How Marshon Lattimore changes the Commanders' defensive scheme

WJFK-FM / 106.7 The Fan

Grant and Danny detail how the addition of a shutdown corner like Marshon Lattimore will allow Dan Quinn and the defense more options to scheme the defense than they have had in the first half of the season.

Transcript

00:00Think about all the different ways that the Lattimore addition, if he's healthy and on the

00:04field, he's not practicing today for the record, is going to impact this defense. We talked yesterday

00:10about the most primary and obvious, which is the ability to move all the other defenders down

00:17the depth chart. So St. Juice gets to take on twos, and then Sanristo plays his more natural

00:23position that he was actually drafted to play inside in the nickel, and Igbenagany is an extra

00:28spare part bench guy who's a fourth corner. Everyone is now playing the role that you brought

00:34them into play. The whole point when you acquired them was to play the role that they're about to,

00:39not the one that they've been playing, which was asking for a little bit more than you probably

00:44should, which is how, when you stretch guys thin, your defense underperforms a little bit.

00:48So that was the number one influence of bringing him in, but then you think about actual,

00:52you know, personnel groupings and things that they want to do in areas where they've struggled.

00:57They have had to play two high safeties, like cover two type looks, constantly,

01:03because they don't really trust their cornerbacks. They also have played light boxes at a pretty

01:09startling rate. I mean, more than almost every team in the league, one of the higher

01:13light box rates in football, six or fewer, for Washington. Why is that? Well, I think it's a

01:19big, big tell that they don't trust their corners, that they have extra safety deep,

01:25that they've got a lot of either zone or guys dropping and basically trying to flood the

01:30secondary to try to eat up more space, because they can't just put guys out on an island and

01:34let them run and cover in man. So what happens when you have a light five, six man box is,

01:40you're going to give up a lot on the run, right? You're going to give up the running game. And

01:44they have over and over and over again. We've talked about it. They're one of the worst defensive

01:48teams against the run statistically this season. It's been their biggest bugaboo. So even though

01:52it's not direct, a lot of more now allows you to probably play more single high safety looks,

01:58which means Jeremy chin comes down in the box, which means you can, um, I think probably even

02:05expect to play more loaded boxes, even if you're playing two high safeties, because rather than

02:10having to help St. Just and Ibn Agni or, and Sandra still, if they want to until proven,

02:17otherwise they might just go into a game saying, we'll put a lot of more over there.

02:21You cover that guy. We're not worrying about you. And it's almost like spacing and basketball

02:25Danny, where you stand over there and shoot your shots. And now like a penalty kill,

02:30like we're going to go four on four over here. You know what I'm saying? And I think that's part

02:34of the plan here. So it's not just going to make their secondary better. That's obvious. I think

02:37it's a sharp point. It might actually make their run game better, even though they didn't add a

02:40defensive tack. I'm fully convinced of that. Again, the best case is to obviously have a

02:43world-leading defensive tackle. I don't know if that guy was available. This is the next best

02:47case that allows you to deploy your 11 players differently and maybe more efficiently. You can

02:52guess right now. I mean, the way I thought of it previously, and we talked about this a bunch

02:56going more into it now over the first nine games, they've been just good enough to go. Okay. We can

03:02try to take one thing away at a time and against good offenses. You see the result, the Baltimore

03:07game is the microcosm of this in the first half. It's not going to be Derek Henry. Henry will not

03:12beat us. So heavy boxes stuff, the run day flowers, a million for a million. Okay, fine.

03:18We'll take that away. Derek Henry, second half ripped off a bunch of big runs in general. They

03:23did okay. But for the most, you know, you knew it was inevitable that he was going to run through

03:26you. So this now gives you a chance to say, we can bet that we can take something away.

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