Redskins might have Legitimate Concerns in the Secondary

This will be my final post (save for a quick Hog Hits post-game) on Hog Heaven prior to my massive season preview post on Monday Morning. Not to give anything away, but let's just say if this post has a slightly negative slant, Monday's will more than make up for it.The Redskins' weakness as a team might not have anything to do with the offense. The offensive line looks just fine. Everyone on both sides of the ball remains on pace to play in week one. When you compare that to the Giants and the Eagles, you have to like what's been happening thus far. Malcolm Kelly appears to have a slight edge in the No. 2 WR battle, and if he can win it, it would put Randle El in the slot in the primary 3 WR sets. Cooley and Campbell remain constants in the offense, as well as Portis and Sellers. The offense might not be a dynamic downfield passing attack, and it might never be. But it enters the third preseason game with zero gaping holes. If only we could say the same for the defense.The manta for improving the defense in the offseason was: pressure, pressure, pressure. The Redskins have not failed. They replaced Kedric Golston in the starting lineup with Albert Haynesworth, Demetric Evans with Phillip Daniels, and Marcus Washington/Jason Taylor with Brian Orakpo. Golston to Haynesworth might be the biggest overall upgrade, but the reason that the pass rush has been so smothering in the preseason is almost completely about Brian Orakpo.At this point, he appears to be an irreplaceable part in this defense: the 3-4 rush linebacker in a 4-3 scheme. Losing Orakpo would hurt every bit as much as if the Cowboys lost DeMarcus Ware or if the Chargers lost Shawne Merriman again. Sure, he's not as established, and there's no guarantee he will ever reach that level, but he's the only hope for an above average pressure unit that the Redskins have. Haynesworth and Carter would make a fine tandem, but the results would be average overall. The pass rush has absolutely done it's job.And yet, the Redskins defense has been unable to stop anybody. Two years ago, Joe Gibbs blew smoke up our collective asses when he remarked that improving the secondary might also improve the pass rush. Of course, we all know that improving the secondary simply improves the secondary. And that makes you a better defense. But it doesn't have anything to do with the pass rush.Well, at the end of last year (last 5 games or so), the Redskins' pass coverage units collapsed. Certainly, lack of sacks were a factor in the collapse--and two TD passes against the normally reliable Carlos Rogers didn't help--but the Redskins at one point in the season were doing well at pass defense, and the sacks weren't concentrated in one part of the year, particularly. No, the Redskins pass defense failed due to it's coverage units, and the Redskins didn't really fix the problem in the offseason.You may remember that back in 2007, I wrote a piece about the secret to the elite passing defense is that they prevented any sort of downfield passing ability by the opponent. That effect pittered out after the injury and unrelated passing of Sean Taylor, but Redskins fans could have hope that LaRon Landry could at least bring some of the intimidation factor back to this defense with regards to the deep pass. Alas, not exactly.To try to narrow down the problem, I went back and looked at every passing play that went for more than 20 yards against the Redskins defense in the second half of the year, or after the Hall signing. It's a convenient place to start, but as it turns out, neither Hall nor Rogers is a primary culprit. That bodes well for this season.There were 19 different instances of a passing play netting 20 or more yards against the Redskins in just the last 7 games alone, according to the Football Outsiders game charting data. Here's the breakdown:H.B. Blades vs. Jason Witten, 28 yards (5 rushers)Carlos Rogers vs. Terrell Owens, 25 yards (5 rushers)Chris Horton vs. Martellus Bennett, 25 yards TD (4 rushers)Shawn Springs vs. Bobby Engram, 21 yards (4 rushers)Fred Smoot vs. Amani Toomer, 40 yards (5 rushers)Kevin Boss uncovered vs. all out blitz, 24 yards (7 rushers)Derrick Ward slot screen, 48 yards (4 rushers)Derrick Mason hole in zone, 26 yards (4 rushers) [Horton credited with tackle]H.B. Blades vs. Todd Heap, 30 yards (5 rushers)Todd Heap on trick play (TE falldown), 24 yards (5 rushers) [D. Hall credited with tackle]Carlos Rogers vs. Derrick Mason, 28 yards (8 rushers [!] [why?!])DeAngelo Hall vs. Chad OchoJohnson, 23 yards (4 rushers)Cedric Benson RB screen, 79 yards (4 rushers) [Rogers credited with tackle]Shawn Springs vs. Chris Henry, 22 yards (4 rushers)Lorenzo Alexander vs. Brian Westbrook...47 yards (3 rushers)Chris Horton vs. Billy Bajema, 29 yards (5 rushers)Rocky McIntosh vs. Michael Robinson, 24 yards (5 rushers)Fred Smoot vs. Josh Morgan, 26 yards (4 rushers)Shawn Springs vs. Bryant Johnson, 24 yards (6 rushers) I added the number of rushers to put into some context the coverage. In 6+ rusher situations, the Redskins are always man-to-man across the board, sometimes with a deep safety, but always man. In 4-5 rusher situations, they could be playing either.It's worth mentioning that the Redskins recorded neither a hit or a hurry on any of these plays. That doesn't tell us very much, since you'd expect the average pass that was completed for 20+ yards to be done in favorable LOS conditions. Even if the Redskins increased their hits and hurries on the QB, there's no reason to expect this trend to be any different.We can draw a few conclusions for this. Neither DeAngelo Hall nor Carlos Rogers really had a hand in the downfall. Rogers was beaten once by Owens, Hall once by Ocho Cinco, and it's hard to blame Rogers for the Mason TD when an 8 man blitz gives the quarterback enough time to let his receiver execute a double move. Then you have a bunch of "their scheme is better than our scheme" big plays, and two well executed screens that are a knock on the reads of the front seven.Once you eliminate all the noise, you are left with a handful of big plays against Smoot, a handful of big plays against Shawn Springs, and a few bad reads/missed coverages by Chris Horton. Smoot and Horton return this year, and it's hard to imagine a rookie Kevin Barnes being any better than Springs was last year as a rookie. Considering that Greg Blache is just as likely to draw up some bizarre defensive schemes this year as he was last year, the Redskins propensity to give up the big play is unchanged from the end of last season, when they were doing so about three times a game.There will be a balance on the other side: sacks and forced fumbles that create the big play. Last year, big plays against the defense were a one way street. This year, the big plays figure to be more even. That's the fruits of a largely successful defensive rebuilding plan. But, if in the end, the overall defense doesn't live up to it's lofty expectations, a weakened secondary and questionable defensive gameplan will be the likely culprits. With Fred Smoot scheduled to play more this year while Barnes and Tryon learn the ropes, the Redskins will always feature easy man-to-man match-ups for quarterbacks just hoping for an easy completion.Truth is, it's still hard to beat this team deep as in over-the-top of the safeties. Credit LaRon Landry. If we extend the baseline to 30 yards for a big play, the Redskins averaged only one per two games over the second half "collapse" which is not at all a bad figure. But as long as the Redskins remain incredibly beatable in the 20-30 yard range, this will not be a top five or a top ten defense. Improvement in this area over the next two weeks is paramount, or Eli Manning will pick this group apart.