Percy Harvin wasn't all Jim Haslett discussed Thursday afternoon. The defensive coordinator touched on a number of other subjects, ranging from the team's lackluster pass rush to Ryan Kerrigan.
--Without two-time Pro Bowl linebacker Brian Orakpo on the opposite side, Haslett said Kerrigan is attracting significantly more attention. Kerrigan has begun to adjust, Haslett added, but must continue to work at beating the double teams and chips.
“He just has to understand that right now he’s getting chipped, banged, hit,” Haslett said. “Last week we moved him to one side [and] they flipped it back to the other side. They were following him around. He’s just going to have to find ways to beat" it.
--Conventional wisdom suggests that the Redskins’ offense didn’t do enough to help the defense against the Falcons, but Haslett acknowledged that his unit shares some of the blame for being on the field for a whopping 81 snaps last week.
“We were on the field too much,” he said. “We did it to ourselves. First drive of the game, we didn’t get off on a third down. We should have had a stop, but they extended the drive another eight or nine plays. We have to get off the field in those situations.”
--One of the Redskins’ biggest deficiencies on defense has been the lack of a consistent pass rush. And although Haslett stopped short of calling out players by name, he did mention that Chris Wilson, Rob Jackson and Jarvis Jenkins must find their way into the backfield more often. Wilson and Jackson saw a spike in their playing time when Orakpo was lost for the season and Jenkins replaced Adam Carriker, who also is sidelined until 2013.
--Speaking of Jenkins, Haslett praised the second-year defensive lineman for his performance against the ground game. Jenkins has seven tackles in thee games. “He’s played exceptional against the run,” Haslett said.
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