The Commanders keep investing draft picks in the secondary and they are still bad, even after a coaching change saw the defensive coordinator and secondary coach get fired…and the unit somehow perform even WORSE on Sunday.
After seeing that, BMitch & Finlay could only ask one question on Monday: What gives?
“They spent their first two draft picks on the secondary and the goal was to stop giving up the explosive plays and, and to generate more turnovers, and that has largely failed,” JP Finlay said.
As Brian and JP were trying to find anything positive to highlight from the Commanders’ 45-15 loss, and Brian’s thought of “sometimes there's games you finish and you just let it go, and yesterday is one of those games” was not a glowing endorsement – and yeah, the secondary’s performance is absolutely a flusher.
“I mean, it’s not fair to Quan Martin that he's lined up in man on the outside with Tyreek Hill; something went wrong for that to happen, but Quan has no chance there,” BMitch said.
Brian guessed that the Dolphins would say they knew exactly what defense the Commanders were playing on that play, and JP relayed Chris Simms thoughts on that from Sunday Night Football pregame.
“We watch our defensive backs play off the ball, and when I ask (Santana Moss) how he’ll play that, I hear, ‘I’m gonna embarrass them all day, because you don’t change my route or slow me down, so how the hell you think you’re stop me?’” Brian said. “I watched Sneed when the Chiefs played Miami in Germany, and he was lined up on Tyreek and was punching him in the chest with both of his hands jamming him every play, and grabbed a little shirt to keep him in front of him – and Tua would immediately leave away from him. We didn’t do any of that to throw off the timing.”
The Commanders didn’t do much of anything to cover Hill, it seems, and if not for a bad pass from Tua Tagovailoa where Tyreek slipped, he might’ve had 200 yards and three tuddies.
“There was not a Commanders near there, and if he catches that ball, he is now all for a foot race with one guy way out on the edge deep,” BMitch said.
Not great, and even the “good stops” saw dropped balls that could’ve been big gains, so it could have been closer to the 70-20 we saw against Denver – and JP punctuated that by laying out the drive chart results for both teams.
“The list of things that need fixing is so significant,” was all JP could say.
More picks in the secondary next year?