Grant and Danny detail how the addition of a shutdown corner like Marshon Lattimore will allow Dan Quinn and the defense more options to scheme the defense than they have had in the first half of the season.
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00:00Think about all the different ways that the Lattimore addition, if he's healthy and on the
00:04field, he's not practicing today for the record, is going to impact this defense. We talked yesterday
00:10about the most primary and obvious, which is the ability to move all the other defenders down
00:17the depth chart. So St. Juice gets to take on twos, and then Sanristo plays his more natural
00:23position that he was actually drafted to play inside in the nickel, and Igbenagany is an extra
00:28spare part bench guy who's a fourth corner. Everyone is now playing the role that you brought
00:34them into play. The whole point when you acquired them was to play the role that they're about to,
00:39not the one that they've been playing, which was asking for a little bit more than you probably
00:44should, which is how, when you stretch guys thin, your defense underperforms a little bit.
00:48So that was the number one influence of bringing him in, but then you think about actual,
00:52you know, personnel groupings and things that they want to do in areas where they've struggled.
00:57They have had to play two high safeties, like cover two type looks, constantly,
01:03because they don't really trust their cornerbacks. They also have played light boxes at a pretty
01:09startling rate. I mean, more than almost every team in the league, one of the higher
01:13light box rates in football, six or fewer, for Washington. Why is that? Well, I think it's a
01:19big, big tell that they don't trust their corners, that they have extra safety deep,
01:25that they've got a lot of either zone or guys dropping and basically trying to flood the
01:30secondary to try to eat up more space, because they can't just put guys out on an island and
01:34let them run and cover in man. So what happens when you have a light five, six man box is,
01:40you're going to give up a lot on the run, right? You're going to give up the running game. And
01:44they have over and over and over again. We've talked about it. They're one of the worst defensive
01:48teams against the run statistically this season. It's been their biggest bugaboo. So even though
01:52it's not direct, a lot of more now allows you to probably play more single high safety looks,
01:58which means Jeremy chin comes down in the box, which means you can, um, I think probably even
02:05expect to play more loaded boxes, even if you're playing two high safeties, because rather than
02:10having to help St. Just and Ibn Agni or, and Sandra still, if they want to until proven,
02:17otherwise they might just go into a game saying, we'll put a lot of more over there.
02:21You cover that guy. We're not worrying about you. And it's almost like spacing and basketball
02:25Danny, where you stand over there and shoot your shots. And now like a penalty kill,
02:30like we're going to go four on four over here. You know what I'm saying? And I think that's part
02:34of the plan here. So it's not just going to make their secondary better. That's obvious. I think
02:37it's a sharp point. It might actually make their run game better, even though they didn't add a
02:40defensive tack. I'm fully convinced of that. Again, the best case is to obviously have a
02:43world-leading defensive tackle. I don't know if that guy was available. This is the next best
02:47case that allows you to deploy your 11 players differently and maybe more efficiently. You can
02:52guess right now. I mean, the way I thought of it previously, and we talked about this a bunch
02:56going more into it now over the first nine games, they've been just good enough to go. Okay. We can
03:02try to take one thing away at a time and against good offenses. You see the result, the Baltimore
03:07game is the microcosm of this in the first half. It's not going to be Derek Henry. Henry will not
03:12beat us. So heavy boxes stuff, the run day flowers, a million for a million. Okay, fine.
03:18We'll take that away. Derek Henry, second half ripped off a bunch of big runs in general. They
03:23did okay. But for the most, you know, you knew it was inevitable that he was going to run through
03:26you. So this now gives you a chance to say, we can bet that we can take something away.