Week seven was a tough one for the 49ers, suffering a 52-17 loss at the hands of the Washington Redskins. Linebacker Derek Smith, facing his former team in Washington D.C. for the first time in his career, knows his defense can do better, and he's ready to get back to work and prepare to give a rude welcome to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Read what he has to say in the latest installment of '50 on 50.'
It was just a game where we went in there and it got out of control pretty fast. Defensively, it was a matter of everybody taking their turn of being out of place in the defensive scheme. When that happens – get one or two guys out of place on different plays throughout the game – you're going to get exploited. They exploited us. They played a hard and tough game.
It was neat to see the stadium again because that's where I first came into the league. FedEx Field is the biggest stadium in the league, but I don't think that crowd noise was a factor. I think the biggest factor was us not going in there and executing. The defensive side of the ball is the only one I can speak of because that's all I know, and defensively we didn't execute.
The biggest positive that I see in this is that Coach Nolan wants to get it right, and he's going to work to get it right no matter what he has to do. For me, the game left a bad taste in my mouth, and I would hope that everyone else on the team feels the same way. You need to forget about it, but in some ways remember it, as if to say, 'I don't want to revisit that again. I don't want that to happen again.'
