Despite the turnover success and the fact that the team ranks first in the NFC and second in the NFL in total tackles (282); Washington Redskins defensive coordinator Joe Barry has recently been under fire from fans. His unit has had trouble stopping the run and getting off the field on third down. Washington has the highest third-down conversion rate in the NFL (57.4 percent) which is 20+ percentage points above what Head Coach Jay Gruden feels is acceptable (35 percent). Actually, tackling has been an issue whatever the game situation has been.
Barry has never run from questions about the issues on his squad and has always been thoughtful and “coach-like” when taking questions about them. However, when he spoke with reporters this week, he owned the problems straight up.
“Well, I wish I had the remedy to clean that up because it is frustrating,” the DC said about his unit’s missed tackling and allowed third-down conversions. “And the players are frustrated with it. They’re upset because it’s something that you can’t play defense – at any level –and not tackle. Football is a physical game. Football is a contact sport and the object to play defense is to get the man with the ball down – tackle him. So, Liz, I wish I had one specific thing, ‘Hey if we changed this we’re going to be [OK].’ Tackling is different. There [are] all different kinds of tackles. There’s tackles on the line of scrimmage that we’ve missed. There’s tackles in space that we’ve missed. There’s angle tackles that we’ve missed — angle being when the runner and the tackler are going at an angle. There’s head-on tackles that we’ve missed. So it’s not one clear, clean, specific tackle that we say, ‘Hey, if we clean this up, we’re good.’ It’s really across the board and it’s been frustrating. Third downs, we lost eight third downs. There were three third downs that we were off the field, but we missed tackles also on third down. And third downs, to jump into that, that’s really talking about winning the one-on-one matchup. Whether it’s being a pass rusher winning a one-on-one pass block, whether it [is] a DB or a linebacker winning the one-on-one coverage on third down… Winning that one-on-one — me as a player making a play against another player, whether it’s an open field tackle, or, again, whether it’s the ball in the air in one-on-one coverage, or it’s a pass rusher simply rushing against an offensive lineman, whipping my man before the quarterback throws the ball — that’s what tackling is all about and that’s what third downs are all about… winning that matchup, winning that one-on-one matchup. And we have not consistently done that. They get paid, too. They practice also. There’s no doubt about that. But bottom line, when we have got an opportunity to get off the field, if the ball is thrown in front of us and we simply have to just drive up and make a routine tackle, that’s what we have got to stop doing. It’s happening too much — the missed tackles — which are missed opportunities, especially on third down to get off the field.”