Why No Defensive Line Drafts?

[fleetus]

Just wondering why we did not draft any Pass Rusher Prospects? I am glad to see the WR's but do not understand 2 Safeties and no Pass Rushers. Anyone have any ideas?

A lot of things have me The only way this draft makes sense to me is if there are some trades in the works, or we plan to play a lot of 4 WR 2 TE formations this yr. If not, we used 2 2nd rnd picks on situational players who are unlikely to start for many yrs, if ever.

At first I thought that taking 2 receivers was excessive, but I think it makes a lot of sense. ARE tries hard and all, but he's not much of a receiver. Hopefully both Thomas and Kelly can pass him on the depth chart sometime this season. The tight end pick is a bit of a head scratcher and a defensive lineman probably would've been a better pick, but Davis is a stud and at least this gives JC some weapons. It's the 2nd day picks that don't make much sense to me.

It really baffles me why so many people are hard on ARE, but defend Pete Kendall. ARE defiantely had a better season last year than Kendall, but people just want to talk bad about ARE!

Was ARE great? No! but he was good (solid at worst), while Kendall was solid at best.

The guy everyone should be hoping is good enough to start, is Rinehart!

We can all hope that, but the chances are zip. I sniff some trades on the way. Either that, or we're going to throw 80% of the time.

You guys can't see the forest for the trees. Over and over it is about DE, DE, we need a DE. Our defense was ranked 8th last year!. Our offense needed much more improvement.

Would it be nice to get a pass rushing DE? Sure! But the NFL doesn't hand you whatever players you ask for. Did you guys actually watch ANY of the draft? DE's got taken WAY too early by several teams. The Skins, very smartly, did not reach for players, they drafted the best players available. Who would YOU have picked at #34? Would you have passed on the highest rated WR (Thomas) for a DE? Name him. How about #48, what great pass-rushing monster was available then? Give me a name?

You can cry about DE all day long, but the bottom line is, Jacksonville reached way too high at #9 to get harvey and that started all the other teams reaching too high for DL's like Lawrence Jackson, Calais Campbell etc.

We had a good draft and our defense is fine. June 1st is still around the corner.

[fleetus]

NFL Network analyst Charley Casserly, the former Redskins general manager, also praised the Redskins' draft day decisions.

"Most people had [Thomas] rated as the number one receiver, but not a lot of people were sold on him on first round value," Casserly said. "So [the Redskins] get him in the second round. That's good.

"Then they get Malcolm Kelly with another second-round pick, a guy they had a first-round grade. He's a big-sized receiver--those are the kind of guys that Jim Zorn likes to throw to. So they helped their head coach.

"In between that, they took Fred Davis. Why do you take Fred Davis? Well, he was the highest-rated player on the board. Sometimes you pass a player for a need.

"People were probably saying, 'Why didn't you take [Calais] Campbell, the defensive end from Miami?' You know what? I don't think Campbell is a fit for the 4-3 defense. I think he fits a 3-4 defense. So it's a good move.

"Then people say, 'You take Fred Davis, he's never going to play.' The Redskins took LaRon Landry last year. Why did they take him? He was the best player available. Now we're not wishing anything bad on Chris ey, but they have depth there now and they give Jim Zorn opportunities to move [tight ends] around.

[CanesSkins26]

You guys can't see the forest for the trees. Over and over it is about DE, DE, we need a DE. Our defense was ranked 8th last year!. Our offense needed much more improvement.

Our defense was ranked 8th because of our ability to stop the run. Our pass defense was ranked 16th in the NFL, we ranked 26th in interceptions, and 16th in sacks. Only one playoff team had fewer sacks than we did last season. Most of this was a result of our lacking pass rush and absolutely nothing was done during the off-season to improve upon this area. Add in our complete lack of depth in our front 7 and our injury concerns, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if our defense takes a step back this season and the offense becomes out strongest area.

[yupchagee]

It appears they were trying to get d-line guys, but the players they were targeting were snatched up before we were able to get them.

Prior to the NFL Draft, Redskins team officials had identified defensive line as a need position.

With Phillip Daniels turning 35, it was thought that the team needed to infuse some more youth at the position.

To everyone's surprise, the Redskins came out of the draft with just one defensive lineman: Rob Jackson of Kansas State in the seventh round.

So what happened?

Turns out the Redskins tried several times to draft a defensive lineman, but the player they had targeted was snatched up right before they picked.

"There were two occasions where, right before we picked, a [defensive lineman] we earmarked went right off the board," head coach Jim Zorn said. "So we had to go to our next choice. That is the way it is in the draft. There are 31 other teams picking. It's a situation that no one can predict."

Zorn was asked if there was any disappointment about losing out on the defensive linemen they had targeted.

"Not disappointed, because that really is the way the draft went for us," he replied.

Executive vice president of football operations Vinny Cerrato said the team would sign two undrafted free agent defensive ends this week.

Marcus Washington (Don Wright Photo)
Cerrato has said the team likes the combination of Andre Carter at right defensive end and Phillip Daniels, Marcus Washington and Chris Wilson rotating at left defensive end.

Carter had 10.5 sacks last season. Washington and Wilson replaced Daniels on third downs and combined for nine sacks.

It appears that rotation at left defensive end will return in 2008.

"With defensive line, the thing about it is, you have to get them early," Cerrato said. "When we got to the fifth and sixth rounds, you look and say, 'All right, does that guy have a chance to make the team, or is it better to take a guy who has a chance to make the team?'

"We brought [defensive coordinator] Greg Blache in and asked, 'What do you think?' He said, 'No, take those other positions first.'"

To the extent that this is accurate, it means that our trade downs weren't so smart.

[SkinsFreak]

Naysayers Focus on Process, Not Washington Redskins' Results


The main complaint about the Washington Redskins draft that is making the rounds is that they didn’t “address” the defensive line. It’s a complaint heard almost every year as the Redskins do generally ignore the D-line during the annual selection meeting.

Of course, Rob Jackson of Kansas State, the defensive end that the Redskins took in the seventh round in the last dozen picks might take umbrage to such remarks, but nobody is expecting big things out of him, probably not even Mr. and Mrs. Jackson.

Not since 1997, when they tabbed Kennard Lang in the first round, have the Skins used their initial pick for a defensive lineman. Since then the first line of defense has received very limited draft-day attention in the form of late-round draft picks like Anthony Montgomery and Kedric Golston.

A funny thing has happened during the time that the Redskins have been neglecting the defensive line on the last weekend in April. The defense has been pretty good. Not necessarily great, not dominant, but good enough to win with.

How good? Starting with the 2000 season, the Redskins defense has been ranked 7, 13, 21, 24, 5, 9, 27, and 11 in points allowed. In those eight years they’ve been in the top 10 three times and in the top half of the league a total of five times.

Whatever method the Redskins are using to acquire defensive players has been working. To worry about where they have acquired their personnel is to be concerned with process over results.

The Redskins have not been mediocre this decade because of their defense. They have struggled because they haven’t been able to score points. In that same eight-year span, from 2000-2007 their NFL rankings in point scored have been 24, 28, 25, 22, 31, 13, 20, and 18. They haven’t been in the top 10 once and they were in the bottom half of the league in seven of the eight years.

That sounds to me like a team that needs to score more points. They have a ways to go here to move from being awful to merely run of the mill.

We keep on hearing that the Redskins should go after beefing up the defensive line because that’s how the Giants won the Super Bowl. It’s a copycat league and trying to overwhelm the other team with a fierce pass rush is a solid strategy in any era.

But the Giants weren’t the team that was on the verge of being anointed the greatest of all time. That team was the Patriots, the team that added three veteran wide receivers in the offseason and became the greatest scoring machine in league history.

Now, which team do you want to copy? The one that lost six games, had to become road warriors, and needed a miracle throw and catch to become the champs? Or the one that cruised through its schedule undefeated, stayed at home for the playoffs and was a mis-timed jump by Assante Samuel on what would have been a game-ending interception away from the best season ever?

It’s funny how just a couple of plays can turn the perception of how you should build your team. If the ball bounces out of David Tyree’s grasp when he hits the ground, you should build your team to score points and obliterate the opposition. He catches it and suddenly every team needs to find an Osi and a Strahan in the middle rounds.

Devin Thomas, Fred Davis, and Malcolm Kelly will not turn Jason Campbell into Tom Brady. The Redskins will not win their first 18 games in 2008 or set the all time scoring record. But in time, perhaps as early as midseason, Thomas, Davis, and Kelly will be helping the Redskins score more points. By then Campbell should find the trio providing much more appealing targets than were Keenan McCardell, Reche Caldwell, and Todd Yoder.

If that happens, the biggest problem the team has had over the past eight years will be on its way to being solved.

They do not have to become a Pats-like dynamo to win more games. If they consistently can even score as many points as the average team in the league, that will be a major improvement.

Those who would rather fret over the process rather than look at the result will continue to do so. Too bad, they could be missing out on a lot of fun.

[CanesSkins26]

We keep on hearing that the Redskins should go after beefing up the defensive line because that’s how the Giants won the Super Bowl. It’s a copycat league and trying to overwhelm the other team with a fierce pass rush is a solid strategy in any era.

But the Giants weren’t the team that was on the verge of being anointed the greatest of all time. That team was the Patriots, the team that added three veteran wide receivers in the offseason and became the greatest scoring machine in league history.

Conveniently Tandler leaves out the fact that the Patriots were second in the NFL (behind the Giants) in sacks last season. He also doesn't go into the troubles that the Skins had in the passing game or on 3rd down (largely due to our lack of rush imo).

How good? Starting with the 2000 season, the Redskins defense has been ranked 7, 13, 21, 24, 5, 9, 27, and 11 in points allowed. In those eight years they've been in the top 10 three times and in the top half of the league a total of five times.

Yards allowed per game is a much better indication of defensive success than points allowed per game imo. Since 2001 we have ranked 29th, 11th, 27th, 3rd (our best defensive season also happened to be the one during which we had our highest number of sacks), 9th, 31st (we were historically bad in many areas that season including sacks), and 8th.

Nobody is saying that we have to go crazy and starting drafting defensive linemen in the first round every year. But I think it's been painfully obvious to most people that our pass rush has been severely lacking the past two season and we've done virtually nothing to improve it. We have aging players and zero depth on the defensive line (I'd love to know what the plan is if Carter or Daniels get injured?).

Since 1997, we've only drafted 6 defensive lineman and none higher than in the 5th round. Montgomery is the only defensive lineman that we even drafted in the 5th since then, as every other player has been drafted in the 6th or 7th rounds. This type of strategy simply doesn't make any sense. I think we did a good job with the players that we drafted, but constantly ignoring the d line just makes zero sense.

[Fios]

The Redskins were the fifth best defense in the league on third down last year, teams converted only 36% of their third down tries. Given the early-season struggles in that department, that number is really impressive. It's not that I don't see the defensive line as an area of need so much as I believe this draft developed in a fortunate way that allowed the Redskins to improve significantly in one area (wide receiver) as opposed to trying to plug some holes here and there. Yes, this situation should be addressed soon but the defense was solid last season and it isn't an all or nothing proposition. They will have opportunities to address this going forward. Not drafting at that position this year doesn't preclude them from doing it next year. I see the draft results as an encouraging step in the right direction, hopefully one that results in more long-term stability.

[VetSkinsFan]

The Redskins were the fifth best defense in the league on third down last year, teams converted only 36% of their third down tries. Given the early-season struggles in that department, that number is really impressive. It's not that I don't see the defensive line as an area of need so much as I believe this draft developed in a fortunate way that allowed the Redskins to improve significantly in one area (wide receiver) as opposed to trying to plug some holes here and there. Yes, this situation should be addressed soon but the defense was solid last season and it isn't an all or nothing proposition. They will have opportunities to address this going forward. Not drafting at that position this year doesn't preclude them from doing it next year. I see the draft results as an encouraging step in the right direction, hopefully one that results in more long-term stability.

The only thing to keep in mind is that you can attain a 1st down BEFORE getting to 3rd down. I don't know how that works into the formula, but I'm sure it does.

[SkinsFreak]

How good? Starting with the 2000 season, the Redskins defense has been ranked 7, 13, 21, 24, 5, 9, 27, and 11 in points allowed. In those eight years they've been in the top 10 three times and in the top half of the league a total of five times.

Yards allowed per game is a much better indication of defensive success than points allowed per game imo.

Since games are won by points on the score board, I disagree "yards per game" is a better indicator when discussing defensive rankings as it applies to win and losses.

The Redskins have not been mediocre this decade because of their defense. They have struggled because they haven’t been able to score points. In that same eight-year span, from 2000-2007 their NFL rankings in point scored have been 24, 28, 25, 22, 31, 13, 20, and 18. They haven’t been in the top 10 once and they were in the bottom half of the league in seven of the eight years.

He is clearly demonstrating that in the past eight years, our offense has been letting us down, not our defense or number of sacks. Points wins games and we haven't been able to score many points in the past eight years. Everyone agrees the d-line needs attention, but the offense needed greater attention, at least at this point.

[CanesSkins26]

Since games are won by points on the score board, I disagree "yards per game" is a better indicator when discussing defensive rankings as it applies to win and losses.

I disagree. Points isn't a good indicator of how successful your defense is. A team that has a turnover prone offense or poor special teams is going to put their defense into a lot of bad situations where giving up points is almost impossible. Besides, yards allowed is the more common used benchmark for ranking an offense or a defense.

He is clearly demonstrating that in the past eight years, our offense has been letting us down, not our defense or number of sacks. Points wins games and we haven't been able to score many points in the past eight years. Everyone agrees the d-line needs attention, but the offense needed greater attention, at least at this point.

It is possible to improve upon both the defense and offense in one off-season, especially when you go into the draft with nine picks. Like I said above, in the past 11 drafts we have taken only 6 defensive lineman and none higher than in the 5th round. There really is no rational reason for continually ignoring the dline in the draft.

I'm not denying that our offense needed work, but I don't think that people realize just how thin we are on defense, particularly in our front 7. Considering the age and injury problems of some of linebackers and defensive linemen, we're asking for trouble by totally ignoring this area.

[SkinsFreak]

Canes, you're missing the point. First, you've beaten that d-line horse to death. WE KNOW. That article was in reference to points scored and allowed, not yards gained or allowed. Comparing our offensive production, in terms of yards gained, verses yards allowed by our defense in an entirely different discussion.

That article was pretty straight forward and clearly showed the difference in production between our offense and defense. (BTW - did you notice the title of that article?) Since 2000, our offense has been much worse than our defense. Plain and simple. At the end of the day, the most points scored in a game determines the winner. At the end of the season, the most wins determines which teams advance to the playoffs.

If we had scored at least 24 points in every game last year, our record would have been 12-4-1 ( a tie in week 3, but an OT win would have put us at 13-3). Our offense has been the group holding us back, not our defense. We need to score more points and our first 3 picks will aid us in that department.

Remember last year, about half way through the season when we weren't able to score many points, Gibbs saying that if our offense could score 21 points per game, we'd be in a lot more games? Scoring wins games.

[yupchagee]

The trouble with using yards as the "yardstick" is that it neglrcts the effects of turnovers. A team can give up a lot of yards & still be good if they force a lot of turnovers.

[PulpExposure]

The trouble with using yards as the "yardstick" is that it neglrcts the effects of turnovers. A team can give up a lot of yards & still be good if they force a lot of turnovers.

And a team that's up and plays prevent will give up a lot of yards...simply because they're playing prevent.

[SkinsJock]

... It is possible to improve upon both the defense and offense in one off-season, especially when you go into the draft with nine picks. Like I said above, in the past 11 drafts we have taken only 6 defensive lineman and none higher than in the 5th round. There really is no rational reason for continually ignoring the dline in the draft.

I'm not denying that our offense needed work, but I don't think that people realize just how thin we are on defense, particularly in our front 7. Considering the age and injury problems of some of linebackers and defensive linemen, we're asking for trouble by totally ignoring this area.

I do not think the guys who made the decisions were "totally ignoring" our defensive line - they did the best they could considering who was available at the time and IMO they really were very lucky with those first 3 picks - now only time will tell but in the 3 years it takes to evaluate this draft I would expect that we have already addressed a couple more areas that were not addressed in this draft.


I will say that our D-line remains a huge concern and we are going to be hurt if we do not get better play from our defensive front 7 this year BUT if we can score a lot more points than we did and not be too much worse than we were defensively we will still be a better team because of what we did in this draft.

I also would rather have the #1 defense against points scored and the 31st ranked defense against the pass than the other way around

[Irn-Bru]

I don't know if we're still debating it, but I agree with Canes that yards allowed is the best litmus test of a defense. Most analysts agree; if you hear them say "the Redskins have the 8th best defense" on the pregame show they are referring to yards allowed. NFL.com uses it as the default stat sort for "Total Defense."

I'm aware of the special cases and other circumstances where Yards Allowed would be misleading. However, statistically it really does average out.

[HEROHAMO]

I still think we could have nabbed us a good Defensive lineman in the second round. The pick that was used on Fred Davis should have been a Defensive Lineman. In hindsight there were alot of good defensive lineman left on the board when the Skins picked Davis. I like Davis but we already had ey.

[SkinsFreak]

At the point we selected Davis, there were no d-linemen with a higher grade than Davis. Taking a guy with a much lower grade just to fill a need is a major reach and is not a league wide philosophy.

[yupchagee]

I still think we could have nabbed us a good Defensive lineman in the second round. The pick that was used on Fred Davis should have been a Defensive Lineman. In hindsight there were alot of good defensive lineman left on the board when the Skins picked Davis. I like Davis but we already had ey.

Or even in the 3rd round. Dre Moore was available then. He went fairly early in the 4th. Remember grading is an inexact "science". Need should at least be a factor in deciding whom to draft.

[HEROHAMO]

At the point we selected Davis, there were no d-linemen with a higher grade than Davis. Taking a guy with a much lower grade just to fill a need is a major reach and is not a league wide philosophy.

I do agree with taking the best player on the board. The thing is was our scouts really searching for a Defensive line talent?

I find it hard to believe that in all of the United States , there isnt a gem out there?

My point is that our front office knew they wanted to improve the wide receiver group. I do not think they put much thought into finding a late round gem for the defensive line. I mean come on? Who is this guy out of Kansas St?

I rather our front office take a chance on a talented risky guy, then a guy who was not very talented at all. IMHO