One of the plays I noticed Washington using this plan came in the middle of the second quarter. The Giants had just entered the red zone and lined up with three wide receivers, one running back and one tight end, also known as 11 personnel.

Washington responds by going into its nickel package, substituting a defensive lineman for a slot corner. Both safeties line up deep off the line of scrimmage, leaving Washington with just six defenders in the box against six blockers. That means Washington doesn’t have an extra defender in the box to account for the running back, which puts extra stress on the run defense. Without a seventh defender, they can’t rely on just maintaining gaps because they’ll always be one gap short. Instead, it requires someone to not just win position, but actually win the block and make a play.

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Inside linebacker Will Compton appears to realize this problem, making signals for safety DeAngelo Hall to rotate down from the secondary and join the box. But Hall can’t get up to the line of scrimmage quick enough from his deep position, missing the tackle and allowing the running back to run into the secondary with only fellow safety David Bruton Jr. there to prevent the touchdown.

From the end zone angle, we can see how Washington can’t cover every gap. The Giants run a simple power run, pulling the left guard around as the lead blocker.

Compton is the first to read run and attack the C gap between the right tackle and the tight end. Mason Foster reads the pulling guard and follows Compton towards the right side of the offensive line. Unfortunately, that leaves a gap unaccounted for in the middle of the defense, which Hall is desperately trying to make up ground and cover. But Hall is a fraction late and the running back breaks his arm tackle.

On the next series, Washington ran into the same problem.

Like before, the Giants have their 11 personnel group on the field, although this time quarterback Eli Manning is in the shotgun rather than under center. Washington uses the same nickel defense with two deep safeties and just six defenders in the box.

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The Giants have star wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr lined up outside to the left of the formation. Washington aligns one of its deep safeties over the top of Beckham, perhaps as protection from the wide receiver’s deep threat.

Just like on the first play we looked at, Washington allows the running back to run right up the heart of the defense. But this isn’t necessarily the fault of any of the players in the box.

The Giants use a slight variation of the previous run. Instead of a basic power run play, they add a trap element. Rather than having the right guard and right tackle combine to block the defensive tackle, those two work up to the second level while the left guard pulls again and takes on the vacated defensive tackle.

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The center and left guard make key blocks while the right guard and right tackle work up to the linebackers. That gives the running back a clear lane to run through untouched into the secondary.

Having a seventh defender in the box would have given them the extra body they needed to plug that hole and keep the gain to a minimum. Granted, that would have forced Washington to play with only one deep safety, who is unlikely to have the range to work from the middle of the field to the sideline and stay over the top of Beckham. Washington clearly made the choice to keep the second safety deep to help prevent deep shots to Beckham. They kept with this plan in the second half.

Once again, the Giants use their 11 personnel, forcing Washington into its nickel personnel. Washington keeps two safeties deep and leaves just six defenders in the box.

The Giants go back to the same power run play that they used on the first play we looked at.

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Compton reads the run smartly. He attacks the right tackle, knowing that tackle has to get up to the second level once he helps the right guard secure his block. But Compton also stays on his outside shoulder, taking on the pulling guard too. Compton occupies two blockers to allow Foster to work freely. Foster comes around Compton and makes the tackle, but not before the Giants running back picks up six yards.

The Giants ran for 120 yards at 5.7 yards per carry, which was due in large part to Washington’s choice not to bring an extra defender into the box and even up the numbers. It could be argued Washington got off lightly, as the Giants only ran the ball four times in the second half, their last run coming with eight minutes left on the clock in the third quarter. By my count, the Giants had 17 runs against a six-man box for 109 yards at 6.4 yards per carry.

Clearly, Washington feared the deep threat of Beckham and his fellow Giants wide receivers, and that’s why they opted to keep two safeties back. However, The Giants top three receivers, Beckham, Victor Cruz and Sterling Shepard still managed to accumulate 264 yards between them on 15 catches, equating to 17.6 yards per catch. Beckham alone managed 121 yards on seven receptions.

I wondered if this was Washington’s tactic specifically for the Giants or if they had done the same against the Steelers, with a similar star wide receiver in Antonio Brown. It wasn’t quite as common, but it was still apparent on multiple plays, even late in the game after Pittsburgh had established the run.

Here, we see Washington using the same plan; two safeties deep with just six defenders in the box. The safety to Brown’s side lines up on the hashmarks, giving himself plenty of work to do if he has to get over the top of Brown down the sideline.

Pittsburgh uses a slightly different style of running play, but it’s just as effective as the runs we saw from the Giants.

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Foster remains too deep and allows the tight end to close on him too easily, but it wouldn’t have taken much to pin Foster inside had he been closer to the line of scrimmage. Hall works down from the opposite side of the field, but he has no chance of closing the gap on the runner.

It appears to be a consistent plan from Washington defensive coordinator Joe Barry against teams with deep threats at wide receiver. I counted eight runs for the Steelers against this look for 43 yards and a touchdown, at 5.4 yards per carry. It’s tough to say for sure if it is definitely stopping teams from taking deep shots, but opposing receivers are still getting plenty of yards. What is clear is that Washington doesn’t have the disruptive defensive front required to run this style consistently, or a safety with elite range that can come from deep and close the gap quickly as the seventh run defender.

On most of these plays, the six defenders in the box did a solid job of getting to their gap and maintaining it. But this style demands defenders to beat blockers and get into the backfield, not just maintain gap integrity. Washington has had that at times, but not consistently. That has allowed both the Steelers and the Giants to run all over them. Against this look, they combined for a total of 152 yards and a touchdown on 25 carries at 6.1 yards per carry by my count.

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It will be interesting to see if they continue with this method. They face plenty of teams with deep threats at receiver, some teams with more than one. Cleveland on Sunday has Terrelle Pryor. Looking down the line, Detroit, Cincinnati, Minnesota, Green Bay and Arizona all have wide receivers who will challenge Washington deep. They’ll have to make an adjustment or continue to sacrifice run defense to try and help contain deep threats.

Mark Bullock is The Insider’s Outsider, sharing his Redskins impressions without the benefit of access to the team. For more, click here.