Washington Redskins Should Use Safeties To Help Linebackers in Coverage

It is finally the month of August — “go time” if you’re a hardcore fan of football. There will not be a week without football until after the Super Bowl. To quote the great story teller of modern time, Kevin Hart, “it’s about to  go down!”

The Washington Redskins have officially been in training camp for a week. Unfortunately, they have already lost some key pieces to their defense. Off-season injuries often make or break a football team. And Washington’s front 7 took a pretty hard hit early in camp — defensive end Adam Carriker had surgery on his right quadriceps tendon and is expected to take four or five months to recover. Ideally, the team could get Carriker back in time for a late season playoff push, which is why they’re currently weighing their options. They have not ruled him out for the season.

“They say it’s anywhere from four to five months recovery time,” coach Mike Shanahan reported. “They said the surgery went well. He was very optimistic. And now we will just keep our fingers crossed that hope his rehab goes well and he’ll be ready to play… You know there is always a chance for it to happen before, I just don’t know. But according to the doctors, the surgery was something that he needed and went as well as they could have possibly hoped for, so that’s always a good sign.”

At the time, this wouldn’t have necessarily been a major loss for the Washington Redskins because they could lean on third year Defensive End Jarvis Jenkins. However, on July 26, we surprisingly received a press release saying — “Jarvis Jenkins of the Washington Redskins has been suspended without pay for the first four games of the 2013 regular season for violating the NFL policy on performance enhancing substances.” Jenkins can participate in all off-season and preseason practices and games. However, he will not be eligible to return to the Washington Redskins’ active roster until Monday, September 30 following the team’s September 29 game against the Oakland Raiders.

“Any time a person has a suspension, it’s always a tough blow for your football team,” said Mike Shanahan. “Hopefully our players will learn that without the label of NSF, you can’t take any supplements because you never know what’s going to be in those supplements. So we’ll pay the price for it. He’ll be suspended for four games and hopefully our players will learn from it.”

The Washington Redskins are tied for top in NFL PED suspensions since 2011 with eight. The other team being Washington’s post season rival, the Seattle Seahawks.

Losing Jarvis Jenkins is significant, but not necessarily too major because he’ll only be suspended for the first month of football. It also works out well for him, because he’ll have an extra week to prepare for his first regular season game in week 6. Washington has a bye the week of September 30.

For now, it will essentially be a “next man up” mentality at the 5 tech (3-4 defensive end) position. Nose Tackle Chris Baker started camp playing the position, but it will take some time for him to fully grasp it.

Mike Shanahan believes there is enough depth at the defensive end position. “We’re going to have some guys that are going to have to step up and play well, take advantage of this opportunity,” said Mike Shanahan. “I always look at it like a guy gets hurt in the last preseason game. He’s out. There’s nothing you can do about it, so you go on and have these guys step up and take advantage of it.”

I think the Redskins will be fine at defensive end. Their biggest loss, in my opinion, is 2nd year linebacker Keenan Robinson who had a freak injury the first day of camp. Robinson tore his left pectoral muscle and will be out for the season. This after returning from a season ending right torn pectoral muscle he suffered during the 2012 season. Robinson is highly recognized as London Fletcher’s eventual replacement. Not only was he the top candidate to replace London in the near future, he could have received major playtime in 2013 by replacing Fletcher occasionally on passing downs. Robinson probably has the best range out of all the Redskins’ linebackers.

One of Washington’s biggest weaknesses on defense was defending tight ends. Many teams are making tight ends a key piece to their offensive puzzle. And being able to defend it is really important for defenses. Often times in a 3-4 alignment, the responsibility to cover tight ends goes to the inside linebackers or safeties. Jack linebacker, Perry Riley continues to improve in pass coverage. However, the aging London Fletcher was a liability in coverage last season. Hence the thoughts of Keenan Robinson occasionally replacing him on pass downs. Now that the option of Robinson playing in nickel packages is out the window, the picture is just not clear as to which player could help fill that void.

The team did sign linebacker Nick Barnett, who could help. However, he’s not an ideal candidate to play on passing downs. He’s scheme diverse, having played in both a 3-4 defense with the Green Bay Packers and 4-3 with the Buffalo Bills. For his career, Barnett has started all 139 games in which he as appeared, compiling 1,026 tackles (722 solo), 42 passes defensed, 20.5 sacks, 12 interceptions (two returned for touchdowns), six fumbles forced and seven fumbles recovered. He started all 32 of Buffalo’s games in the last two seasons, including the 2011 season in which he tied his career high with three interceptions. It is not a bad signing, but after watching some of his tape from last season, he was also a liability in coverage with the Bills.

What the Washington Redskins should do is take advantage of their new found young depth and talent at the safety positions. One way of doing this is using three safety sets. It is a copy cat league and more teams have considered occasionally using three safety sets when out of base defense. In 2010, New York Giants’ defensive coordinator Perry Fewell decided to occasionally deploy three safety sets to get his best athletes on the field. The New York Times had a nice graphic displaying the concept that year, which you can view next to this paragraph.

The usage of three safeties is essentially a 4-2-5 defensive look. And I stress look, because there are numerous things you can do or disguise it to really be. The Washington Redskins are a base 3-4 defense, meaning three defensive linemen and four linebackers. They could go to a four man front look with two linebackers, but could really still have four linebackers on the field — if Brian Orakpo and Ryan Kerrigan are included in that four man front. You’d have two inside linebackers and five defensive backs, which can be a mix of safeties and cornerbacks, but in this case three safeties. It’s not really about the alignment, but more so personnel. The Redskins could add an extra safety to help stop receiving tight ends. With the loss of Keenan Robinson, planning to stop tight ends could end up being the biggest task for Washington’s defense.

Washington did a great job infusing talent in the secondary this off-season. With new rookie safeties Bacarri Rambo and Phillip Thomas, not to mention a healthy Brandon Meriweather — you could see the Redskins eventually using three safety sets. Phillip Thomas is capable of covering tight ends and he’s receiving a major test in training camp against a pretty good one in Fred Davis. But he is also young and it may or may not take him some time to simply know where to be in coverage. It sounds easy, but it is a tough task for young safeties. The veteran and savvy Reed Doughty could help. With Bacarri Rambo holding down the free safety position so far in camp, Doughty could also help underneath in coverage. That’s where he typically shines.

The Washington Redskins could be tested early in the season with games against the Philadelphia Eagles and Green Bay Packers. Both teams could spread the field, use misdirection and throw to tight ends.

I think more teams will start occasionally using three safety coverage to help stop teams that spread the field. The Houston Texans and Buffalo Bills are two teams that will apparently use this look. It is basically a speed package with glorified linebackers down-field. The weakness of deploying that look is of course a power run game. But it would not be a base defense and it wouldn’t even be a base nickel defense. It is simply a package they could use to help  cover tight ends.

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