Manusky: "We're expecting bigger things throughout the whole season."

The Redskins defense has largely been a disappointment in 2019. To many, including myself, they were expected to be a top-ten defense in at least one of the major NFL rankings.

Yards-Per-Game (YPG) is far from the best measure, but points allowed or even Points-Per-Game (PPG) is flawed as well.

The Redskins aren't particularly good in either.

Washington is averaging 24.2 points allowed per game, which is exactly double what the Patriots are allowing (12.1) as the best defense in the NFL.

They are 19th in yards-per-game allowed at 361.4 and are also still awful on third down at 46.75%, which is 30th in the NFL.

Believe it or not, that is a remarkable improvement from earlier in the year when they were allowing a clip of 64% on third downs through two weeks.

The sky is falling right? Well, not exactly.

The Redskins are on a two-game winning streak and the defense has racked up six or more sacks in each of the last two weeks, which had not happened since 1994.

Montez Sweat has been coming on slowly but surely and was on the verge of a breakout game Sunday in Charlotte, with 1.5 sacks in only 31 snaps. He was the highest graded defensive player on the Redskins per ProFootballFocus.com (PFF).

Manusky, in the video above, after talking about Sweat's length and improvement also saluted two new Redskins who made a huge impact last week, Chris Odom & Nate Orchard.

Then - there's Fabian Moreau, who has three interceptions in the last two games since being moved to the outside left corner position, replacing Josh Norman, who was benched.

Manusky, in the video above, also talked about what adjustments the Redskins made after being blitzed by Kyle Allen and the Panthers on the first two drives, 14-0.

Clearly, the Redskins woke up and were more aggressive with their pass rush which led to being able to generate heat, get home and change the context of the entire game.

Manusky, almost surely, will not be back with the Redskins next year in the same perch. He was tied to Jay Gruden and the organization tried to replace him last off-season.

That also means that it is a virtual guarantee that defensive line coach, Jim Tomsula, will not be returning as well. Tomsula, only returned once it was official that Manusky was staying on.

For now - they just have Aaron Rodgers to worry about. In other words, no big deal.

Chris Russell is the Publisher of Maven & Sports Illustrated's Washington Redskins channel. He can be heard on 106.7 The FAN in the Washington D.C. area and world-wide on Radio.com. Chris also hosts the "Locked on Redskins" Podcast and can be read via subscription to Warpath Magazine. You can e-mail Chris at russellmania09@Gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at @Russellmania621.

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