When the Washington Commanders opened the 2023 NFL season, they had Chase Young and Montez Sweat starting at defensive end. By November 1, both players were gone, and Washington turned to a pair of 2023 Day-3 draft picks and two other former seventh-round picks as its top pass rushers.
As you’d imagine, the Commanders struggled to rush the passer, but it wasn’t only because of the personnel. Washington was always seemingly at a coaching disadvantage, too. The Commanders didn’t have the pass rushers to win one-on-one, and the coaching staff didn’t do a good job of creating pressure.
That will change under new head coach Dan Quinn and defensive coordinator Joe Whitt Jr. While Quinn and Whitt will not have Micah Parsons in Washington, Quinn has always been excellent at finding ways to create pressure.
We’ve reviewed the Commanders’ defensive ineptitude a number of times, but Pro Football Focus recently gave us another statistic showing their struggles.
PFF used “clustering” to examine all 32 NFL defenses from the 2023 season. Before we review the assessment on Washington, let’s allow PFF to explain the clustering method:
Clustering is a mathematical technique used to group similar observations. The most common form is the k-means clustering algorithm, which completes its iterative process when each observation is in the cluster that best represents it. In other words, there is no other cluster whose center (or mean of all the variables) is closer to that observation than the one it currently belongs to.
Now, what about the Commanders?
PFF has Washington in Cluster One with the Arizona Cardinals and Tennessee Titans.
The Commanders rushed the passer the least often of any defense in 2023 (29.3%).
In addition to Washington’s inability to rush the passer, the team struggled across the board defensively. This offseason, general manager Adam Peters signed Dorance Armstrong, Clelin Ferrell and Dante Fowler at defensive end. Armstrong and Fowler followed Quinn to the Commanders from Dallas.
And while none of the aforementioned newcomers are known as standout pass rushers, Washington will be much better at applying pressure in 2024. Armstrong, in particular, is the most intriguing addition.