While Quinn said what the Commanders do and their process “cannot be fluid,” it was clear that Washington was not getting the results it wanted from the defense. The performance against the run has been slightly better, as is the pass rush, but the Commanders are in the bottom half of several other categories. They rank 27th in yards allowed per game and only have three turnovers all season, which is tied for the second fewest in the NFL. Explosive plays were a problem once again in Dallas, which had six plays of at least 15 yards against Washington.
Quinn was blunt about his feelings when he addressed the team on Monday; everyone — coaches and players — needed to step up.
“Our focus needs to be sharper,” Quinn said. “That’s the bare minimum and we’re going to dig in to find out how we improve upon that.”
Quinn and his staff have spent the last few days going through the Commanders’ last seven games to figure out a solution. What they found is that the defense needed “small calibrations and adjustments” to eliminate the hesitation that he saw from players on film. He didn’t specify if that included personnel changes, saying instead that he was looking for “everything to level up.”
That includes the plays that were called in certain situations. The coaches’ jobs, Quinn said, are to put players in better spots, so they have examined whether “the juice is worth the squeeze” on certain calls and if they could look different going forward. The goal: make sure the defense is doing what it does best.
“This one, we thought it was going to be part of what we did, now we’re not going to add that for a while,” Quinn said. “So, some of that condensing has helped all of it geared for us to play faster and to play better.”
