Accountability is key
Redskins defense is stout, but it has yet to face a duo as formidable as Barkley, Beckham Jr.
“He’s an explosive guy,” Norman said. “He always wants the ball. You can see that. He’s a specimen to where, the ball’s in the air, he wants it. You can tell that. You go out there and you try to win the game. Seek and destroy. Whatever it is. But some things always get taken a little bit left, and you have to go there. Don’t want to, but that’s just how the game goes for you, and you just have to play within that game.”
The Giants are 1-6, but their offense still has serious playmaking ability. Beckham and rookie Saquon Barkley already are one of the best wide receiver-running back tandems in the NFL. Barkley ranks fourth in the league with 481 rushing yards and is tied for fifth with five rushing touchdowns. His seven rushes of 20-plus yards are a league high, and his three runs of 40-plus yards are tied for the NFL best.
“I think the teams that he had those runs against, they had their eye out on him,” Redskins Coach Jay Gruden said. “It’s just hard. He’s a great player. All the great backs in the history of the league,
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Despite their history dueling with each other, Washington cornerback Josh Norman wasn’t wading into any Odell Beckham Jr. drama this week. But his Redskins do have the task of trying to shut down the highest-paid wide receiver in NFL history, as well as the most highly touted rookie running back in years, when they visit Beckham’s New York Giants on Sunday.
they’ve always been accounted for. They just make people miss in the hole. Sometimes free hitters, you have the gaps covered and he cuts it back, and one free player has to make that tackle, but he jump-cuts out of you. He runs you over. He stiff-arms you, and then all hell breaks loose. So we have to do a great job of wrapping him up, hold him up and then, like I said, always you have to pursue to the football.”
Beckham’s 649 receiving yards rank fourth in the league, but his two touchdowns through seven games put him on pace for a career low in a full season.
The Redskins have shined against the run, slowing David Johnson, Alvin Kamara, Christian McCaffery and Ezekiel Elliott to rank third in the NFL at 87.3 rushing yards against per game. But the combination of Barkley and Beckham makes Sunday’s matchup a little different.
“That’s the defensive coordinator’s problem and nightmare,” Gruden said with a laugh. “It’s good that our front is doing a very good job against the run without having to bring a lot of safeties in a lot of times, but Saquon is a different guy. He’s a combination of Kamara, who can catch it out of the backfield, and the quickness of Zeke Elliott, who’s got the power and the speed. He’s got both. So, definitely a guy you have to figure out how to stop, because their offense runs through them.”
Stopping the run is always the priority for this defense, and that has served the Redskins well en route to a 4-2 record behind the NFL’s fifth-ranked total defense (325.7 yards per game). But Beckham has been a pain for the Redskins: He has 40 catches for 529 yards and five touchdowns in five games against Washington.
Defensive lineman Jonathan Allen said the pairing presents a matchup problem, but the front seven will focus on Barkley and pressuring quarterback Eli Manning while the defensive backfield deals with Beckham and the other pass-catchers. Washington has yet to allow a 100-yard rusher, and their lopsided loss at the Saints was the only time an opponent has managed 100 receiving yards.
“It’s a balance that you’ve got to kind of choose between,” defensive coordinator Greg Manusky said. “Going up against a receiver in [Beckham], a good football player, and then a good back in [Barkley] that does a great job of hitting the lane, sidelines, making the guys miss, you can put him up or you can put him down. He’s a good running back, but you’ve got to tie it back and forth and hopefully pick and choose.”