With zero sacks on the season, Washington defensive end Chase Young clearly is getting the production fans would hope to see out of the former second overall pick.
Ron Rivera spoke at length about his second-year defender's early struggles in the 2021 season on Tuesday, affirming that it's not for a lack of trying on Young's part, but stressing that Young needs to work to develop more counter moves as he's rushing the quarterback.
"What I'm seeing is a young man that's trying very, very hard," Washington's head coach said during The Ron Rivera Show, which airs Tuesday mornings on 106.7 The Fan, presented by F.H. Furr.
"And I think sometimes trying to live up to other people's expectations is not a good thing," Rivera told The Sports Junkies. "What he has to do is live up to what he expects of himself and then sit down and evaluate."
Addressing the notion that it appears Young is often seen flying past the quarterback, overshooting his target, Rivera said, "He's got tremendous skill sets, and the thing he has to do is focus on one at a time, one at a time. When I watch him and he does go flying by the quarterback, there's a couple things that go through my mind, is where's my inside push? And, young man, you have to counter. You have to understand I'm at the level, come back underneath."
"So there's a lot of things that are at play that he has to learn and continue to develop and grow," he said. "And again, it is a work in progress."
Noting that Young dominated both in the high school ranks, locally here at DeMatha, and in college at Ohio State, Junkies host Eric Bickel asked Rivera if assessing Young's struggles is as simple as saying he didn't previously have to work to develop a wider variety of moves, and perhaps that's left him playing catch-up now at the pro level.
"Maybe he hasn't quite developed the arsenal in his toolbox that you need at the pro level," Bickel said. "Is that a fair criticism?"
"I wouldn't call it a criticism," Rivera said. "I would just call it an evaluation, that the thing we'd like to see him do is to continue to develop and grow what his counter moves are, what his toolbox is."
Asked what Young's current counter moves are and if that includes a spin move, for example, Rivera said, "That's exactly what it is. I mean there is spin move. There is an up-and-under. There is a hump move. There's a lot of things he can do. There's an inside move right off the bat where he takes first step and then works back outside."
"I mean there's a lot of things that he has to develop," he said, "but the biggest thing he has to do in evaluating is use that ability he has, that explosiveness off the ball. And just getting him to understand that is hard, because he has so much talent."
"One thing you've gotta be careful, too, now, is if you give him too many things to consider and worry about, think about before pre-snap," Rivera warned, "then he doesn't have that explosiveness because he's thinking. We want him to continue to grow and develop and to learn to feel the counters."
Rivera was asked if Young only has one move that he's currently employing.
"No. Again, I think he might be thinking a little bit too much at times," Rivera said. "I guess PFF put out some stats that showed he was our second leading guy in pressures, and when you break it down and you look at these things that happen specifically, you see some things that tell you he's half a step away, he's a little bit more help from inside push that would have created some things. Twice he had opportunities to get the quarterback and, both times, he literally got ripped off the guy by the blocker. He's there, he's just got to finish it up and just keep working. It's gonna happen. And again, it'll happen when everything comes together."
On the other side of the defensive line, Montez Sweat has been marginally more effective with two sacks and four QB hits thus far through three games, but he too isn't getting the push that many hoped to see, now in his third season removed from being a first-round pick. Rivera was asked what he's seeing from Sweat.
"Well, we're seeing the same thing," Rivera said. "Again, a young guy who's working, learning and trying to develop his arsenal. One thing you see from Montez is you do see him trying to work those inside moves a little bit more."
As a whole, Washington's defense, one of the best in the NFL last season, has fallen well short of expectations, serving more as a team weakness than an anticipated strength. "Did you think we overrated," Bickel asked. "Did you know that this defense still had some work?"
"Guys, I talk about maturity. That's all part of the maturity," Rivera said. "This team is a work in progress. By no means did we arrive after last season and that's the thing we all have to understand. We're not gonna show up and be who we were last year, okay. What we have to do is we have to continue to work, we have to continue to grow."
"We've got to understand that we have to play disciplined football," he said. "If after watching tape yesterday as a team, and our players haven't gotten it, we've got a lot of work to do. I would like to believe that yesterday's tape, getting the opportunity to review how bad we played as a team and coaches, as a group, then there's something wrong. And that'll disappoint me even more. I believe this was a good message for us, it's a good opportunity to learn and grow from it, and if we can get it... if we don't, that's on my ass. That's on me. I'm the head coach. And I'll be responsible to that."
