It is no secret that the Washington Commanders‘ weakness in 2024 was run defense.

Talking with the media on Thursday, head coach Dan Quinn was asked about his run defense and how it looked during the preseason. Quinn pointed out that tackling had been an issue, and then playing in the scheme was another issue in 2024. As for the tackling this preseason, what does Quinn think?

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“I would say our tackling got better as we went,” he said. “So, first game I didn’t like it at all. Second game got better, as we got to Baltimore, I liked it better.”

Quinn perhaps didn’t like the games very much when it came to run defense. He also wanted to discuss practice. Now, that might be entirely honest on the part of Quinn. It’s also how we, as humans, tend to react when we don’t want to talk about something, perhaps because we don’t really like something about ourselves or our team.

He said, “As far as the run defense goes, if I just counted the preseason games, it’d be incomplete. So, in totality, I like where we’ve added guys into the mix, [DT] Eddie [Goldman], JK [DT Javon Kinlaw], [DE Deatrich] Wise [Jr.], these are some big, strong guys inside. So, I’m pleased with the trajectory there. So, it was a combination of adding some personnel, and then I would say the technique feels better going into it.”

Who knows, perhaps Quinn is not avoiding anything. Perhaps he thought it was a good time to put it out there to motivate his defensive lineman a bit going into the opener. It’s always a bit dangerous to speculate what someone means by what they say until you have enough evidence to know. However, Quinn is not shy about discussing the need for improvement.

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“It’ll always be something I see us working on, but our tackling, that’s to me the top of the pile, and we’re not where I think we need to be and will be. I feel that way every year at this time because it’s the thing we don’t do full on. And so, tackling feels like it gets better defensively kind of as the season grows and you gotta stay on the skill for that. But I’m more, much more pleased than I am a year ago sitting here at this time, that’s for sure.”

Quinn has some concerns about his defense again. But he is also upbeat, feeling his defense is better than it was a year ago at this time. He knows it will need to be better in 2025 with the schedule of offenses he is facing this season.

This article originally appeared on Commanders Wire: Commanders’ Dan Quinn on where team must improve for 2025 NFL season