QB containment issues plague Commanders' defense vs Chiefs
Breaking down some of Washington's defensive issues on third down.
The Washington Commanders’ starting defense has undoubtedly not been good enough so far in preseason. Last week I broke down some of the issues the team had on third downs against the Panthers. They had some miscommunication issues, run fits got messed up on third and short, and they had individuals getting beat too. This week against the Chiefs, the issues on third down continued. The Chiefs starters converted all five of their third down attempts against Washington’s starters. To add to insult to injury the Chiefs pulled Patrick Mahomes after two drives for second string quarterback Shane Buechele while the Commanders kept their starters in and Buechele converted his first third down attempt before Washington finally got a stop.
So what went wrong? Let's take a closer look:
This was the Chiefs’ second third down attempt, having converted earlier on a third and short run. The situation here is third and six. The Chiefs align in one of their fairly standard three by one formations and the Commanders respond with a fairly simple front with a quarters coverage shell behind it. However, Washington is actually using a simulated pressure here. Instead of rushing the front four, the defensive end to the right side of the line drops back into coverage while linebacker Jamin Davis replaces him in the rush. From the end zone angle, you can see that Davis and Allen get their gaps mixed up. Davis expects to rush inside as part of his blitz, but Allen stunts inside off the snap, likely expecting Davis to work outside. This delays Davis’ blitz and results in the right guard being able to slide across and land a big hit.
Off the edge, Montez Sweat does a nice job providing pressure against the left tackle and even delays the running back from releasing out to the flat. His pressure causes Mahomes to miss a few potential options down the field where the Commanders had lost some coverage. Instead, Mahomes steps up to avoid Sweat and flings the ball out to his checkdown in the flat. Unfortunately for Washington, Kam Curl had lost track of the running back after the back stayed in to try and chip Sweat. That left the back in a lot of space and Curl can’t get across in time to save the first down.
Clearly frustrated with his defenders losing coverage while only rushing four, Jack Del Rio dialed up a blitz on the next third down attempt.
This time the Chiefs face third and 10, a situation every defense should be winning. However, Del Rio’s call here puts his players in a tough spot. Granted, there’s not really much opponent-specific game planning in the preseason and it’s more about finding out what your team can and can’t handle. But the whole story of the Chiefs season last year was Mahomes shredded any team that blitzed him and struggled against teams that played lots of coverage. So calling a six-man blitz with both the slot corner and safety rushing off the right side is a crazy call that you’d hope Del Rio wouldn’t do in a real game situation against someone like Mahomes.
By making that call, Del Rio asks a lot out of Kam Curl. Curl has to act like a linebacker in the box, but then sprint out to match the slot receiver up the seam. Curl could certainly do a better job than he did here too. I think he was anticipating more of a crossing route than the vertical route the receiver ended up running, which left him a bit late to really turn and run with the receiver. From a schematic standpoint, the blitz worked in that Benjamin St-Juste was unblocked coming off the slot. However, because he was coming from the slot, he took a while to get to Mahomes, which gave Mahomes the time he needed to take the shot down the field. Lesser quarterbacks might not have been able to process that quickly and deliver that quality of throw on time under pressure, but Mahomes is as good as he is for a reason.
While it was a poor start for Washington on third downs, what I would say is that after that start, the coverage improved considerably. Kendall Fuller had an excellent game at corner while Bobby McCain and Kam Curl continue to show their partnership at safety is improving. However, Washington still had issues with giving up third down conversions. This is a bigger concern because the problem wasn’t really with the coverage after the opening drive, it was more with the pass rush. Jonathan Allen and Montez Sweat were the only two able to consistently generate any pressure and they often aligned on the same side of the field, meaning Mahomes always had space to move around and avoid them. Too often the defensive end on the other side failed to generate much pressure and also failed to keep Mahomes contained in the pocket, allowing him to do what he does best, work off-script.
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