The Washington Commanders run defense is simply not good enough.
Though the Commanders are currently in the number seven playoff spot with a 7-4 record, that is an area from which defensive coordinator Joe Whitt Jr. is not backing away from facing it.
In fact, when asked Thursday at his weekly press conference, Whitt called the run defense “the main thing that we have to do.”
“Well, the main thing that we have to do, the two things that we have to do on defense to get to where we want to be in December, January football, February hopefully, it’s we gotta stop the run. Like that’s the number one thing that we have to do. Not shying away from it.”
Whitt then elaborated that coaches have even been discussing how to improve their run defense. In their last game, the Commanders surrendered 228 rushing yards on 40 Eagle carries.
In fact, the Commanders have surrendered the most rushing yards in the NFL through 11 weeks. It is worth remembering that the Commanders have yet to have a bye week. Consequently, they have played one more game than many NFL teams right now.
Unfortunately, that stat is confirmed by the fact the Commanders are second worst in the NFL yielding 5.0 yards per rushing attempt. They are also giving up the third-highest rushing yards per game: 150.5 yards per contest.
“We looked at the process over these last couple days of, ‘Alright, how can we be better with it?’ What do we need to do from a coaching standpoint, player standpoint, from a practice? How we’re implementing the techniques, just back to the basics because you can’t give up, I think we’re at what, 150 yards a game? You can’t do that and think that you’re going to win in December football. That’s just not how it happen.”
The Commanders face the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday, one of the NFL’s worst rushing offenses.