Tag: Montez Sweat

Vikings gameday: Live updates from Vikings vs. Bears

Join us as we provide live updates throughout the game.

Monday night is finally here as the Minnesota Vikings take on the Chicago Bears at U.S. Bank Stadium.

Join us as we discuss the game with live updates throughout each drive.

Commanders land pass rusher in new mock draft

Probably the last thing fans want is another first-round defensive lineman.

In looking at the remainder of the Washington Commanders’ 2023 schedule, it’s difficult to see many wins remaining. Currently 4-8, Washington has the Dolphins, Rams, Jets, 49ers and Cowboys on the schedule.

Sure, the Rams and Jets aren’t very good, but New York has an excellent defense, while the Rams will be playing at home, which means a West Coast trip for the Commanders.

You could make the case Washington is playing worse than anyone at the current moment.

There will be lots of changes for the Commanders next season. Washington already fired defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio and secondary coach Brent Vieselmeyer. At the end of the season, new owner Josh Harris will likely clean house.

Those changes will be on the roster, too. Washington traded edge rushers Chase Young and Montez Sweat ahead of the NFL trade deadline. Outside of the anomaly against the Giants in Week 11, the Commanders have struggled to sack opposing quarterbacks.

That means Washington will look to add pass-rush help in 2024. Will that come via free agency or the 2024 NFL draft? The Commanders will have five picks in the first three rounds, and they’ll almost certainly be selecting in the top 10, perhaps higher.

Washington currently holds the No. 7 overall pick if the draft were held today. In a new mock draft from Curt Popejoy of Draft Wire, he has the Commanders finding pass-rush help in UCLA edge Laiatu Latu.

The Commanders could be in dire need of pass rushers next season and Latu is one of the best.

Latu is 6-foot-5, 265 pounds with elite production. As a junior in 2022, Latu was an All-Pac-12 selection with 10.5 sacks. He’s been even better in 2023, with 13 sacks.

Here’s what ESPN draft analyst Jordan Reid thinks of Latu:

Washington could use a game-wrecker. Sweat was a reliable player for four-plus seasons but could never be called a game-wrecker. Same for Young.

However, there are concerns with Latu. He began his career at Washington in 2019, and he was medically retired due to a neck injury. He transferred to UCLA before 2022 and was cleared. So that doesn’t appear to be a concern, but NFL teams will have him under the microscope ahead of the draft.

Selecting another defensive lineman will not excite Washington fans. It’s tough to predict what the Commanders will do until we see who the new general manager and coach are in January.

Social media reacts to Commanders firing Jack Del Rio

Social media reacts to Del Rio and Vieselmeyer’s firings.

The Washington Commanders finally made a move on Friday, firing defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio and secondary coach Brent Vieselmeyer after losing 45-10 to the Dallas Cowboys on Thanksgiving Day.

This wasn’t about one game. Washington’s defense, which was supposed to be a team strength in 2023, is an unmitigated disaster. The Commanders have allowed 30 or more points in seven of the 12 games they’ve played this season and are last in the NFL in scoring defense by almost 2.5 points.

In every game, the Commanders have opposing wide receivers roaming free in the secondary, with defenders nowhere close. Washington allows multiple big plays per game and has struggled to apply pressure on opposing quarterbacks.

We took to X — formerly Twitter — to see what the fans and media were saying.

 

Commanders make roster moves after Efe Obada’s injury

Obada underwent surgery and was placed on season-ending IR. The Commanders signed some depth from the Bears practice squad.

On Sunday’s first series of Washington’s Week 11 game vs. the New York Giants, veteran defensive end Efe Obada went down with a leg injury. Players immediately knew it was, and the entire team surrounded Obada.

It was later revealed that Obada suffered a fractured leg. Head coach Ron Rivera offered an update Monday, saying Obada underwent surgery on Sunday night and was being placed on season-ending injured reserve.

According to Ben Standig of The Athletic, Obada suffered multiple lower leg fractures. Obada is not only excellent in his role, he’s one of the most beloved players on Washington’s roster.

As everyone knows, the Commanders must replace Obada’s spot on the roster. Washington was once deep at defensive end, but after the trades of Chase Young and Montez Sweat and the injuries suffered by Obada and James Smith-Williams, it was essentially Casey Toohill and a pair of rookies, Andre Jones Jr. and K.J. Henry.

Henry had an excellent game on Sunday against the Giants.

On Monday, after placing Obada on IR, the Commanders signed pass rusher Jalen Harris off the Chicago Bears practice squad.

Who is Harris?

An undrafted rookie from Arizona, the 6-foot-4, 257-pound Harris had five tackles and 1.5 sacks in the preseason for the Bears. Harris played 56 games for Arizona with 25 career starts. He finished his college career with 173 tackles, including 25.5 for loss and 13.5 sacks.

The Commanders also waived safety Troy Apke from IR.

The New Orleans Saints have the NFL’s slowest pass rush in 2023

Your eyes aren’t fooling you. The New Orleans Saints have the NFL’s slowest pass rush, taking more time to get to the quarterback than any other team:

If you’ve been watching the New Orleans Saints defense this year and found yourself muttering or shouting some variant of “That’s too much time!” when the opposing quarterback drops back to pass, you aren’t crazy. Research from Doug Analytics found that the Saints have posted the NFL’s slowed pass rush unit through the first 10 weeks of the season.

And that checks out when you look at other stats. The Saints are tied for the fifth-fewest sacks (18) going into their Week 11 bye. Their Pro Football Reference pressure rate is 19.4%, ninth-worst around the league. That’s a slight improvement over last year’s 17.5% pressure rate, which was fourth-lowest, but the big difference is that the Saints aren’t finishing pressures with sacks. They had 48 sacks a year ago. They would need to average 4.3 sacks per game through these last seven weeks to match that total.

The problem is a lack of speed along the defensive front. Cameron Jordan is still being asked to be their leading rusher off the edge when his body just doesn’t have that extra gear anymore. He’s never been known for his speed off the snap, so Jordan’s game should age well as a run defender and power rusher, but the Saints must compensate for that by getting faster at other spots. Carl Granderson has some speed element to his game and Bryan Bresee can move quickly along the interior, but those are just two of the eight players in the rotation most weeks.

Whiffing on so many early-round draft picks hurts. The Saints swung and missed on first-round defensive ends like Marcus Davenport and Payton Turner and their rookie second-round pick Isaiah Foskey has had few snaps to show what he can do. They badly need one of those guys to step up and add some athleticism to the mix. Jason Pierre-Paul could improve the group but he isn’t helping them get younger.

Interestingly, the next-slowest pass rush in this graph comes from the Washington Commanders. It’s a comprehensive look at teams from Weeks 1 through 10, so that includes edge rushers Montez Sweat and Chase Young, both of whom were dealt at the NFL trade deadline. There was an uproar from Saints fans about not acquiring one of them, but it sure looks like they wouldn’t have cured the specific problem ailing the Saints defense.

A lacking athleticism up front is the issue. The Saints are slow to get after the quarterback, slow to put hands on him, and slow to keep up with him when he rolls out of the pocket looking to throw downfield. We saw them get gashed consistently by Joshua Dobbs and Tyson Bagent in recent weeks after C.J. Stroud did it a few weeks earlier. Any quarterback who can use their legs can challenge them.

Dennis Allen is a believer in the idea that the secondary and pass rush must work in tandem. He’s built this defense so that the quarterback is forced to hold onto the ball long enough for the rush to get home. But even a secondary full of All-Pro corners will get beaten if they’re all asked to cover for four, five, or six seconds. The Saints can’t afford to stop investing resources in the pass rush unit. Hopefully one of those draft picks hits soon.

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Behind Enemy Lines: Week 11 Q&A with Commanders Wire

With a Week 11 game between the New York Giants and Washington Commanders on tap, we go behind enemy lines for a chat with Commanders Wire.

The New York Giants (2-8) and Washington Commanders (4-6) will square off on Sunday afternoon in a Week 11 matchup at FedEx Field in Landover, Maryland.

The Giants opened the week as 10-point road underdogs but that spread has softened a tiny bit since then. As of this writing, New York is +9.5.

With this matchup on tap, Giants Wire took the opportunity to hold a Q&A with Commanders Wire managing editor Bryan Manning.

Some concerning numbers for Commanders DTs Daron Payne and Jonathan Allen

The numbers don’t lie: Jonathan Allen and Daron Payne haven’t been as effective in 2023 as they were last season.

When the Washington Commanders agreed to terms with defensive tackle Daron Payne on a new four-year, $90 million contract in March, they clearly had some decisions to make.

Signing Pro Bowl defensive tackle Jonathan Allen to a four-year extension in 2021 meant the Commanders were paying a hefty price for two players in the same position group. That’s not entirely unusual, but it would mean that Washington would likely choose between one of two edge rushers, Chase Young or Montez Sweat.

The Commanders surprised everyone two weeks ago, trading Young and Sweat. After all, Washington still had Payne and Allen.

Payne had a breakout season in 2022, recording a career-high 11.5 sacks and 18 tackles for loss. His previous career-highs were five and seven, respectively. Meanwhile, Allen dominated again, going to his second consecutive Pro Bowl.

But Allen and Payne haven’t been nearly as dominant in 2023. One such stat that measures pass-rush effectiveness is ESPN’s pass-rush win rate. And those numbers don’t fare too well for Allen and Payne.

Their lack of impact is even more pronounced now with Young and Sweat gone. Head coach Ron Rivera was asked about his star defensive tackles on Wednesday.

“They have been for the most part,” Rivera said. “They’ve done the things that we’ve needed them to do up front. They’ve held the line. I mean, we’ve done a nice job keeping things inside. Their interior push has been pretty good, and they’ve been fairly consistent. They really have.”

The numbers don’t lie. Washington’s defense has underachieved and is one of the NFL’s worst. Allen and Payne have also taken a step back. For the Commanders to improve defensively over the remaining seven games, they’ll need Allen and Payne to begin making impactful plays again.

Where the Commanders are projected to pick in 2024 NFL draft after Week 10

If the season ended today, the Commanders would have three of the top 41 picks in the NFL draft.

The Washington Commanders are in store for some significant change this offseason. New owner Josh Harris and his group didn’t take over the team until July 20, leaving them no room for major changes ahead of the 2023 NFL season.

That’s expected to change after this season. Head coach Ron Rivera is 4-6 and headed for his fourth consecutive season of a .500 record or worse as Washington’s coach.

While not giving up on this season but looking ahead to the offseason, the Commanders traded edge rushers Montez Sweat and Chase Young two weeks ago. The trades gave Washington two additional day-two picks, meaning the Commanders would have five picks in the first three rounds of the 2024 NFL draft.

Speaking of the NFL draft, if the season ended today, the Commanders would pick No. 10 after Sunday’s loss to the Seahawks dropped them to 4-6, per Tankathon.

Chicago’s second-round pick is currently projected to be No. 37, while Washington’s own second-rounder is No. 41. If the current results stand, that means the Commanders would own three of the first 41 picks, meaning Washington could retool the roster or have the ammunition to move up.

The Commanders have a very winnable game in Week 11 vs. the Giants before the schedule toughens up for the remainder of the season.

Josh Allen: ‘Of course’ I keep an eye on pass rusher contracts

Josh Allen is in line for a huge pay day soon, one way or another.

Jacksonville Jaguars outside linebacker Josh Allen is on a one-way track to a massive payday, one way or another.

After racking up nine sacks in the first eight games of the season, the 25-year-old pass rusher is set to become a free agent in 2024. There’s only three ways things can get resolved in the next four months:

  1. Allen signs a massive extension with the Jaguars.
  2. The Jaguars allow Allen to reach free agency where he’d potentially be the biggest prize on the market.
  3. Allen receives the always pricy franchise tag.

Regardless of how the situation plays out, Allen is in line to follow in the footsteps of the Chicago Bears’ Montez Sweat and Green Bay Packers’ Rashan Gary, who both signed contracts last week that average more than $24 million per season.

“Of course,” Allen said Wednesday when asked if he keeps an eye on the deals other pass rushers have recently received. “You always want to see where the market is at, especially at my position. Obviously, I see where those guys get paid and say ‘OK, that’s nice.'”

But Allen also made it clear that his focus is on his play and a season that could be special for both him and the Jaguars.

“For what I want to do this year, for what I want to achieve … don’t settle,” Allen said. “If I continue to find ways to be successful, then things might come. But obviously I’ve got goals and aspirations that I want to achieve this year — hell, I want to win a Super Bowl.

“If I can continue to play at a high level — motivate, elevate everybody else around us to get to that point, let’s do it.”

Allen compares favorably to Sweat and Gary, who both trail him in sacks and pressures this year.

Through four and a half seasons, Allen has 36.5 sacks, third most in franchise history and only one behind Yannick Ngakoue for second.

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Commanders midseason awards: MVP, Rookies of the Year, Most Improved and more

As we review the first half of the season, we hand out midseason awards for the Commanders.

The 2023 NFL season is far from over, but last week was the midway point for the Washington Commanders. The Commanders improved to 4-5 after a 2-0 start, with a 20-17 win over the New England Patriots.

So, while it’s been a disappointing season overall for the Commanders, there have been bright spots. After Washington traded away starting edge rushers Montez Sweat and Chase Young last week, the Commanders were clear the remainder of this season was about quarterback Sam Howell’s development.

As disappointing as the first half of this season has been, Washington remains only one game out of the NFC’s final wild-card spot.

Since we are at the midseason point, let’s review the first half and hand out our midseason awards.