For Foes, a Redskins Flaw Exposed

By Howard Bryant
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 5, 2006

Two quarters into his first game as a Washington Redskin, safety Troy Vincent is optimistic. His new team leads the unbeaten Indianapolis Colts, 14-13, and he sees an even more encouraging sign: Despite a penchant for giving up big plays this season, the Redskins have surrendered just one long pass to Peyton Manning, the most dangerous quarterback in the league.

In the locker room at halftime, Vincent tells his fellow defensive backs that they can steal this game. If they can just keep the pressure on and not allow big passing plays in the second half, they can beat the heavily favored Colts on their home field.

But with 8 minutes 18 seconds remaining in the third quarter, any hope of victory disappears. Manning, tight end Dallas Clark and running back Joseph Addai line up at midfield. Clark runs a pass pattern up the middle of the field, past Redskins linebacker Khary Campbell. Safety Adam Archuleta notices and takes a fatal step in to help cover Clark. Manning catches Archuleta cheating and throws deep to the spot he has just vacated to an open Reggie Wayne running a post corner, the exact route that all season long has been open against the Redskins defense when the safety is caught too shallow.

The 51-yard touchdown play devastates Washington. By taking that single step inward toward Clark, Archuleta has sacrificed the battle to try to win the war -- and lost on both fronts. The Colts lead, 27-14, and the game is gone.

For days afterward, Redskins safeties coach Steve Jackson was sick about the play. "I can't talk about that play," Jackson said. Although he was unwilling to talk about the particulars of that play, he offered his basic philosophy on playing the position: "All I can say is that when you play safety, you play deep to short. Deep to short. Nothing over your head."

In the days between the Indianapolis loss and today's NFC East matchup with the Dallas Cowboys at FedEx Field, the Redskins coaching staff painstakingly reviewed tape from the team's first seven games. In all, they dissected 79 series and 436 total plays from scrimmage over seven games.

What assistant head coach-defense Gregg Williams and his staff found is disturbing to them. A season-long problem has not gone away: opposing offenses are relentlessly attacking the middle seams of Washington's two primary-zone pass defenses. More than half of the big pass plays the Redskins have surrendered have been to the same fertile patch between the hash marks downfield, between the safeties and cornerbacks. Teams use the same trigger -- usually a play-action fake -- to the same receivers, either a tight end or slot receiver. The receiver runs a post corner, cutting into the seam of the zone, while the tight end streaks down the middle of the field.

Offenses are using the Redskins' aggressiveness -- that of Archuleta especially -- against them by employing the play-action fakes, according to multiple league sources that study Washington's defensive tendencies. Known throughout the league as a feared hitter, offenses also have found success attacking safety Sean Taylor -- not in the running game, where he is a force, but increasingly by testing his pass-coverage skills.

Sources inside and outside the Redskins organization say these vulnerabilities have been apparent since the preseason. Yet, neither the Redskins players nor coaches have been able to do anything about it.

The coaches say stopping this play should not be difficult. Both the Cover-2 zone (the two safeties split the deep part of the field, providing cover to the two cornerbacks to discourage long passes) and the 3-2-6 zone (a formation that uses three down linemen, two linebackers and six defensive backs) are common among NFL defenses. In recent years the Redskins have used both better than most.

But getting them to work this season has proven complicated. Williams and his staff say they have explained what needs to be done, showed it to the players on film and, week after week, been satisfied by the adjustments in practice. "You have to practice it Wednesday. You have to practice it Thursday and Friday," cornerbacks coach Jerry Gray said. "And hopefully it sinks in to where Sunday, you say the stuff that I've seen on film and practice will come back to me."

So far this season, the results on Sundays have disappointed. Being attacked weekly in the same location is vexing a coaching staff that believes it has taught all it can teach. It is forcing Washington's coaches to come to another conclusion: Perhaps they do not have as talented a defensive secondary as they once thought.

"None of this is new to us," Gray said. "Good players don't keep giving up the same play the same way and expect a good result."

'A Copycat League'

Statistically, Washington's deficiencies are evident. The Redskins are ranked 26th in total defense and 30th against the pass. No team has given up more pass plays of more than 40 yards, and only Green Bay's surrender of 32 pass plays greater than 20 yards exceeds the Redskins' 30.

Jimmy Johnson, the former Dallas coach who is now an analyst for Fox, is surprised the Redskins' defense has been so vulnerable for so long. "You have to re-route that slot receiver, where he doesn't have a clean release," Johnson said. "If you don't, I don't care who is back there, the safeties can't cover that much ground. Something will be open."

Of those 30 pass plays of more than 20 yards, 16 have been completed to the vulnerable seam inside the hash marks against Cover-2 or the dime 3-2-6. It was precisely the spot Wayne exploited and one of the reasons Vincent was brought in from Buffalo two weeks ago.

"You get paid to cover in the National Football League. There are certain safeties who play in the box or certain corners that are supposedly physical corners. At the end of the day, when you keep the big ball off of you, you stay in the National Football League," Vincent said. "When I can keep that big ball off of me, I keep the zebra stripes from putting up the touchdown sign, and I give my team another chance to line up again."

One league source suggested looking back to Aug. 26, in the third preseason game, when New England quarterback Tom Brady threw for 231 yards in just under two and a half quarters in a 41-0 demolition of the Redskins. It was in that game, the source said, that the middle seam was first exposed. Patriots tight end Ben Watson and slot receiver Troy Brown combined for 12 receptions and 161 yards, gouging the Redskins' middle for plays of 35 and 36 yards, respectively. The Patriots riddled the Redskins with the post corner route.

Afterward, Williams called it "stupid" to assume a preseason game contained any real significance. But on a night when the score didn't count, Brady found a weakness in the Redskins' defense that's been exploited ever since, according to league sources.

Williams on Thursday said he was confident that he had explained the problem to the Redskins secondary. Williams intimated that perhaps his players simply aren't good enough in certain situations.

"It never is any one thing or any one person. And sometimes we miss a tackle here, or there's been a personnel mismatch where a guy is just a better player at the point of attack," he said. "We've got to minimize those blows and it happens with technique. It happens with our personnel being better, but until you take it away, until you make a team pay, they're going to continue to do that. It's a copycat league."

Struggling for a Fix

During the bye week, the Redskins defensive coaches used PowerPoint presentations and gave players DVDs of game film to study to help fix the problem. The players were able to watch the film of Brady in the preseason game against New England, and, in this copycat league, each opponent that followed.

On opening day the Minnesota Vikings beat the 3-2-6 and the Cover-2, both on key on third-and-9 plays, both at the hash marks, for 22 and 29 yards, respectively.

A week later against Dallas, the Cowboys beat the Cover-2 when, like Archuleta on the Wayne touchdown, Taylor followed tight end Jason Witten underneath, leaving wide receiver Terry Glenn deep and alone in the seam against cornerback Kenny Wright. Wright was called for pass interference and Dallas later scored a touchdown.

On the winning drive that ended with Glenn running the post corner from the slot to beat the seam for the second time in the game -- this time for a touchdown -- Cowboys running back Marion Barber beat the 3-2-6 when Redskins linebackers Lemar Marshall and Marcus Washington were blocked into one another, turning a four-yard pass into a 26-yard gain. On the following play, Glenn's big score flattened the Redskins.

"Those are easy plays," Gray said. "Our players are in position to make those plays, and we just have to get them. Play to the design of the defense and take it away. And when we do, you'll see."

Washington beat Houston, 31-15, on Sept. 24, but three and a half minutes into the game, the tape revealed how Texans wide receiver Andre Johnson copied Glenn by moving into the slot and catching a 53-yard post corner. Archuleta opened the play by falling for a play-action fake.

In the 36-30 Redskins win over Jacksonville, the Jaguars burned the 3-2-6 twice for touchdowns of 33 and 51 yards, the former coming when, just asin the Dallas game, Marshall missed wide receiver Reggie Williams over the middle and a four-yard pass turned into a 33-yard touchdown.

In the loss to the Giants, quarterback Eli Manning used play action with running back Tiki Barber to free slot receiver Plaxico Burress, who beat Taylor inside the hash marks for 46 yards.

In the Redskins' worst game to date, rookie Tennessee quarterback Vince Young exploited the seam in Washington's 25-22 home loss. Two minutes in, slot receiver Bobby Wade beat Taylor along the seam in coverage. Young used the seam to his advantage for three 20-yard plays on the afternoon, the biggest coming on a fourth-and-two 23-yard pass to wide receiver Brandon Jones.

On four major plays, the Colts used a similar formation, with a similar trigger -- play action -- and the Redskins fell for it every time.

"When you're getting beaten the same way every time, the best thing to do is get new players," Johnson said. "But you can't do that midway through the season in the NFL, so you have to disguise the coverage, to make them think one thing when they're getting another."