Before the 2015 NFL draft, second-year coach Jay Gruden and the Washington Redskins’ front office made a decision. The team had just finished an ugly 4-12 season with the third-worst scoring defense in the NFL, including a porous pass defense that allowed quarterbacks to earn a league-high 108.3 passer rating.

Gruden had been brought in because of his ability as an offensive coach, but it was clear the opposite side of the ball needed to be addressed.

“Yeah, no doubt, we had to,” Gruden said. “We needed some youth and we had to target some key players in the draft to help us out. I think we’ve done a pretty good job of that. . . . The key to building a good defense, in my opinion, is getting some young guys in the draft and let them grow through your program, but also having some veteran guys that have been here that are the type of guys you want to lead your football team.”

That decision to commit to a youth movement on defense, and accelerated by moves in recent years, has paid off so far this season. The team ranks second in points allowed per game (14.7), third in total defense (278.0 yards), third in pass defense (187.3 yards) and seventh against the run (90.7 yards). The Redskins are hopeful that the early success is sustainable, and that the strategy will lead to bigger benefits — both tangible and intangible — in the years to come.

The Redskins have had 35 picks in the last four drafts, and used 19 of them on defensive players. Fifteen of the 25 picks in the last three drafts were defenders, not counting cornerback Adonis Alexander from the 2018 supplemental draft.

The trend began with second-round linebacker Preston Smith as the No. 38 overall pick in 2015, and escalated when Washington went particularly defense-heavy in the 2017 draft, selecting defensive lineman Jonathan Allen (No. 17 overall), linebacker Ryan Anderson (second round) and cornerback Fabian Moreau (third round) with its first three picks before adding safety Montae Nicholson in the fourth round. Defensive tackle Daron Payne (No. 13 overall) headlined another defense-laden class in 2018.

The result is a defensive rotation built around youth, with key veterans like Ryan Kerrigan, Josh Norman, Mason Foster, Zach Brown and D.J. Swearinger mixed in.

“It’s something to be said about them guys if they can grow up together and be a pretty good unit,” said Doug Williams, the team’s vice president of player personnel. “If you’re going to build a football team, you’ve got to build it through the draft and add. I’m happy with them, but the key is they can all play. That’s the good part about it.”

The youth movement strategy was most apparent this offseason through the team’s handling of the secondary. After trading slot cornerback Kendall Fuller to the Chiefs as part of the deal that brought quarterback Alex Smith to Washington, the team had signed Orlando Scandrick as his likely replacement. But in August, after just five months with the team, Scandrick was released amid rumblings that he wasn’t fitting in with the culture of the locker room.

kareem.copeland

@washpost.com

twitter.com/kareem

copeland