Agree with nearly everything stated. I had high hopes for Griffith as well, but coaching screwed him up initially by giving into his desire to play corner, instead of safety where he belonged. Some guys just don’t have good cover instincts, and that’s Griffith. He played pretty well against the run, just poor cover instincts, not coaching.A lot is determined by schemes. How often did the DC blitz compared to Freeman or even Lea when they were in those positions? Griffith never panned out like he should have. Is that on coaches or Griffith's talent or heart to improve? Mills is an interior lineman not a DE. I wish he were but other than a couple games he didn't show improvement there. Maybe they will finally unleash Botelho because I saw potential in his aggressiveness. He got fooled a few times but he has the talent and speed. Liafau is a guy who is an enigma. He seems to lunge and grab face masks more than pure tackling. He gets himself blocked by linemen when he should be fast enough to shoot gaps. I hope he improves. Bertrand cannot cover in 20 yard passing radius, gets burned too often by quicker wrs. Kiser shows up and sometimes does pretty good things. ND needs Kollie,Ziegler and Sneed to adapt at a faster pace. Ziegler , we really haven't seen but he has the talent. X has benefitted by changing to safety. I don't know if Hart benefitted from Hamilton being out there over a year ago but he certainly played average if not below this past season. I hope Golden allows these players to play faster with less playbook schemes. They looked off kilter the first part of last season. This season should tell us if Washington can coach them up or not. If not, a change has to take place.
I think liafau says more than we want to believe as to our younger linebackers. He had more snaps than any other linebacker, and maybe any other defensive player, and yet he was a disaster in my opinion. Often out of position, seemed to be easily blocked, poor tackling, just an everready energy bunny playing out of control. I like to think we’ll see Kollie and Snead and Ziegler and Junior and Burnham play major snaps this next season, but afraid we’ll value experience over potential.