The Washington Commanders just suffered what is easily their worst loss of the year and team captain/Pro Bowl defensive lineman Jonathan Allen is not happy with the final result, at all.
“We just played like s---," Allen told reporters after the game. "We are not a good defense, right now. We gotta own that. We gotta take that and we gotta be better. That’s what’s causing us to lose games right now. Defensively, we just were not executing. We gotta be better.“
He couldn't be more right, actually. The defense allowed the Chicago Bears offense to rack up over 300 yards of total offense and 27 points in the first half, alone. The Bears also converted 66.9% of their third down attempts and as we all know, D.J. Moore went off to the tune of five receptions for 137-yards and two touchdowns over the first 30 minutes of play.
Before it was all said and done, the Bears hung a season-worst (for Washington's defense) 40 points and racked up 451 total net yards on the night.
"We just got to own it man," said Allen. "We gotta take it one step at a time, we’re not gonna fix every single problem at once. We’re gonna look at this film and we’re gonna move on. I think every single player on this defense needs to take a good hard look at themselves and see what they gotta do to improve...
"... “Everybody is talented in the NFL. It doesn’t matter how talented you are, it’s about how well you play together on any given Sunday. We just gotta play better."
Washington's defense has been an issue for basically the whole year. This is the fourth straight game in which the unit has allowed more than 30 points, the fourth straight game where the opposing team has ran for 100+ yards, and the secondary has given up a 5:1 touchdown-to-interception ratio over the last four games.
The only respectable performance of the entire season came in Week 1 against the lowly Arizona Cardinals.
"We started out slow as s---. We've just got to start faster," Commanders defensive lineman Montez Sweat told reporters. "... Everybody is not doing their job. We've just got to play as one."
Things got so bad in particular that rookie cornerback Emmanuel Forbes, the Commanders' first-round pick in the 2023 NFL Draft, was benched. He had a really bad game against the Philadelphia Eagles, too, so it was clear Ron Rivera and co. had seen enough.
“The thought process was he was struggling and we were hoping that he would bounce back from last week," head coach Ron Rivera told reporters. "We just felt at that point it was time to make a move.”
Either way, Allen's right: Everyone on the defense needs to really take a look in the mirror and figure this out. Because this season is lost if the defense continues to play like this.
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