What Is RIGHT with the Redskins?

Simply put, you can't stop teams in the NFC East from running like we have all year without a great run defending defensive line. Which we have. Now, neither Golston or Griffin is much of a pass rushing threat from the interior. In today's game, I think you need to have dual purpose defensive tackles.

I also continue to feel that if we layed off the blitz more, which forces guys to shoot at certain gaps, we could get more sacks. Baltimore used a lot of max protect against us, so perhaps we'll destroy the Cincinnati OL.

Do any of our experts have an opinion HB Blades , seems to me his is playing great.

Simply put, you can't stop teams in the NFC East from running like we have all year without a great run defending defensive line. Which we have. Now, neither Golston or Griffin is much of a pass rushing threat from the interior. In today's game, I think you need to have dual purpose defensive tackles.

I also continue to feel that if we layed off the blitz more, which forces guys to shoot at certain gaps, we could get more sacks. Baltimore used a lot of max protect against us, so perhaps we'll destroy the Cincinnati OL.

Our blitzes don't work (see Giants game) and rushing just the front four gives the opposing QBs an eternity to throw.

Our blitzes don't work (see Giants game) and rushing just the front four gives the opposing QBs an eternity to throw.Well, if the blitzes don't work, like you and I both believe, then rushing four wouldn't give them any more time to throw.

I don't know if you caught the stat that Al Michaels threw out that basically said that the Redskins came into the game with with 99 blitzes of 6 or more people, tops in the league. But they only have 6 sacks on those plays (6%). So if 94 percent of the time we are blitzing the house we're NOT getting a sack, we're obviously not impeding what they like to do nearly enough. I mean, yeah, we're forcing the ball out fast, and against bad offenses (St. Louis, Cleveland, Pittsburgh) that can be enough, but if our front four can get there almost as fast as we can with six guys, then we should basically never be blitzing.

Do any of our experts have an opinion HB Blades , seems to me his is playing great.Blades is really getting killed against TEs. We were number one in the NFL against defending TEs when Doughty, Horton, and Washington had them. But the last two weeks, teams are realizing that Blades will buy a play fake and you can slip Kevin Boss or Todd Heap out wide open. This is what happened on that 4th down play.

He's great against the run though. Plays much more aggressively than McIntosh and hits hard for a guy his size.

Blades is really getting killed against TEs. We were number one in the NFL against defending TEs when Doughty, Horton, and Washington had them. But the last two weeks, teams are realizing that Blades will buy a play fake and you can slip Kevin Boss or Todd Heap out wide open. This is what happened on that 4th down play.

He's great against the run though. Plays much more aggressively than McIntosh and hits hard for a guy his size.

This is not good, Fletch and Washington are getting old (esp Washington with all the injuries). I hope Blades develops or we can get a young good player in the draft or free agency.

Redskins Sacks:
Andre Carter 3
Demetric Evans 3
Rocky McIntosh 2.5
Anthony Montgomery 2
Kedric Golston 2
Lorenzo Alexander 2
Jason Taylor 1
Corneilius Griffin 1
Chris Wilson 1
Chris Horton 1
LaRon Landry 0.5

Redskins who have double digit pressures:
Andre Carter 31
Demetric Evans 13
Anthony Montgomery 11
London Fletcher 10

Redskins with 3 or more hits on QB
Demetric Evans 4
Andre Carter 3
Corneilius Griffin 3

Redskins with 2 or more batted passes
Jason Taylor 7
Andre Carter 2
Demetric Evans 2

No player has been hurt more by the increased blitzing than Andre Carter, whose 31 pressures would have produced AT LEAST ten sacks if not for all the guys directly in the face of the QB and the hot routes by the WRs.

Phillip Daniels '07: 2.5 sacks, no hits on QB, 4 pressures in 16 games
Demetric Evans '08: 3 sacks, 4 hits on QB, 13 pressures in 13 games

Anthony Montgomery '07: 0.5 sacks, 4 hits on QB, 2 pressures
Anthony Montgomery '08: 2 sacks, 2 hits on QB, 11 pressures

Corneilius Griffin '07: 2.5 sacks, 7 hits on QB, 5 pressures
Corneilius Griffin '08: 1 sack, 3 hits on QB, 8 pressures

What I'm saying is that we've seen measureable upgrade at two positions on the DL over last year, some decline at DT with Griffin, and Carter's producing at his normal level, but the sacks stats are very skewed by Blache's schemes. Don't be fooled here: our DL is better than it was last year. The small decline on defense is somewhat schematic, but a lot of it is in the back seven.

GTripp:

The reason I will stop short of saying that the Skins have a great run defensive line is what happenbed to that line in the fourth quarter of the Dallas game and the fourth quarter of the Baltimore game. When the Skins needed a stop in both of those games to have a shot to win the game AND when the offense needed to run the ball down the Skins throat - - the offense did just that. Both teams lined up and ran right at the defensive line and pushed them around. ON just those two drives - - with the game in the balance - - I think the offense ran the ball 20 times and never had to punt the ball.

That does not happen to great defensive lines.

I agree that the Skins' DL is better against the run than it is at pressuring the passer, but it is not a great defensive line against the run.

GTripp:

The reason I will stop short of saying that the Skins have a great run defensive line is what happenbed to that line in the fourth quarter of the Dallas game and the fourth quarter of the Baltimore game. When the Skins needed a stop in both of those games to have a shot to win the game AND when the offense needed to run the ball down the Skins throat - - the offense did just that. Both teams lined up and ran right at the defensive line and pushed them around. ON just those two drives - - with the game in the balance - - I think the offense ran the ball 20 times and never had to punt the ball.

That does not happen to great defensive lines.

I agree that the Skins' DL is better against the run than it is at pressuring the passer, but it is not a great defensive line against the run.

I think the bigger problem with the run defense is on the linebackers. It seems like there are more than a few occassions that the linemen steer the running backs toward the linebackers and the linebackers just don't make the play