Commanders' run defense poor against Lions
Breaking down some of the issues the Commanders had defending the run against the Detroit Lions.
The Washington Commanders’ defense had an atrocious performance against the Detroit Lions, giving up 425 total yards and 36 points. Yesterday I broke down some of the issues with the pass defense, specifically looking at their problems handling bunch formations, but today it's time to look at the run defense. The Lions picked up 191 yards on the ground on just 24 carries at an average of eight yards per carry.
That’s obviously a bad performance from the Commanders. However, 108 of those 191 yards came on just two huge plays. The first of those explosive plays came on a 50-yard run by D’Andre Swift.
On this play, the Lions work out of 13 personnel with one running back and three tight ends and they call a zone run to their right. Head Coach Ron Rivera was asked his thoughts about this play during his press conference on Monday, so I’ll let him break it down for you.
“On their first long run, we got scooped, two-hatted if you want, which basically means one of our defensive lineman got knocked out of his gap.” Here Rivera is likely referring to Jonathan Allen, aligned between the left guard and left tackle. The tackle gets a great jump off the snap to reach across Allen’s face and cut him off on the back side. That allows the guard to climb up and cut off the second level defender too.
Rivera continued “One of our linebackers didn’t fall back like he should have and one of our safeties didn’t get to his spot.” The linebacker in question here I would guess is Cole Holcomb, who gets himself caught on the block of the right guard when he should have been falling back a gap inside once the runner began to cut back. The safety Rivera talks about is probably Darrick Forrest, who first took a few steps backwards before reading the run, leaving him late to get down to the line and help out.
All of those factors led to Swift having a huge lane to cut back into. Credit to the Lions for blocking the play well and to Swift for finding the lane and making the most of the space, but the Commanders can’t afford to leave this type of running lane open to opposing offenses. Sometimes a defensive lineman does get reached and cut off, but the rest of the defense needs to be able to adjust and the Commanders couldn’t here.
The Lions other explosive play came on a jet sweep to receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown.
This is a simple jet sweep play that you’ll see around the league from just about every offense now. St. Brown lines up tight to the left of the formation as the outside receiver in a bunch set, but just before the snap he’s sent in motion from left to right. Most teams will use this as a fake to try and hold the back side defensive end and create a cut back lane. But here, the Lions hand the ball off to St. Brown and Montez Sweat doesn’t read it quickly enough to stop him from getting to the edge and turning the corner.
There was also a second mistake on the play, which Rivera also explained in his press conference. “On the jet sweep, we got cracked, we were trying to match that guy and we didn’t replace like we should have.” Here, Rivera is talking about Benjamin St-Juste, who followed St. Brown across the formation to try and match him, but then he got crack-blocked by the outside receiver. Cornerback William Jackson should have seen St-Juste getting blocked and replaced him outside to make the play, but he was so focused on his receiver that he didn’t notice the ball had been handed off. This leaves St. Brown free to run down the sideline on his way to a 58-yard gain.
Those were two bad plays from the Commanders’ defense, but if you take them out of the equation, the Lions’ other 22 carries went for 83 yards at a much more manageable 3.8 yards per carry. However, that doesn’t mean there weren’t still problems occurring on those other runs. The Commanders’ linebackers were poor in general throughout this game, with each of them making mistakes against the run.
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