Ranked No. 24 in the pass rush by FootballOutsiders.com in 2015, there was no doubt the Washington Redskins defense needed improvement going into this year. But to the consternation of many fans, general manager Scot McCloughan did not make any sort of splash in signing any of the talented free agents that were available early in the offseason. Having gone through three-and-a-half days of training camp, however, it might be that he knew exactly what he was doing.
So far of course, the team is nowhere near announcing who its starting defensive linemen will be but it’s obvious who the coaches are watching carefully. And so far — keeping in mind that we are still in the first week of training camp — the group already on the roster is going to be more effective in the trenches than many thought it would be.
While Head Coach Jay Gruden is known for regularly mixing up his first, second and third strings during practices, defensive ends Chris Baker, Ricky Jean Francois, Kendall Reyes and Trent Murphy have been consistently practicing with the first team.
Kedric Golston, an 11-year veteran and fourth-year player Jerrell Powe; are the two guys listed on the roster as nose tackle and so far, the former has gotten the most reps with the first team of the two men.
The Redskins selected Matt Ioannidis in the fifth round of the draft this past April but he isn’t necessarily a lock to start immediately since he is still learning. He has been working with the second and third string players. While he is listed as a defensive end, he might end up at nose tackle.
Ioannidis was a versatile, powerful player at TCU… something the coaches love about him. Fortunately, the former Owl doesn’t have a favorite spot.
“I have played 3-4, 4-3… I’ve seen it all,” he said about where he likes to play along the line. “I just want to get on the football field.”
For defensive coordinator Joe Barry and his staff, having this training camp filled with powerful, talented players from which to choose gives them the opportunity to design more and better plays to confuse opposing offenses. They just need to figure out which of the current 11 defensive linemen will be rotating in and out of the trenches as starters. Ioannidis will very likely be one of those… eventually.
“We’re still working,” Gruden said when asked if the staff had figured out where they want to use Ioannidis. “This will be the best test for these guys when the pads come on. Matt’s done good. He’s just like [LB] Steven [Daniels]. He’s learning, trying to get in the right gap and get in the right front and all that stuff. We’re putting him at nose guard quite a bit, trying him there. I think that’s the starting point, that’s where we see him right now. We’ll see how he adapts to the speed of the game and the big guys with the pads on coming down on him – the Spencer Longs and the Brandon Scherffs and Kory [Lichtensteiger]. We’ll see how he responds but nose guard right now is where I think he’s going to be.”
Barry has always been a guy that wants fresh legs in the defensive trenches and rotating them in and out has always been his favored modus operandi. Depending on the package… whether it’s the base 3-4 or nickel/dime packages; having Baker, Jean Francois, Reyes, Golston, Ioannidis, DEs Stephen Paea and/or Ziggy Hood ready to go will give him just that many more options.
That in turn will leave other pass rushers like OLBs Ryan Kerrigan and Preston Smith, as well as the secondary and ILBs; better able to do their jobs. If Ioannidis does compete successfully at nose guard, just that will do a lot to open up the rotation opportunities in other places along the defensive front.
“I think, defensive lineman, you know, you’re not going to have many defensive lineman that are going to play every snap,” Gruden remarked about solidifying the defensive rotations during one of his press conferences this week. “You are going to have a lot of substitutions in that regard. One series here, maybe a situational-type guy here and there, but we’re going to try to solidify our top five or six guys and then come game day we will figure out which ones and how we want to use them, but it would be nice to have our top guys. We feel pretty good about three or four of them moving forward, but you know, there’s another four or five that are competing very seriously for jobs.”
It’s possible that the team may end up with an added veteran defensive lineman by the time the second or third week of the regular season arrives. But if it doesn’t that might be fine. Hard-working, versatile “football players” — as McCloughan so fondly calls them — going in and out of the defensive line on game day will add the luxury of fresh legs to Joe Barry’s already creative scheme.