Getting the defense off the field crucial for the Washington Redskins in 2020

The Washington Redskins struggled to get off the field on third downs as a defense in 2019. How might they fix that in 2020?

(In this series, Touchdown Wire’s Mark Schofield takes a look at one important metric per NFL team to uncover a crucial problem to solve for the 2020 season. In this installment, it’s time to look at how the Washington Redskins struggled to get off the field on third downs as a defense, and how they might address that issue in 2020).

Change is in the air in the nation’s capital. After limping to a 3-13 record in 2019, a season that saw head coach Jay Gruden fired before Halloween, the Washington Redskins turned to the defensive-minded Ron Rivera as their new head man.

When you finish with 13 losses there are certainly a number of factors you can point to during a postseason postmortem. On the offensive side of the football, there were certainly struggles as the Redskins turned to first-round selection Dwayne Haskins shortly after Gruden was fired. While the rookie quarterback seemed to be getting his sea legs down the stretch, the offense still struggled. They ranked dead last in the league in points scored per game, averaging a meager 16.6 points per contest, and that was just one of any number of metrics that illustrated their woes.

You could also point to Expected Points Added by the the offense, where the Washington offensive unit contributed a combined -82.30 points on the season, ranking the Redskins 30th in the league. If you wanted a look on a per drive basis, just 30.1% of Washington’s offensive drives ended in points, ranking the Redskins 28th in the league. A look at how the passing game struggled can be illuminated by pointing to Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt, where Washington passers combined for an ANY/A of just 4.9, fourth-worst in the league.

But the hiring of Rivera might mean more of an emphasis on the defensive side of the football is coming to Washington, and there are no shortage of reasons why that might be the case. While the Redskins’ offense struggled, their defense was almost as bad. Some glaring statistics highlight their stumbles with stopping opposing offenses and in particular getting off the field.

Last year, the Redskins defense allowed a third down conversion on 111 of their 227 chances to get off the field and force a point. That works out to a third down conversion percentage of 48.9%, which was the absolute worst in the league. Driving this point home is the fact that the Redskins allowed a fourth down conversion in 63.2% of those situations, which was third-worst in the league. When an opposing offense reached the red zone against them, odds were a kicker would soon be coming onto the field to attempt an extra point. The Redskins allowed a touchdown 61% of the time the opposing offense reached the red zone, ninth-worst in the league.

Overall, 41.9% of Washington’s defensive drives ended with the offense scoring points, fourth-worst in the league.

Beyond hiring Rivera, the Redskins had a tremendous opportunity in the 2020 NFL draft to address these defensive woes. After the Cincinnati Bengals drafted quarterback Joe Burrow with the first overall selection, the organization was in a position to make a selection geared towards getting off the field on third downs, and preventing the opposing offense from scoring points. The two players on the board they could choose between? Ohio State teammates Chase Young and Jeff Okudah.

This gets us into a conversation that has been simmering in #FootballTwitter for over a year: The debate between pass rush and coverage. There are some that believe a fearsome pass rush is more critical to the success of a defense, and there are others to point to the ability of the players in the secondary as the more crucial element.

The wise minds over at Pro Football Focus dove into this debate, and in a three-part series outlined the reasons behind their contention that coverage was more important. As Eric Eager wrote:

PFF coverage grades correlated with winning in sample more than pass-rush did from 2006-2018, and it was more predictive of defensive success year-on-year, as well. This upset some people, but it has gotten an increasing amount of support within both traditional football circles and the analytics community.

We then circled back at some of the mechanisms for why coverage might be more important than pass-rush. We found that, as expected, proficiency in coverage increases time to throw (which is generally bad for an offense). In contrast, proficiency in pass-rush ability decreases time to throw, which is generally better for an offense given the league’s movement towards shorter, more efficient passing plays.

Such findings might have forced the Redskins to consider Okudah with that second selection, especially when you look at their roster entering the draft. While the defensive front, with players such as Ryan Kerrigan, Montez Sweat, Da’Ron Payne and Jonathan Allen, the Redskins have four first-round picks along their defensive front. By comparison, the starting cornerbacks on their roster right now are Fabian Moreau, a third-round pick in 2017 and Kendall Fuller, recently acquired via free agency.

But despite their roster – and the data – the Redskins went in a different direction, selecting the pass rusher in Young.

That now gives Washington five different first-round picks up front, and a lot of options in terms of getting after the passer. As he showed last year, Young can have an impact on the game even when he is not racking up the sacks. He faced questions about a “lack of production” down the stretch last year, as he did not tally a sack in Ohio States final three games of the season.

However, there is another thing we have learned over the years: Pressure is production. While he might not have generated a sack, Young still impacted the opposing offenses. As PFF found in a piece that was published in 2018, while sacks are still among the most productive things a defense can do, pressuring the passer is a pretty decent outcome as well. Using Expected Points Added, PFF measured EPA per dropback broken down by pressure type:

  • EPA on all passing plays: 0.025
  • EPA on all non-sack passing plays: 0.145
  • EPA on passing plays without pressure: 0.233
  • EPA on passing plays with pressure (incl. sacks): -0.397
  • EPA on passing plays with pressure but no sack: -0.074
  • EPA on passing plays where the quarterback is only hurried: 0.019
  • EPA on passing plays where the quarterback is only hit: -0.161
  • EPA on passing plays where the quarterback is only hit and hurried: -0.323
  • EPA on passing plays that result in sacks: -1.856

If you cannot get the quarterback to the ground for a sack, getting some pressure on him is still a good result for the defense.

Take these two plays against Michigan:

While Young does not notch a sack on either play, he forces a poor throw under pressure on the first one, and a throwaway on the second.

Against Clemson in the Fiesta Bowl, Young did not have a sack. But he did have ten pressures and four quarterback hits, all of which you can see in this video:

You will also see in that video moments where Clemson was forced to slide their protection towards Young and/or double-team him. That might work against Ohio State, it might not work when you’re sliding protection to Young and away from Sweat or Kerrigan.

Pressure equals production.

Finally, a last work on the pass rush versus coverage debate, from the gospel according to Belichick:

The two work together. Washington hopes that their potentially fearsome pass rush, with the addition of Young, will make their coverage better in the long run.

We’ll wait to see if those numbers improve.