lead midway through the second quarter. After a false start backed up the Lions, they faced a second and 14 situation. They again work out of an empty formation, trying to spread the defense out and uncover what Washington wants to do. The Commanders respond by running one of their most used zone coverages this season but with a slight twist. They call a Tampa-2 scheme, but they add an eighth defender dropping into coverage.

Typically a Tampa-2 zone coverage consists of seven defenders - two deep safeties taking a deep half each and five underneath zone defenders, with the middle defender sinking back slightly deeper to allow the safeties to split wider. One of the main weaknesses of Tampa-2 is the hole vacated by the middle underneath defender sinking back deeper. Plenty of teams will see a Tampa-2 coverage and just default to checking the ball down to the running back in that hole for a simple but effective gain. So to combat that here, the Commanders drop defensive tackle Jonathan Allen into another underneath zone to fill that void.

Quarterback Jared Goff wants to hit a curl route to receiver Tim Patrick against this coverage, fitting the ball into a window between different zones. The issue for Goff and the Lions is that Commanders cornerback Marshon Lattimore disrupts Patrick at the line of scrimmage. Lattimore is responsible for the flat in Tampa-2, but he knows he doesn’t have an immediate threat in the flat, so he can work out of his zone at the snap to press Patrick and be physical with him as the receiver looks to get into his route. Lattimore gets a good jam on Patrick, forcing him significantly further inside than he would have wanted to go. That means that Patrick has to then work back outside to try and get back on the correct path, which disrupts the timing of the route.

Curl routes are all about timing, with the receiver meant to get to a spot at the right time and break back to the ball. With Patrick shoved off his original path, he’s late to get back to his right spot and turn for the ball. You can see quarterback Jared Goff take multiple hitch steps up in the pocket as he waits for Patrick to get to his spot. At that point, Goff should have just moved onto his next read or checked the ball down, but instead he tries to force it to Patrick. He ends up sailing the throw over the receivers head and straight to safety Quan Martin. Martin secures the interception and then goes to work trying to return it.

The return from Martin was fantastic and I think it was overlooked on the TV broadcast because of the hit Frankie Luvu put on Goff at the end of it. But Martin made multiple Lions miss tackles. He avoided the first receiver and then broke free of a tackle from the second. The Commanders do a great job then creating a path for him, with Johnny Newton and Frankie Luvu sealing off the rest of the Lions inside as Martin works his way to the end zone to complete the pick-6.

This was undoubtedly a huge moment in the game for the Commanders. At that point, both teams were just trading touchdown after touchdown, and that continued after this play too. But this play gave the Commanders some breathing room, putting them up by 10. The Lions went on to score another touchdown after that pick-6, as did the Commanders, restoring the 10-point lead. Then just before the half time break, the Lions had their third turnover of the game.

Mike Sainristil interception 1