It's safe to say the San Francisco 49ers had a bounceback performance on defense in their 23-15 loss to Washington this week after a dismal showing in their 34-24 loss to Buffalo the week before. Despite the improvement they made, they felt they could have done more to help the team come out on top over Washington.
Realistically, the defense did what it needed to do, holding the Washington offense to just nine points, 193 total yards, and 12 first downs while three turnovers from the 49ers offense ultimately made the biggest difference in the final outcome. But it seems it expected to do even more than that, based on its reaction after the game.
"We didn't do enough tonight," cornerback Richard Sherman told reporters during his postgame media session. "We didn't create enough turnovers. We didn't create enough disruption. We didn't give our offense short fields. So we'll look at the tape. We'll try to correct some things. We had some opportunities. Everybody's going to look at the tape critically and we're going to try to get it correct."
Defensive end Kerry Hyder had a similar view of how the defensive line played against Washington after the team surrendered more than 400 total yards to Buffalo last Monday.
"We take it hard," Hyder said. "We obviously didn't play well enough in the Buffalo game, and we didn't play well enough tonight. ...We felt like we played okay but we didn't get the win, so it wasn't good enough."
Meanwhile, the defense wasn't showing any frustration over the offense's difficulty in holding onto the football.
"We just had to rally," Hyder said. "We have our offense's back, no matter the situation. It's a team game. It's not going to always be perfect."
Things weren't perfect for the defense against Washington, but its performance was more than good enough to earn passing grades. It'll surely continue to be critical of its play, but if it carry over its performance against Washington to its final three games, the effort will give the 49ers a fighting chance to finish the year with another win or two wins before the season comes to a close.
"Our job is to play good defense, and whenever we have an opportunity, that's what we're going to do," Hyder said.
