Commanders defense continues to give up explosive plays
Breaking down the explosive plays surrendered by the Commanders defense against the Giants.
Explosive plays have been an issue for the Washington Commanders’ defense since Ron Rivera became the head coach and hired Jack Del Rio as his defensive coordinator. Every year the team has struggled to stop explosive plays, with the main exception being the second half of last season, when the team became one of the top ranked defenses in the league as a result. Instead of building on that success, the team has continued to allow explosive plays, at an alarming rate.
On Sunday, the Commanders faced a two-win New York Giants team that had only scored more than 14 points in a game three times in 10 games coming into this game. Due to injuries, they were also working with a third-string rookie quarterback. So there was no excuse at all for the Commanders to not be able to totally shut down this Giants offense. It started off promising too. The Commanders managed to rack up five sacks in the first quarter alone. However, the issue of explosive plays showed up yet again.
The first explosive play from the Giants came midway through the first quarter. Having made a sack on first down and got a stop on second down, the Commanders got into a nice third and 13 situation, something every defense should be able to stop and get off the field. With it being third and long, Del Rio opts against blitzing or trying to disguise and confuse the young opposing quarterback too much. Instead he calls a basic Cover-2/Tampa-2 scheme. The two deep safeties rotate back to a deep half each while the five remaining defenders drop into five underneath zones. The thing I’m unsure of here is if it’s Cover-2 or Tampa-2. In Tampa-2, the middle defender would sink back deeper than the rest of the underneath coverage, but here Kam Curl doesn’t get that much depth, suggesting it was more like a pure Cover-2 call.
The Giants run a basic dagger concept, with the tight end spotting up underneath as bait, the slot receiver running up the seam to clear out the deep defenders and the outside receiver running a deep dig route into that vacated space. Now credit should be given to Giants quarterback Tommy DeVito here as he drives this ball into a tight window behind Benjamin St-Juste. The receiver makes the catch behind the underneath defenders, which enables him to turn up the field and pick up additional yards before being brought down. He ends up with 24 yards on the play.
Sometimes the offense does have a good call for what the defense is running. If this was just a pure Cover-2 call, then you have to hold your hands up and accept that. If it was a Tampa-2 call, then Curl makes a mistake biting up on the underneath hook route from the tight end instead of sinking back, but even then he likely would have attached to the seam route rather than the dig. My criticism here would be of the call itself. I understand going for something basic on third and long against better quarterbacks, but against a young quarterback with less than five games of experience? Surely third and long is a great opportunity to mix up the call and disguise a coverage to try and confuse the quarterback and generate a turnover, not just play a basic Cover-2 without any real disguise?
Having given up 24 yards on that play, Del Rio immediately abandoned zone coverage on the very next play and went to man coverage. The result? Not great…
Here, the Giants align in a three by one formation with the single receiver aligned tight to the formation. This is by design in order to create space outside for running back Saquon Barkley out of the backfield. Barkley runs a wheel route from the backfield, looping around the single receiver to his side and using the space left for him on the outside. With the Commanders playing man coverage, linebacker Jamin Davis is responsible for Barkley without any real help. Davis has been improving this year in coverage, but he’s also significantly struggled against wheel routes from running backs. Multiple teams have attempted wheel routes against Davis and he always ends up a step behind the running back.
That’s exactly the case here as well. Davis looks to attach to Barkley as he releases, but Barkley uses a slight stutter just to get Davis to pause his feet for a moment. That’s all Barkley needs to take off down the sideline and run away from him. Dais is an athletic linebacker, but even he isn’t quick enough to catch up to Barkley who gains a couple of yards of separation as he works down the sideline. The throw from DeVito is a good one, leading Barkley towards the sideline, which prevents the deep safety from being able to get over in time to bail out Davis. Barkley secures the pass and makes sure to get both feet down in the end zone before being hit out of bounds to complete the 24-yard touchdown.
Just like that, the Commanders went from having stopped the Giants on their opening two possessions and facing a third and 13 near midfield on their third possession, to giving up back-to-back 24-yard plays and a touchdown, giving the Giants a 7-0 lead. After that, the Commanders tightened up again and forced a three-and-out and then a turnover on downs on the next two possessions. On the Giants sixth possession of the game, the Commanders managed to get the Giants into a third and one situation with the chance to make a third stop in a row. What happened? Another explosive play.
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