After Washington’s shocking home loss to then winless St. Louis last week, all the focus on turnovers was on the three fumbles lost by the previously perfect Redskins offense.
But the Redskins defense was its usual humdrum self. It forced only one turnover, a fumble deep in St. Louis territory that set up the game’s first touchdown.
That takeaway was only Washington’s eighth in six games. Twenty-one of the other 31 teams, including winless Cincinnati, are doing a better job of forcing turnovers, and the Redskins are eager to ramp up the takeaway effort Sunday against the Cleveland Browns.
Among Washington’s defenders, only Jason Taylor has ever forced more than four fumbles in a season, but the defensive end, who forced nine fumbles for Miami in 2006, has yet to take the ball away as a member of the Redskins. No Redskins player has intercepted more than five passes in a season since 1999.
So it was not atypical that safety LaRon Landry dropped an interception against the Rams and that linebacker London Fletcher had another pickoff swatted out of his hands in traffic.
“You make the play or you don’t,” Redskins defensive coordinator Greg Blache said. “When you make plays like that, you’re going to win. When you don’t make the plays, you leave your fate in somebody else’s hands.”
Hands like those of the Rams’ Marc Bulger and Donnie Avery, whose late 43-yard connection on third-and-13 set up Josh Brown’s 49-yard, last-second field goal that beat the Redskins.
The next day, the struggling Browns picked off Eli Manning three times to help spring a 35-14 upset of the defending champion New York Giants that launched them into Sunday’s visit to FedEx Field.
“Takeways are huge,” said Browns coach Romeo Crennel, whose defense’s 11 takeaways in five games belies Cleveland’s 2-3 record. “If you can take the ball away, you keep your opponent from scoring, you help with the field-position battle and you give the ball to your offense. It plays a huge part in winning and losing.”
Actually so far, the 4-1 Giants have the fewest takeaways, two, while 1-4 Kansas City is near the top with 11. Last year, five of the seven teams with the most takeaways reached the postseason.
The Redskins, however, go against the grain. They made the 2007 playoffs despite just 24 takeaways, fewer than all but six teams.
The lack of a pass rush goes hand in hand with the lack of takeaways. Washington is on pace for just 21 sacks this season after recording only 19 in 2006 and 33 in 2007. Only the lowly Chiefs and the winless Bengals are getting to the quarterback less often than the Redskins.
“You only get takeaways if you get a lot of disruptions, a lot of batted balls, a lot of pass rush and the [defensive backs] playing tight coverage,” cornerback Fred Smoot said.
Given the state of Washington’s pass rush and that the Giants’ fearsome front four didn’t get to Browns quarterback Derek Anderson once on Monday, the banged-up Redskins secondary - cornerback Shawn Springs probably won’t play while Carlos Rogers, Smoot and Chris Horton are all hurting - has to take care of business against Pro Bowl receiver Braylon Edwards and the rest of Anderson’s targets.
“They got a lot of weapons,” Rogers said. “We have to have the mind-set that we’re taking these guys out. Don’t come in like last week. I’m not saying that we looked at [the Rams] as much less than us, but we’ve got to come in determined to win. Most times it’s going to be me on their best receiver so it’s a big challenge, but I like challenges. We haven’t had many sacks so we’ve just got to continue to cover if the rush get there or if it don’t.”
Smoot and Washington said all their coordinators have stressed takeaways, but Blache isn’t stressed out about the relative absence of them on his defense’s resume. After all, since he came to the Redskins as line coach in 2004, the defense has ranked in the top 10 every year except 2006.
“A lot of guys get in trouble trying to make a play,” Blache said. “We tell our guys a play will find you and when a plays finds you, then you gotta dance with it.”
Please read our comment policy before commenting.