The Washington Commanders are a team desperately searching for success. The team hasn't made the NFL playoffs since 2020 and finished an extremely disappointing 4-13 during the 2023 season. The franchise is on a search for a new head coach and new leadership, as the team parted ways with Ron Rivera in 2023. While the Commanders need help understandably at many different positions, there's one particular area that holds the greatest need for the team in the 2024 offseason.
SECONDARY WOES
The Commanders need help in their secondary, badly. The team struggled in just about every area of pass defense during the 2023 season. The team gave up more passing yards than anyone else in the NFL, with 4,627 passing yards allowed, according to league stats. The team also gave up the most passing touchdowns, with 39 allowed. That turned out to be four more than the next team, the Philadelphia Eagles.
The Commanders not only struggled to defend the pass, they struggled to create turnovers. The team's defense only got eight interceptions this year, fewer than everyone except the Green Bay Packers and Tennessee Titans. The Commanders just simply weren't able to put any fear on opposing offenses, and the team struggled mightily because of it. The Commanders' secondary gave up 396 pass completions, again near the bottom of the league. Only the Minnesota Vikings, Philadelphia Eagles, San Francisco 49ers, Chicago Bears, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Jacksonville Jaguars gave up more pass completions in 2023 than the Commanders. As a result, the team got blitzed multiple times this season in games, and gave up 30 or more points ten times in 2023.
There's certainly room to grow. The Commanders have a young secondary, and the team dealt with injuries throughout the 2023 season. The secondary got banged up considerably, with four defensive backfield players going on injured reserve by the final week of the campaign. Those four were: Jeremy Reaves, Percy Butler, Darrick Forrest and Christian Holmes. A new season clearly brings new opportunity for all of those players to do better, and the Commanders need them to do better. The team just simply won't win games while giving up the most passing yards and touchdowns in the NFL. It doesn't help either that the team is in the rigid NFC East, and has to play the Dallas Cowboys, New York Giants and Philadelphia Eagles twice a year.
The Commanders are searching for a new head coach, which also doesn't help matters. A number of people have been mentioned as possible candidates, including Cowboys defensive coordinator Dan Quinn and even former New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick. The team needs someone who can help rebuild this defense immediately, and give confidence to these young players. When looking at possible coaches, defensive prowess isn't a necessity, but it would certainly help things in the nation's capital. As mentioned, the team's defensive stats are almost all near the bottom if not at the bottom of the league. The offensive stats, while not immaculate, are better for the club. The team finished in the middle of the pack in passing yards this season, although the rushing game also struggled for Washington.
The Commanders find themselves with the second overall pick in the 2024 NFL draft. While many services and analysts believe the Commanders need to focus on offense with that selection, there's certainly a desperate need for help on defense too. There's really no way to tell at the time of writing which way the Commanders will go, as the team doesn't yet have a head coach. Once a coach is named, that should give out some clues as to which way the franchise goes.
There's hope, Commanders fans. There's certainly nowhere to go but up from here.
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