GTripp0012
12-05-2008, 07:04 PM
You might not have realized it, and you might have realized it, and even if you did, you probably didn't think it was a big deal. DT Anthony Montgomery returned from an Achilles injury suffered in the first half of the Steelers game against the Giants. You probably did not realize that the Redskins string of awful defense coincided with Montgomery's absence from the starting lineup, but it most certainly did.
Anthony Montgomery is the lone dominant player on the Redskins defense. There are other players who are more deserving of a pro-bowl bid than big 94: Fletcher, Rogers, Landry, Horton are all more deserving, and you can probably include Carter too even though the coaches won't be able to look past his three sacks. Montgomery didn't even begin the year as a starter. It's unfortunate for him that he plays the same position that Kedric Golston plays, and Golston is one of Blache's guys. Blache's guys also include Phillip Daniels, Demetric Evans, and now DeAngelo Hall. It also hurts Montgomery that he's not versatile enough to play the three technique, which is where Blache tries to stuff him when Corneilius Griffin is getting a rest.
None of this is meant to trash Kedric Golston, because the guy is a great run defender, and he's a much headier player on the defensive interior than big 94, and prior to his bone spurs in ankle injury was right up there with Andre Carter as our most consistent defensive lineman. But having Anthony Montgomery is like having a young Kris Jenkins. And having him on the bench is like having a young Kris Jenkins on the bench. He's easily a 6-8 sack DT from the nose tackle position, but he simply doesn't get enough snaps to be this guy. As long as Blache is the defensive coordinator, Montgomery will probably have to play second fiddle to Golston, and if it comes down to it, will probably go elsewhere after the 2009 season. Blache is a defensive line guru, and no matter how talented you are, you can't play for him if like Montgomery, you don't fit the type of player he wants on his interior line.
For the first time on Sunday, Golston missed a game that Montgomery was healthy for. And the Redskins defensive line played it's best game of the season bar none. Against the best offensive line in the NFL on a slick surface that gives them an advantage, the Redskins sacked Eli Manning twice, nearly forced two interceptions, and would have had a third sack had Jason Taylor's sack of manning not been called back by offsides on part-timer Chris Wilson and Demetric Evans should have had himself a sack if he could only have pulled Manning to the ground. 4 sacks against the league's top OL with the conditions working against them would have really turned some heads. Unfortunately, the coordinator spends most of the first half showing a poor understanding of the situation, and handing Eli Manning easy completions, which skewed the results a little bit in favor of the Giants.
If you think the Redskins DL needs a talent influx in the offseason, try explaining that to Brandon Jacobs, who averaged only 3.4 yards per carry on a game high 21 attempts, nearly than two yards below his YPC mark on the year (5.1). The Redskins mauled the Giants offensive line all day, blowing up the frontside runs and forcing big Brandon Jacobs to cut back or bounce his runs, and making easy tackles. The Giants tried to run a lot of the tosses and misdirections they saw on tape, but failed to get a body on London Fletcher like the Seahawks and Cowboys were able to. Not that it would have mattered if they did because they also failed to block Chris Horton and Rocky McIntosh for most of the game.
I spend most of the opening talking about how dominant the defensive front was because I couldn't explain what went wrong in the first half of this game without showing you exactly what would have gone right if we weren't totally out-coached by Tom Coughlin and Kevin Gilbride, and to a lesser extent, Eli Manning.
Greg Blache
There are only a few generally accepted rules to when not to blitz.
1. Do not blitz if you can get there with a 4 man rush
2. Do not blitz an experience quarterback
3. Do not blitz a talented offensive line
4. Do not blitz if you have the offense in 3rd down, and with 7 or more yards to go.
5. Do not blitz players who lack an ability to pass rush
6. Do not blitz if the weather conditions dictate that your blitzes will not be effective
7. If the opponent has converted seven straight first downs against your blitz packages, and you send an eighth, you deserve to lose your job.
Greg Blache broke every single one of these rules in the first half of the game. Now, it's one thing if you want to make a quarterback and his young, inexperienced receivers prove that they can beat your blitz. Once this is sufficiently and clearly proven, it might be time to call off the dogs.
Blitzing Personnel
London Fletcher x9
Rocky McIntosh x8
Chris Horton x7
HB Blades x6
Jason Taylor (at OLB) x1
LaRon Landry x1
Carlos Rogers x1
DeAngelo Hall x1
Shawn Springs x1
And the consequent pressure chart on blitz plays only in the first half:
Jason Taylor, 1 pressure.
And that's it! Blache called 11 blitzes in the first half, on 24 total passing plays from the Giants. One player got to the quarterback on one play, forcing a high throw. Which means that on those 11 blitz calls, the Giants we're probably productive.
9 for 11 for 196 yards (17.8 per attempt), 1 TD, 1 INT, with all 9 completions successful.
Yeah, it was probably worse than that. It got so bad that the Giants actually started calling plays that just assumed Blache would blitz into them, and then they would drop a short screen over the rush and run for 40 yards. I'm not kidding, this happened three times.
What's even worse, is that if we look at the 13 pass plays in the half where the Redskins came with four guys, they did relatively well.
7 for 11 for 46 yards (4.2 YPA), 0 TDs, 0 INT, only 5 successful plays, including a 1 yard scramble and a sack.
And the pressure chart:
Anthony Montgomery (1 sack and 1 pressure)
Andre Carter (1 pressure)
Lorenzo Alexander (1 pressure, 1 QB flush)
So the Redskins got to Manning on 1/11 plays where they blitzed (9%) and 5/13 where they didn't (38.5%). Can we have Jim Schwartz now?
In Blache's defense, he went in, made some halftime adjustments, and got to playing solid defense in the second half. But playoff teams don't have entire halves of football games where they run the same dumb house blitz play after play, so if the Redskins want to make the playoffs, they might want to make Blache look at a weather forecast, or an opponent's tape or something rather than just doing what worked for him against Derek Anderson, Ben Roethlisberger, and Matt Hasselbeck.
Pass Defense
Vital Statistics
Total Adj Yards = 298
Yards per play = 7.84. 7.84!!
Success Rate = 50% (19/38)
The Giants passing game was consistently effective and explosive against us, but I'm telling you that without the awful first half gameplan, it would not have been nearly this bad. The Redskins played great in zone coverage, mixed their coverages up well, used Landry all over the field, and confused Eli every now and again. Shawn Springs played some free safety. Chris Horton played some free safety, albiet not very well. I like the Cobra formation though with Springs up top and both Landry AND Horton in the box. Blache did get creative in the second half, putting Jason Taylor in at SLB for Blades and seeing how that worked out. When you have Taylor coming off the same side as Evans, we actually have quite an interesting pass rush dynamic.
I think if Jason Taylor wants to have a future with this team, he better work on his coverage skills at OLB. The Redskins need a strong pass rushing LB to make their schemes work, and they might opt to keep Taylor in this role and release Marcus Washington. At this point, I really do see it as an entire or type situation as I'm certain they'll re-sign Evans and I know that they are expecting improvement from Erasmus James once he's more than a year removed from his last knee injury.
DeAngelo Hall appears to be ahead of Shawn Springs on the depth chart at corner. Springs is clearly the better cover guy, but maybe they just don't want to rely on him anymore. I just can't see him being back next year, as he may opt for retirement anyway. Like him or hate him, I think Hall is going to get resigned. He's too marketable for Snyder to let him walk, Blache loves him, Jerry Gray loves him, and the only potential voices of reasons here are Vinny and or Zorn...but with Vinny just looking to try to make people like him and Zorn focused on the offensive side of the ball, this deal is getting done. God save us if we pay him like a starter.
I don't know what Fred Smoot's fate will be as Blache will clearly try to move forward with Hall and Rogers at the corners. He might get released, he might not. Torrence could return definately if New Orleans lets him loose at the end of the year, but if our CB depth consists of Hall, Smoot, and Tryon, I might have to push for the use of the 1st round selection on a CB.
Coverage Chart
(Targeted, Completions against, successful rate against, YPA)
Carlos Rogers - 10, 7, 50%, 5.8
DeAngelo Hall - 8, 4, 50%, 7.4
Chris Horton - 3, 3, 100%, 10.0
Fred Smoot - 3, 2, 67%, 17.0
Shawn Springs - 2, 1, 50%, 5.5
London Fletcher - 1, 1, 100%, 6.0
Let's be clear here: DeAngelo Hall was not a bad addition for what we needed to have for a playoff run. He's got undeniably fantastic ball skills. He creates interceptions where the rest of our team avoids them. He's incredibly talented physically, and will shut down lesser receivers. He's no worse than Smoot in coverage, and allows us to push that guy back further on the depth chart. I'm just very troubled about how quickly he made it into the starting lineup and pushed Springs out of his more valued role, and I'm concerned that we're setting ourselves up to make a similar mistake to what Oakland did by paying him and then just assuming we've got our secondary needs covered...which could not have worked out worse for them. Blache and Rob Ryan in Oakland run similar defensive schemes, so everything else equal (which currently, it is not, and that's the key), Hall will produce similar results.
Of course, he's second on the team in picks already, so he's brought something with him at least.
Pass Rush
Sacks
Anthony Montgomery
Andre Carter
QB Hits
Corneilius Griffin
Jason Taylor
QB Flushes
Demetric Evans
Lorenzo Alexander
QB Pressure
Jason Taylor x2
Anthony Montgomery
Corneilius Griffin
Andre Carter
Lorenzo Alexander
Chris Wilson
Passes Deflected
Jason Taylor
For the first time all year, no linebacker or defensive back shows up on the pressure chart. Chris Horton, London Fletcher, HB Blades, and Rocky McIntosh were brutally ineffective on the blitz.
Run Defense
Vital Statistics
Total Adj Yards = 96
Yards per play = 2.90
Success Rate = 42.4% (14/33)
As mentioned before, the Redskins defensive line really went to town against Derrick Ward and Brandon Jacobs. Jacobs' effective runs were few and far between. Chris Horton and London Fletcher were everywhere. Rocky McIntosh had a very solid game. But it all happened because most of the defensive line (save Jason Taylor) were absolutely unblockable.
Which, of course, brings us right back to this guy (http://www.nfl.com/players/anthonymontgomery/profile?id=MON419313).
Overall Defense
Vital Statistics
Total Adj Yards = 394
Yards per play = 5.55
Success Rate = 46.5% (33/71)
The Giants are the one team in the NFL that has done a better job of controlling the clock than the Redskins do, so this 71 play effort perhaps should not be all that surprising. But I believe it IS surprising when you consider that we were very effective against the run. Because that's the bread and butter of the clock control game for the Giants, and we basically made it a non-factor. We really won in the trenches on defense. But they won this game in the film room, and on the outsides. This led to a 5.5+ yard per play performance, a success rate close to 50%, and a victory against us on our home turf.
I'm disappointed with the Redskins because I believe they should have been able to win this game given the conditions. I remain hopeful that we'll get this corrected against Baltimore, but I think we're going to struggle on defense against them, and I don't think we'll be able to stop Joe Flacco. It might actually make sense to blitz the rookie a little bit, but I feel like we should be able to get there with four guys. Anyway, this one is going to be on the defense because I don't think the offense can match up with the Ravens.
Anthony Montgomery is the lone dominant player on the Redskins defense. There are other players who are more deserving of a pro-bowl bid than big 94: Fletcher, Rogers, Landry, Horton are all more deserving, and you can probably include Carter too even though the coaches won't be able to look past his three sacks. Montgomery didn't even begin the year as a starter. It's unfortunate for him that he plays the same position that Kedric Golston plays, and Golston is one of Blache's guys. Blache's guys also include Phillip Daniels, Demetric Evans, and now DeAngelo Hall. It also hurts Montgomery that he's not versatile enough to play the three technique, which is where Blache tries to stuff him when Corneilius Griffin is getting a rest.
None of this is meant to trash Kedric Golston, because the guy is a great run defender, and he's a much headier player on the defensive interior than big 94, and prior to his bone spurs in ankle injury was right up there with Andre Carter as our most consistent defensive lineman. But having Anthony Montgomery is like having a young Kris Jenkins. And having him on the bench is like having a young Kris Jenkins on the bench. He's easily a 6-8 sack DT from the nose tackle position, but he simply doesn't get enough snaps to be this guy. As long as Blache is the defensive coordinator, Montgomery will probably have to play second fiddle to Golston, and if it comes down to it, will probably go elsewhere after the 2009 season. Blache is a defensive line guru, and no matter how talented you are, you can't play for him if like Montgomery, you don't fit the type of player he wants on his interior line.
For the first time on Sunday, Golston missed a game that Montgomery was healthy for. And the Redskins defensive line played it's best game of the season bar none. Against the best offensive line in the NFL on a slick surface that gives them an advantage, the Redskins sacked Eli Manning twice, nearly forced two interceptions, and would have had a third sack had Jason Taylor's sack of manning not been called back by offsides on part-timer Chris Wilson and Demetric Evans should have had himself a sack if he could only have pulled Manning to the ground. 4 sacks against the league's top OL with the conditions working against them would have really turned some heads. Unfortunately, the coordinator spends most of the first half showing a poor understanding of the situation, and handing Eli Manning easy completions, which skewed the results a little bit in favor of the Giants.
If you think the Redskins DL needs a talent influx in the offseason, try explaining that to Brandon Jacobs, who averaged only 3.4 yards per carry on a game high 21 attempts, nearly than two yards below his YPC mark on the year (5.1). The Redskins mauled the Giants offensive line all day, blowing up the frontside runs and forcing big Brandon Jacobs to cut back or bounce his runs, and making easy tackles. The Giants tried to run a lot of the tosses and misdirections they saw on tape, but failed to get a body on London Fletcher like the Seahawks and Cowboys were able to. Not that it would have mattered if they did because they also failed to block Chris Horton and Rocky McIntosh for most of the game.
I spend most of the opening talking about how dominant the defensive front was because I couldn't explain what went wrong in the first half of this game without showing you exactly what would have gone right if we weren't totally out-coached by Tom Coughlin and Kevin Gilbride, and to a lesser extent, Eli Manning.
Greg Blache
There are only a few generally accepted rules to when not to blitz.
1. Do not blitz if you can get there with a 4 man rush
2. Do not blitz an experience quarterback
3. Do not blitz a talented offensive line
4. Do not blitz if you have the offense in 3rd down, and with 7 or more yards to go.
5. Do not blitz players who lack an ability to pass rush
6. Do not blitz if the weather conditions dictate that your blitzes will not be effective
7. If the opponent has converted seven straight first downs against your blitz packages, and you send an eighth, you deserve to lose your job.
Greg Blache broke every single one of these rules in the first half of the game. Now, it's one thing if you want to make a quarterback and his young, inexperienced receivers prove that they can beat your blitz. Once this is sufficiently and clearly proven, it might be time to call off the dogs.
Blitzing Personnel
London Fletcher x9
Rocky McIntosh x8
Chris Horton x7
HB Blades x6
Jason Taylor (at OLB) x1
LaRon Landry x1
Carlos Rogers x1
DeAngelo Hall x1
Shawn Springs x1
And the consequent pressure chart on blitz plays only in the first half:
Jason Taylor, 1 pressure.
And that's it! Blache called 11 blitzes in the first half, on 24 total passing plays from the Giants. One player got to the quarterback on one play, forcing a high throw. Which means that on those 11 blitz calls, the Giants we're probably productive.
9 for 11 for 196 yards (17.8 per attempt), 1 TD, 1 INT, with all 9 completions successful.
Yeah, it was probably worse than that. It got so bad that the Giants actually started calling plays that just assumed Blache would blitz into them, and then they would drop a short screen over the rush and run for 40 yards. I'm not kidding, this happened three times.
What's even worse, is that if we look at the 13 pass plays in the half where the Redskins came with four guys, they did relatively well.
7 for 11 for 46 yards (4.2 YPA), 0 TDs, 0 INT, only 5 successful plays, including a 1 yard scramble and a sack.
And the pressure chart:
Anthony Montgomery (1 sack and 1 pressure)
Andre Carter (1 pressure)
Lorenzo Alexander (1 pressure, 1 QB flush)
So the Redskins got to Manning on 1/11 plays where they blitzed (9%) and 5/13 where they didn't (38.5%). Can we have Jim Schwartz now?
In Blache's defense, he went in, made some halftime adjustments, and got to playing solid defense in the second half. But playoff teams don't have entire halves of football games where they run the same dumb house blitz play after play, so if the Redskins want to make the playoffs, they might want to make Blache look at a weather forecast, or an opponent's tape or something rather than just doing what worked for him against Derek Anderson, Ben Roethlisberger, and Matt Hasselbeck.
Pass Defense
Vital Statistics
Total Adj Yards = 298
Yards per play = 7.84. 7.84!!
Success Rate = 50% (19/38)
The Giants passing game was consistently effective and explosive against us, but I'm telling you that without the awful first half gameplan, it would not have been nearly this bad. The Redskins played great in zone coverage, mixed their coverages up well, used Landry all over the field, and confused Eli every now and again. Shawn Springs played some free safety. Chris Horton played some free safety, albiet not very well. I like the Cobra formation though with Springs up top and both Landry AND Horton in the box. Blache did get creative in the second half, putting Jason Taylor in at SLB for Blades and seeing how that worked out. When you have Taylor coming off the same side as Evans, we actually have quite an interesting pass rush dynamic.
I think if Jason Taylor wants to have a future with this team, he better work on his coverage skills at OLB. The Redskins need a strong pass rushing LB to make their schemes work, and they might opt to keep Taylor in this role and release Marcus Washington. At this point, I really do see it as an entire or type situation as I'm certain they'll re-sign Evans and I know that they are expecting improvement from Erasmus James once he's more than a year removed from his last knee injury.
DeAngelo Hall appears to be ahead of Shawn Springs on the depth chart at corner. Springs is clearly the better cover guy, but maybe they just don't want to rely on him anymore. I just can't see him being back next year, as he may opt for retirement anyway. Like him or hate him, I think Hall is going to get resigned. He's too marketable for Snyder to let him walk, Blache loves him, Jerry Gray loves him, and the only potential voices of reasons here are Vinny and or Zorn...but with Vinny just looking to try to make people like him and Zorn focused on the offensive side of the ball, this deal is getting done. God save us if we pay him like a starter.
I don't know what Fred Smoot's fate will be as Blache will clearly try to move forward with Hall and Rogers at the corners. He might get released, he might not. Torrence could return definately if New Orleans lets him loose at the end of the year, but if our CB depth consists of Hall, Smoot, and Tryon, I might have to push for the use of the 1st round selection on a CB.
Coverage Chart
(Targeted, Completions against, successful rate against, YPA)
Carlos Rogers - 10, 7, 50%, 5.8
DeAngelo Hall - 8, 4, 50%, 7.4
Chris Horton - 3, 3, 100%, 10.0
Fred Smoot - 3, 2, 67%, 17.0
Shawn Springs - 2, 1, 50%, 5.5
London Fletcher - 1, 1, 100%, 6.0
Let's be clear here: DeAngelo Hall was not a bad addition for what we needed to have for a playoff run. He's got undeniably fantastic ball skills. He creates interceptions where the rest of our team avoids them. He's incredibly talented physically, and will shut down lesser receivers. He's no worse than Smoot in coverage, and allows us to push that guy back further on the depth chart. I'm just very troubled about how quickly he made it into the starting lineup and pushed Springs out of his more valued role, and I'm concerned that we're setting ourselves up to make a similar mistake to what Oakland did by paying him and then just assuming we've got our secondary needs covered...which could not have worked out worse for them. Blache and Rob Ryan in Oakland run similar defensive schemes, so everything else equal (which currently, it is not, and that's the key), Hall will produce similar results.
Of course, he's second on the team in picks already, so he's brought something with him at least.
Pass Rush
Sacks
Anthony Montgomery
Andre Carter
QB Hits
Corneilius Griffin
Jason Taylor
QB Flushes
Demetric Evans
Lorenzo Alexander
QB Pressure
Jason Taylor x2
Anthony Montgomery
Corneilius Griffin
Andre Carter
Lorenzo Alexander
Chris Wilson
Passes Deflected
Jason Taylor
For the first time all year, no linebacker or defensive back shows up on the pressure chart. Chris Horton, London Fletcher, HB Blades, and Rocky McIntosh were brutally ineffective on the blitz.
Run Defense
Vital Statistics
Total Adj Yards = 96
Yards per play = 2.90
Success Rate = 42.4% (14/33)
As mentioned before, the Redskins defensive line really went to town against Derrick Ward and Brandon Jacobs. Jacobs' effective runs were few and far between. Chris Horton and London Fletcher were everywhere. Rocky McIntosh had a very solid game. But it all happened because most of the defensive line (save Jason Taylor) were absolutely unblockable.
Which, of course, brings us right back to this guy (http://www.nfl.com/players/anthonymontgomery/profile?id=MON419313).
Overall Defense
Vital Statistics
Total Adj Yards = 394
Yards per play = 5.55
Success Rate = 46.5% (33/71)
The Giants are the one team in the NFL that has done a better job of controlling the clock than the Redskins do, so this 71 play effort perhaps should not be all that surprising. But I believe it IS surprising when you consider that we were very effective against the run. Because that's the bread and butter of the clock control game for the Giants, and we basically made it a non-factor. We really won in the trenches on defense. But they won this game in the film room, and on the outsides. This led to a 5.5+ yard per play performance, a success rate close to 50%, and a victory against us on our home turf.
I'm disappointed with the Redskins because I believe they should have been able to win this game given the conditions. I remain hopeful that we'll get this corrected against Baltimore, but I think we're going to struggle on defense against them, and I don't think we'll be able to stop Joe Flacco. It might actually make sense to blitz the rookie a little bit, but I feel like we should be able to get there with four guys. Anyway, this one is going to be on the defense because I don't think the offense can match up with the Ravens.