Crumbling Redskins now turning on their coaches
Washington Redskins safety D.J. Swearinger called out the playcalling of his defensive coordinator, Greg Manusky, after the team’s 25-16 loss to the Tennessee Titans on Saturday.
“I felt like we should have been more aggressive,” Swearinger told reporters after the costly defeat. “I feel like on the third-down-and-6, third-down-and-7, we’re playing a backup quarterback, why would you put us in man-to-man? We are our best on defense when we look at the quarterback. When you go one high on a backup quarterback, that’s easy, man. It’ll go backside every time.
“I feel like if we look at the quarterback with all this time we’ve got on the back end, man, we can dominate every team, every week. I’m not the defensive coordinator, though.”
With an injury forcing Titans quarterback Marcus Mariota from the game in the second quarter, the Redskins had a golden chance to gain ground in the NFC East race against backup Blaine Gabbert. But Gabbert led Tennessee to a come-from-behind victory, connecting with MyCole Pruitt for a 2-yard touchdown pass with 4:30 remaining to put the Titans ahead 19-16.
Now the Redskins (7-8) can be eliminated from playoff contention if the Philadelphia Eagles win or if the Minnesota Vikings and Seattle Seahawks win Sunday.
“We aren’t supposed to lose this game, with the talent we have on defense, to a backup quarterback,” Swearinger said. “You can say we didn’t make the plays as players. Yeah, we didn’t make enough. But when we’re in the game at the end we should be in something that we can see the quarterback, man. See the quarterback. And make plays. We weren’t able to see the quarterback but on a couple times. It is what it is. Keep grinding.”
“I’m not giving no excuses on my play,” he added. “I missed a few tackles, but I feel with a lot of these playmakers we have on this team, you should try to get your players involved. We got a lot of talent on this team. When I look at film on other teams, I always see nickel [defensive backs] blitzing, always see safeties blitzing. … It’s frustrating. I don’t know what to say about it.”
Swearinger’s comments came after Redskins coach Jay Gruden held his postgame news conference. For his part, fellow Redskins defender Jonathan Allen supported Manusky after the game.
“Greg manuski coached a great game,” he tweeted.
