Previously: Running Backs; Defensive Ends; Defensive Tackles

As you know, the NFL is announcing its top 100 players in league history as part of the league’s 100-year anniversary. The nominating committee selected 12 outside linebackers ^[1]There are three players with labeling issues to discuss here: Chuck Bednarik, Clarke Hinkle, and Junior Seau (who isn’t on the above list). We will get to them at the end of this article. as finalists, and with the exception of the lone active player (Von Miller), every player is in the Hall of Fame. For the final team, 6 outside linebackers were chosen. The table below shows the finalists and those selected for the official team: [continue reading…]

Marcus Peters was drafted by the Kansas City Chiefs in 2015. That year, he led the NFL in four categories: interceptions (8), interception return yards (280), interceptions returned for touchdowns (2), and passes defended (26).

Two years later, Peters again led the NFL in interception return yards, with 137 on 5 interceptions. The next season, with the Ravens, he had 107 return yards on three interceptions.

This year? He’s recorded 5 interceptions for 210 yards and 3 touchdowns — leading the NFL in all three categories — while splitting his time between the Rams and Ravens.

Since the start of the 2015 season, Peters has 27 interceptions; no other player has more than 17 (Darius Slay).  Over half of his interceptions have brought above over 20 yards, and he has just 6 interceptions where he hasn’t returned the pass.

Since the start of the 2015 season, Peters has 6 picks six; Aqib Talib is second with 4, and no other player has more than three.

Since the start of the 2015 season, Peters has 797 interception return yards; that’s over 150 more yards than the number two and three players (Talib and Stephon Gilmore) combined. Peters has produced a monstrous edge in this category since entering the league. [continue reading…]

Leonard Williams was the 6th pick in the 2015 Draft.  He hasn’t been an outright bust by any means, but he’s certainly failed to deliver much in the way of big plays.   He’s never missed a game in his career, and will only finish 2019 with 15 games played because he got to experience two bye weeks: with the Jets in week 4 and then with the Giants in week 11.  He has recorded over 200 tackles in his career, but among first round defensive linemen with that number of tackles, his sack totals are shockingly low.

For years, Williams always seemed “on the verge” of a breakout season because of his quarterback hits numbers. He had 21 as a rookie, and then 7.0 sacks in a promising second season. In year 3, he had only 2.0 sacks but a whopping 25 quarterbacks hits…. and then in 2018 he had 20 quarterback hits and only 5.0 sacks. This year? He has 12 quarterback hits and zero sacks. In general, you expect about a 40-45% ratio between quarterback hits and quarterback sacks. But Williams is an extreme outlier, recording 17 sacks against a whopping 97 quarterback hits over his 5-year career.

The graph below shows the sack totals (X-Axis) and quarterback hits totals (Y-Axis) for defensive players from 2015 to 2019. [continue reading…]

Aaron Donald led the NFL in sacks this season, and his team is appearing in this year’s Super Bowl. That’s pretty rare: in the last 30 years, it’s happened just twice: Vic Beasley on the 2016 Falcons, and Kevin Carter on the ’99 Rams. If history repeats itself, it will mean that the two times the Rams have won the Super Bowl, it will have done so with the league’s sack leader, with no other team in the last 30 years having pulled off that feat even once.

The full list of sack leaders since the statistic began being officially tracked by the NFL in 1982, along with how that team’s season ended: [continue reading…]

Khalil Mack had 41 points of AV over the last three years, tied for the 14th-most in the NFL, and 5th-most among defensive players. And after being traded to the Chicago Bears at the age of 27, making him the rare star defensive player to change teams in his prime.

How rare? I looked at players who met the following criteria:

• Produced at least 35 points of AV over 3 consecutive years while playing for the same team;

• Switched teams after the season and were 29 years or younger at the start of the new season

The last defensive player to fit those criteria was Ndamukong Suh, who joined the Dolphins as a mega free agent signing after an excellent run in Detroit. Suh signed a 6-year, $114M contract with Miami, and Suh wound up earning half of those contract over 3 years. Suh’s tenure with the Dolphins was disappointing, although mostly compared to the expectations created by his large contract.

Elvis Dumervil wound up in Baltimore after a fax machine mishap wound up in him being released from the Broncos. Dumervil had 17.0, 9.5, and 11.0 sacks in the three prior seasons (well, he missed one full season in between due to injury), and then had 9.5 sacks and 17.0 sacks his first two seasons in Baltimore.

Albert Haynesworth is the opposite end of the spectrum. He was an AP first-team All-Pro in both 2007 and 2008 with the Titans, and then joined Washington for his age 28 season. He is remembered as one of the worst blockbuster free agent signings in history.

Jared Allen was traded from the Chiefs to the Vikings just days before the 2008 Draft. The Chiefs traded Allen and their 2008 6th round pick (which turned out to be John Sullivan, who started 93 games at center for Minnesota) to Minnesota for the Vikings 1st round pick (KC traded up two spots to select Branden Albert), two third round picks (used to draft Jamaal Charles and DB DaJuan Morgan), and 2008 sixth round pick (WR Kevin Robinson). That might have been the rare win-win trade: Albert and Charles were stars, and Allen had a great career in Minnesota. He was a first-team All-Pro his last season in Kansas City and then three of his first four seasons in Minnesota.

The Raiders have also gone down this road before with Jon Gruden. In 1998, Gruden joined the Raiders and allowed DT Chester McGlockton to sign with the rival Chiefs.  McGlockton was a Pro Bowl each of the last four seasons, but left Oakland similar to Mack (but 18 months older).  After letting him leave, Oakland received the 31st and 59th overall picks in the draft as compensation.  Gruden responded by saying “We think we can get some players who can impact the team this year and for years to come… It’s going to be the bloodline of our organization.”   Suffice it to say, the 1998 Draft was not a good one for Oakland, other than using the 4th overall on a future Hall of Famer.

The table below shows all players who met the above criteria:

What do you think?

Yesterday, I looked at player weight in the NFL. Today I want to take a more granular approach and look at weight by position. Of course, in modern times, positions have blended quite a bit. In a 3-4 defense, the edge rusher would be a linebacker, while in a 4-3 defense, that same player would be a defensive end; defensive front sevens are so versatile that Khalil Mack once received All-Pro honors at both OLB and DE… in the same season! And it’s not just the front seven players that are hybrids: Deone Bucannon and Mark Barron converted from safety to linebacker after entering the NFL, while 2017 Eagles rookie Nathan Gerry converted from safety to linebacker when he entered the draft.

So while there’s an element of trying to fit square pegs into round holes, I nevertheless labeled every defensive player from 2017 as either a DL, LB, or DB. In my database for each player, I have their weight and 2017 AV score. I have graphed that data below, with player weight on the X-Axis and AV score on the Y-Axis.  All players in red are defensive backs, while players in black are linebackers, and defensive linemen are showed in blue.

There is some fluidity in player positions, but some broad trends clearly emerge.  Yes, there is overlap between defensive backs and linebackers, and between linebackers and defensive ends, but that overlaps is mostly at the edges. Below is the same data (with player weight on the X-Axis), but showing the range of weights for defensive backs (the top line), linebackers (middle), and defensive linemen (bottom).  This chart is particularly neat, because in one picture it highlights both the rule and the exception: it’s clear what the ranges are for players at DL, LB, and DB, but it is also clear that there’s overlap at the margins: [continue reading…]

Let’s travel back to 1990. On average, most defensive backs weighed between 172 and 210 pounds, most linebackers between 225 and 250 pounds, and most defensive linemen between 260 and 290 pounds. The graph below shows the amount of AV produced by defensive players at each weight in 1990:

If you look carefully, you’ll notice a few low spots on the graph. Very little AV is coming from players who weighed between 211 and 220 pounds, and also at 256 to 259 pounds. Let’s graph this another way: below, I show the percentage of all defensive AV produced by players who are X pounds or lighter. For example, about 11% of AV is produced by players 187 pounds or lighter, about one-third of AV is produced by players 210 pounds or lighter, and 34% is from players 220 pounds or lighter. The graph gets very flat between 211 and 220 pounds, indicating the lack of players in that range: [continue reading…]

Tonight, the 2018 Pro Football Hall of Fame class will be inducted. It’s a great class, with Ray Lewis, Randy Moss, Brian Urlacher, Terrell Owens, and Brian Dawkins as the five modern-era selections.,joined by Jerry Kramer and Robert Brazile from the senior’s committee and Bobby Beathard as the Contributor selection.

Here’s what I wrote about Lewis when he was announced:

You won’t be on an island if you suggest that Lewis is the best inside linebacker in NFL history. Lewis scores well in pretty much every metric possible. When it comes to Approximate Value, what Ray Lewis did was unbelievable. He made 13 Pro Bowls, which is also absurd. The Ravens went on a magical run to win the Super Bowl in his final year, and at the time he retired, he was arguably the best player to retire after winning the Super Bowl.

[continue reading…]

Simeon Rice was one of the best pass rushers of his generation. He led all players in sacks from 1996 to 2005, and also from 1999 to 2002. During those four seasons, Rice played on defenses that faced just 2,098 pass plays: every team other than the Bills (2,078 pass plays) faced more pass plays during those years.

In fact, in his average season — weighted for the number of sacks Rice recorded — his defenses faced just 32.78 pass attempts (including sacks) per game. The reason I weight for number of sacks is that if Rice played on defenses that faced 600 pass attempts during his big sack years, and 400 pass attempts during his low sack years, that’s not the same as facing 500 pass attempts every year. A player’s reputation is built off of his big sack years, which generally coincide with his prime; as a result, those years should received more weight. If a 37-year-old Rice played on a team that faced 700 pass attempts and Rice barely played, it wouldn’t make sense to count that equally with a year in his prime.

The table below shows every season of Rice’s career. By way of example, as a rookie, he played for Arizona and recorded 12.5 sacks, which is 10.25% of his career total. His Cardinals faced 548 pass plays (including sacks), or 34.25 per game that season, so when calculating his career grade, 10.25% of it will come from the 34.25 number. The “Prod” column is the product of the “Perc” column and the “TPA/G” column. The far right column shows the average NFL sack rate that season, which is shown only for reference. [continue reading…]

In 2001, Michael Strahan had 22.5 sacks, the most in a single season since 1982.

In 1987, Reggie White had 21 sacks in just 12 games, the highest per-game average since 1982.

In 1986, Lawrence Taylor won the AP MVP award and had 20.5 sacks.

Those three seasons were all great sack seasons, but I’d argue that DeMarcus Ware in 2008 – when he had 20.0 sacks – was the best sack season of the bunch.

Let’s start by looking at the NFL average sack rates (defined as sacks divided by sacks plus pass attempts) in each season since 1982, when the NFL began tracking sacks for individual defensive players. I have colored in red the ’86, ’87, ’01, and ’08 seasons. [continue reading…]

In 1994, the “average” sack came from a player that weighted 266 pounds. Wait, what do you mean by average sack? Well, if you look at all 937 sacks in 1994, and identify the weight of the sacker on each sack, you can calculate the weight of the average sack in each season. John Randle was 290 pounds, and he had 13.5 sacks that year, so he gets 13.5 times as much weight a player with one sack. The graph below shows the weight of the player producing an average sack in each year since 1982. As you can see, it peaked in the mid-’90s, and has declined slightly since.

However, players in general are getting heavier, including in the front seven. The graph below shows the average weight of a player in the front 7 — weighted by the number of starts by such a player — for each year since 1982. That data is in orange; the blue line showing the average sack weight is still included in the chart for reference.
[continue reading…]

Jessie Tuggle was a Georgia man. He was born in Griffin, Georgia and starred at Griffin High. He went to Valdosta State, in Valdosta, Georgia, and was a three-time All-Conference pick and the Gulf South Conference’s Defensive Player of the Year in his senior season. He went undrafted, so he joined the Atlanta Falcons for training camp in 1987. Tuggle made the team, and proceeded to miss just one game due to injury over his first 12 seasons. Tuggle wound up playing his entire 14-year career with the Falcons, set the Atlanta record for games played by a defensive player, and made five Pro Bowls. And if he hadn’t been on some of the worst defenses of his era, he might be remembered more fondly today.

How bad were the Falcons defenses during the Tuggle era? The graph below shows Atlanta’s defensive DVOA in each year (using estimated DVOA for ’87 and ’88) plotted against the left Y-Axis (and remember, a positive number indicates a below-average defense) and the Falcons rank in points allowed plotted against the right Y-Axis (here, a larger number means a worse defense). In ’87, ’89, ’92, ’93, ’94, ’96, 99, and ’00, the Falcons defense had a DVOA of worse than 10%: [continue reading…]

Chris McAlister played 137 games in his NFL career: 135 with the Ravens from 1999 to 2008, and then 2 with the Saints in 2009 (given that he accumulated 0 points of AV with New Orleans, I’m excluding that from the analysis). He was the 10th overall pick in the ’99 draft, and a first-team All-Pro in ’03 and ’04, and a Pro Bowler in ’06. Most notably, he played on very good defenses almost every season of his career. In 10 years in Baltimore, the Ravens defense never ranked outside of the top 10 and ranked in the top 2 more often than not. You can calculate McAlister’s average team’s defensive DVOA by weighting his DVOA in each year (where he received at least one point of AV) by his number of games played that year as follows:

As it turns out, among players with at least 70 points of career AV, his average grade of -18.1% is the highest grade of any player (Jerome Brown is at -18.2% but he had only 48 points of career AV, as his life was cut tragically short). The full list of players below. [continue reading…]

Are sacks more highly concentrated among a few players now? Look at the 2016 Raiders: Khalil Mack, who won the Defensive Player of the Year award by one vote over Von Miller, had 11 sacks. But Mack and Bruce Irvin (7.0 sacks) were the only Oakland defenders to record more than three sacks last year, and only six Raiders finished the year with a sack. In Atlanta, Vic Beasley led the NFL with 15.5 sacks, but only eight other Falcons had a sack, and no other Falcon had more than five. Meanwhile, the ’86 Oilers had 17 players record at least one sack and no player with more than five sacks!

In 2014, J.J. Watt had 20.5 of Houston’s 38 sacks. And in 2012, Aldon Smith had just over half of the 49ers sacks, too. But are things really getting more concentrated? Memory can play tricks on us: after all, in 1989, Tim Harris had 19.5 sacks for the Packers, which represented 57% of all Green Bay sacks that year.

As it turns out, the Raiders and Falcons weren’t great examples to measure the modern NFL. They were the two most concentrated teams in the NFL last year in terms of sacks. Let’s look at the Raiders sack totals more closely, and use the same methodology we’ve used the last few days (also known as the Herfindahl index): [continue reading…]

Do you know who led the NFL in tackles in 2016? It was Tampa Bay’s second-year linebacker Kwon Alexander, with 108 solo tackles.  If you give half-credit for assists, Kwon – who had 37 assists — would get 126.5 total tackles.  That would be the second-most in the league, just behind Seattle linebacker  Bobby Wagner (86 solos, 82 assists, for 127 total tackles).

Tackles aren’t a great stat for a lot of reasons.  One reason is the statistic treats all tackles the same.  Another is it ignores opportunity: the 49ers led the NFL last year with 855 total tackles (again, treating assists as half-tackles), which helped safety Antoine Bethea rank 9th in the league in solo tackles.  That’s because the 49ers defense was on the field a ton last year; meanwhile, the Eagles recorded the fewest total tackles in the NFL last season with just 699.  Eagles linebacker Nigel Bradham had 67 solos and 81 assists last year, but that total looks a lot better when you realize he was responsible for about 12% of all Eagles tackles in 2016.

In addition to looking at total tackle numbers as a percentage of his team’s tackles, there’s one other adjustment worth making. Carolina’s Luke Kuechly had 86.5 total tackles last year, good enough for 11.0% of Carolina’s 785 total tackles. But Kuechly played in just 10 games! If we multiply his 11.0% tackle share number by 16/10 — in other words, pro-rating for missed games — that means Kuechly gets credit for a whopping 17.6% of all Panthers tackles.

Another player who benefits from this sort of adjustment is Bears linebacker Jerrell Freeman, who had a great first season in Chicago. Freeman had 98 total tackles, or 12.5% of the Bears total tackles, despite missing four games.  If you pro-rate those numbers, he gets credit for 16.6% of all Chicago tackles, second in the league behind Kuechly.

Do this for every defensive player in the NFL, and the top three players in adjusted total tackle share are Kuechly, Freeman, and Wagner.  Alexander, while still impressive, drops to 7th via this method. Below are the top 75 players in pro-rated adjusted total tackle share. [continue reading…]

Today’s guest post comes from one of the longest followers of this blog (and its predecessor), Richie Wohlers. Richie is 44-year-old accountant from Southern California who is a Dolphins fan despite never being to Florida. As always, we thank our guest posters for contributing.

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This is the first part in my series looking at the NFL Hall of Fame.  I am going to take a look at which players are in the HOF, and look at some objective attributes of HOFers.  I am only going to focus on players who played any part of their career after the AFL-NFL merger in 1970.  While this will include many players who played in the pre-merger days, the bulk of the careers will have at least been played since 1960 with at least 21 combined teams.  Before the AFL came along there were generally many fewer teams, so things like draft position and Pro Bowl/All Pro honors are more difficult to compare.  Also, the game of pro football was much different before the 1950s.  I am mostly going to stick with looking at the few statistics that can be compared across positions, such as All Pros, Approximate Value, etc.

I created a very quick and simple formula to give each player a career score based on the average of six statistical categories (All-Pros, Pro Bowls, Weighted AV, Total AV, Super Bowl Appearances, Super Bowl wins) at a position.  Each category is weighted equally (though, the categories are related, and winning a Super Bowl essentially becomes worth 2 categories).  The average HOF player at each position will have a score of 100.  This makes an easy (though not exhaustive) way to rank careers, and to quickly see if anybody is missing from the HOF.  I feel that using honors (Pro Bowl, All Pro) helps factor in peak value, AV factors in total value and Super Bowls helps factor in players on winning teams, who HOF voters seem to favor.

Today I am taking a look at linebackers. [continue reading…]

Gray Ink tests are fun ways to measure player dominance by giving some — but not too much — credit to longevity. In simplest form, gray ink tests give 10 points for finishing 1st in a category, 9 points for finishing 2nd, and so on. Let’s use Kevin Greene, third all-time (shorthand for since 1982, of course) in career sacks with 160, and Bruce Smith, the career leader with 200, as examples.

Smith was the better player — he was an 11-time Pro Bowler and an 8-time AP first-team All-Pro, compared to just 5/2 for Greene — and consequently was a clear first-ballot Hall of Famer. For whatever reason, it took Greene 12 years, but this summer, he will finally be inducted into the Hall. Given the fact that Smith has 25% more career sacks than Greene, you probably think that Smith was the better pass rusher. To that, the Gray Ink test says not so fast, my friend. [continue reading…]

Good article from Peter King this morning on J.J. Watt and the injury struggles he dealt with last year.  King also noted that Watt has 69 sacks over the last four seasons, the most in the NFL.  In fact, that’s the second most by any player in any four-year stretch over at least the last 31 years. FRom 1985 to 1988, Reggie White had 70 sacks, and he did it in seven fewer games (he missed the first three games of ’85 due to being a member of USFL, ^[1]The Eagles, after starting 0-2, paid a million dollars to Memphis to essentially buy White from the league. and then four games in ’87 due to the players’ strike.)  Of course, White did play in a friendlier era for sacks (2.63 sacks per game vs. 2.37 over the last four years), so cross-era comparisons always have their limitations.

But I thought it would be interesting, especially in light of Jared Allen retiring, to look at the leaders in sacks on a trailing four year basis: [continue reading…]

On Monday, I looked at the Defensive Player of the Year voting in every year from 2000 to 2006. Today, the last eight years.

2007: Bob Sanders, Indianapolis Colts

AP voting: Sanders (31), Patrick Kerney (4) (Seattle), Albert Haynesworth (4) (Titans), Antonio Cromartie (3) (Chargers), DeMarcus Ware (3) (Cowboys), Mike Vrabel (2) (Patriots), James Harrison (1) (Steelers), Ronde Barber (1) (Buccaneers), Patrick Willis (1) (49ers), Mario Williams (1) (Texans)

Sanders picked up 62% of the vote, yet nine other names split the remaining ballots.  It is weird to think of a player like Kerney as being the runner up for DPOY. But in his first year in Seattle, Kerney had 14.5 sacks, forced five fumbles, and recorded an interception, good enough to get him the KC101 NFC Defensive Player of the Year award.

But Sanders was the clear choice for DPOY. Only a couple of random places (like the Kansas City Star, which went for Ware, the New York Daily News (Cromartie), or the Miami Herald, which went for Vrabel because LBWINZ) didn’t select Sanders as the top defender that season.

Verdict: A worthy DPOY season for Sanders. And the first of back-to-back DPOY-caliber seasons that would land Haynesworth a $100M contract.

2008: James Harrison, Pittsburgh Steelers

AP voting: Harrison (22), DeMarcus Ware (13) (Cowboys), Ed Reed (8) (Ravens), Albert Haynesworth (5) (Titans), Troy Polamalu (2) (Steelers)

This was another close vote: Harrison didn’t quite get half of the AP voting, but did win by a healthy margin. This was far from a unanimous seletion: Peter King at Sports Illustrated, John Clayton at ESPN, and Mark Gaughan at the Buffalo News all chose Ware, Rick Gosselin at the Dallas Morning News and Leonard Shapiro at the Miami Herald selected Reed, while the Sporting News poll of players, coaches, and general managers landed on Haynesworth. The KC101 awards went to Harrison and Ware as the top defenders in each conference.

The Steelers defense was outstanding in 2008.  It finishes two standard deviations above average in points allowed, and ranked as the 10th best pass defense ever.  And Pittsburgh ranked 1st or 2nd in yards per carry allowed, rushing yards allowed, and rushing touchdowns allowed. Harrison, of course, cemented his play in ’08 with one of the greatest plays in NFL history, a 100-yard interception return for a touchdown in Super Bowl XLIII.

Verdict: Harrison’s 16 sacks finished 4th in the NFL, and he was second on the team in tackles.  A very deserving choice for the award. As for Ware, this was the closest he ever got to winning the DPOY award.  In fact, he received just 3 other votes over the remainder of his career from AP writers, all in 2007 (although he did have a DPOY-caliber year in ’11, too).

2009: Charles Woodson, Green Bay Packers

AP voting: Woodson (28), Darrelle Revis (14) (Jets), Darren Sharper (3) (Saints), Elvis Dumervil (3) (Broncos), Jared Allen (2) (Vikings)

One of the more interesting DPOY races, as the top two players played the same position — but in very different ways. Revis was a dominant shutdown corner, having one of the greatest individual coverage seasons in recent history. Woodson was a great coverage corner who also played in the slot, or at safety, and was a pretty effective blitzer, too. The AP voters preferred Woodson’s all-around game at a 2:1 ratio, but there were dissenters.

Sports Illustrated’s Peter King selected Revis, as did the New York Daily News. USA Today had Revis winning by the narrowest of margins over Woodson and Dumervil. But Woodson did take home the majority of the hardware, including from Pro Football Weekly / Pro Football Writers of America and the Sporting News and the majority of sources out there. There were a couple of straggler votes — Tony Grossi of the Cleveland Plain Dealer chose Dumervil, Leonard Shapiro of the Miami Herald selected Sharper — but this was largely a two-man race.

Verdict: The ’09 Jets led the league in net yards per attempt allowed, points allowed, yards allowed, first downs allowed, passing yards allowed, and passing touchdowns allowed. Revis was the main reason for the defense’s success, and I’m not sure he had a finer year. Both he and Woodson appear to be future Hall of Famers. Of note: Woodson was named the Defensive Back of the Year by the NFL Alumni voting, and each player took home the Defensive Player of the Conference award from he KC101 organization.

2010: Troy Polamalu, Pittsburgh Steelers

AP voting: Polamalu (17), Clay Matthews (15) (Packers), James Harrison (8) (Steelers), Julius Peppers (6) (Bears), Brian Urlacher (2) (Bears), Haloti Ngata (1) (Ravens), Ed Reed (1) (Ravens)

The Steelers safety received just 34% of the vote, narrowly edging Matthews for the AP honor.  Was Polamalu the best defender in 2010? Well, in the Sporting News poll, Matthews took home the award with the voting going 188-148; the Packers outside linebacker was also the Pro Football Weekly/Pro Football Writers choice. As you would suspect, Peter King was again an outlier, going with Peppers as his top choice. Polamalu received the AP nod by a tiny margin, but

Verdict: Matthews deserves at least as much credit as Polamalu for what he did in 2010. The fact that the AP Trophy is considered “official” is kind of silly, but that goes double when the voting was this close. The Packers outside linebacker may be building a Hall of Fame career, and it would be ridiculous to think that two out of 50 votes from certain AP writers in one season would make a difference in that outcome. Then again, while Polamalu seems like a HOF lock, if he came in second place in ’10, would his case be any different?

2011: Terrell Suggs, Baltimore Ravens

AP voting: Suggs (21), Jared Allen (14) (Vikings), Justin Smith (6) (49ers), Jason Pierre-Paul (5) (Giants), Patrick Willis (2) (49ers), NaVorro Bowman (1) (49ers), Charles Woodson (1) (Packers)

Suggs was also the Pro Football Weekly / Pro Football Writers of America DPOY and the choice of a panel of 8 writers at Sports Illustrated.  The Sporting News chose Allen as its top player, with DeMarcus Ware as the runner up there.  The KC 101 chose Suggs and Allen as the top player of each conference. This wasn’t unanimous, and it wasn’t a runaway win, either, but Suggs was a legitimate winner. The Ravens defense ranked in the top 3 in points, yards, net yards per pass attempt, yards per carry, and rushing yards, while Suggs had 14 sacks.

Verdict: Allen had 22 sacks, making it the second most impressive sack season since ’82. Suggs was a worthy choice, but Allen — who is a borderline HOF candidate — deserves a ton of credit for his monster season while playing for a 3-13 team.

2012: J.J. Watt, Houston Texans

AP voting: Watt (49), Von Miller (1) (Broncos)

This was one of the most dominant defensive seasons in NFL history, and that is reflected in the voting. Consider this: over the course of their careers, Reed (29) and Polamalu (22) combined for 51 DPOY votes from the AP. Meanwhile, Watt had 49 just this year.  Aldon Smith was named the KC 101 NFC DPOY and the runner up according to The Sporting News, but Watt was basically a unanimous choice here.

Verdict: J.J. Watt is the man.

2013: Luke Kuechly, Carolina Panthers

AP voting: Kuechly (13), Robert Mathis (11.5) (Colts), Earl Thomas (7.5) (Seahawks), Robert Quinn (6) (Rams), Richard Sherman (4) (Seahawks), J.J. Watt (2) (Texans)

Sandwiched in between Watt’s two scorched-earth campaigns was one of the closest DPOY races in NFL history.  Mathis actually received more All-Pro votes than Kuechly, although the Colts star wasn’t the only one with a good case for the award.

The Pro Football Writers of America and Sports Illustrated chose Quinn, although the Sporting News also went with Kuechly. Pro Football Focus chose Watt, while the KC101 went with Kuechly in the NFC and Mathis in the AFC.  Oh, and the Seahawks had a historically dominant pass defense and two very deserving candidates, too.

Verdict: There were a number of great candidates during the ’13 season. Kuechly may be building a HOF career: he was the Defensive Rookie of the Year in 2012, the DPOY in 2013, and has been a first-team All-Pro by the AP in 2014.   Last year may have been his best season, and he was Pro Football Focus’ top inside linebacker. But I’ll still always remember him as this guy.

2014: J.J. Watt, Houston Texans

A unanimous winner, the first of its kind since the AP began giving out this award.  Watt also received 13 votes in the MVP voting, so it was that sort of season.  Everyone chose Watt as the league’s best player, although it’s worth noting that Richard Sherman did get chosen by the KC101 as the top defender in the NFC.

Verdict: J.J. Watt is the man.

This week, a pair of Jets fans have weighed in on the contract standoff between Muhammad Wilkerson and the New York Jets. Jason at OverTheCap explained why it may be difficult for the two sides to get a true sense of Wilkerson’s market value. Jason points out that the 3-4 defensive end market is pretty weird: You have J.J. Watt at $16.67M per year, then a big drop to Calais Campbell at $11M per year, Jurrell Casey (who was a 4-3 DT when he signed his contract) at $9M per year, and then another big drop. After those three comes Jason Hatcher (also a hybrid 4-3 DT/3-4 DE player) at $6.88M, Desmond Bryant at $6.8M, and then Allen Bailey at $5M per year. And that’s it: no other 3-4 defensive end is making more than five million per year, while Wilkerson reportedly wants upwards of $14M per season. Perhaps we should also include Buffalo’s Kyle Williams — the Bills seemingly switch between a 3-4 and a 4-3 every month — who is making about $10M per year.

But there are three big problems when looking at these contracts and trying to structure a fair deal for Wilkerson, and all three point in Wilkerson’s favor. [continue reading…]

You probably have not given much thought to Ty Law since he retired, and you almost certainly haven’t given much thought to what Law did as a member of the Jets in 2005. But it was a pretty remarkable season.

Law had 10 interceptions that year. That number may not sound like a lot to you — it’s not a record, and we rarely focus on interception totals — but no player has had more than 10 interceptions in a season since 1981. Since Everson Walls of the Cowboys recorded 11 interceptions in 1981, eleven players have intercepted exactly ten passes in a single season. Of those, Law played on the team that faced by far the fewest passes, and he did so in an era where it was very difficult to record interceptions. That’s why, by the metric I’ll describe below, it’s the most impressive interception season in NFL history.

First, I calculated each player’s individual interception rate, defined as his number of interceptions divided by his team’s pass attempts faced. ^[1]Perhaps in a future version, I will adjust for games missed due to injury. The record here was set in 1946 by Pittsburgh’s Bill Dudley, a former first overall pick. That year, Dudley led the NFL in rushing… and punt return yards… and interceptions! Dudley intercepted 10 passes, while the Steelers faced just 162 pass attempts, giving him an interception on 6.2% of opponent dropbacks. Perhaps most amazing, the Steelers leading receivers each had just ten catches, which means Dudley caught as many passes on defense as any Pittsburgh player did on offense in 1946.

Law’s 10 interceptions came against 463 opponent pass attempts, giving him an interception on 2.2% of opposing pass plays. That remains the highest rate in a single season since Walls picked off a pass on 2.4% of opponent pass plays in 1982. But obviously interception rates have been sharply declining, which is what makes Law’s accomplishment so remarkable. [continue reading…]

Justin Houston had 22 sacks last year for the Chiefs, just one sack shy of breaking the modern NFL record. Houston did it while playing a full slate of games for the Chiefs, and Kansas City faced 591 pass attempts last year (including sacks). That means Houston recorded a sack on 3.7% of Kansas City’s opponent dropbacks.

That’s very good, although it’s just the 11th best rate since 1982. But we have to remember that sack rates have been steadily declining over the past few decades. For example, from 1982 to 2014, the average sack rate was 6.87%, but the 2014 rate was just 6.35%. In other words, we would need to increase the sack rate last year by 8.2% in order to adjust for era. So if we adjust for Houston’s 3.7% average by multiplying that average by 108.2%, his adjusted sack rate jumps to 4.03%. And that’s the second best rate since 1982. [continue reading…]

On Monday, we began our journey through the history of the Safety Championship Belt — i.e., who held the title of best safety in each year from 1950 to 1970. And then on Tuesday, we revealed the winners from 1971 to 1990.  Yesterday brought us from 1991 to 2002. Today, the final twelve years.

2003: Roy Williams, Dallas Cowboys / Rodney Harrison, New England Patriots

Hey, for eight months, Buster Douglas was once the best boxer in the land, too. Williams became something of a punch line over time, and his five Pro Bowl selections only show how that honor can devolve into little more than a name recognition contest. But there once was a time when the Oklahoma Roy Williams was a dominant player, and that time was 2003. At his best, Williams was as feared as any safety in the league, a physical player who was essentially a linebacker playing in the defensive backfield. While Ray Lewis justifiably ran away with the Defensive Player of the Year award that season, Houston’s John McClain actually selected Williams as his top defender in all of football in 2003.

The ’03 Cowboys, you might forget, finished in the top four in most major categories on defense, including points allowed, yards allowed, first downs allowed, passing yards allowed, net yards per attempt allowed, rushing yards allowed, and yards per carry allowed. Here’s another way to put it: the team went 10-6 with Quincy Carter at quarterback.

For all the success he had with New England, whenever I think of Rodney Harrison my mind goes to what he and Junior Seau did on the ’98 Chargers. That team had the 3rd worst Relative ANY/A of any team in the last 20 years, ^[1]Ahead of only the ’05 49ers and ’10 Panthers. as Ryan Leaf and Craig Whelihan shared the quarterback duties. Seau and Harrison were seemingly the only thing keeping the Chargers from 0-16, and the duo guided San Diego to a first-place ranking in yards allowed.

That’s a small diversion to remind you about how good Harrison was on a bad team; in New England, we saw how valuable he could be on a good one.  Harrison had “only” three interceptions and three sacks in 2003, but he added two more interceptions in a dominant run during the playoffs.  Harrison was a first-team All-Pro selection by the AP and Dr. Z, and Peter King chose Harrison as his DPOY (King wasn’t on an island here; Rick Gosselin at the Dallas Morning News had Harrison as his runner-up to Lewis, and Ira Miller at the San Francisco Chronicle also picked Harrison as the best defender in football.)

Just about everyone who didn’t pick Williams or Harrison as the best safety in football in ’03 selected our next player, who clearly took over the title the following year. [continue reading…]

On Monday, we began our journey through the history of the Safety Championship Belt — i.e., identifying who held the title of best safety in football in each year from 1950 to 1970. Yesterday, we continued from 1971 to 1990.  Today, we pick back up with a familiar name at the top of the list.

1991: Ronnie Lott, Los Angeles Raiders

In ’91, Lott moves to Los Angeles and donned the silver and black, the perfect look for one of the game’s most ferocious hitters.  The move revitalized his career, as Lott switched positions from free to strong safety.  The move worked, as he registered 93 tackles and a league-high 8 interceptions.  Four of the major services (Associated Press, Pro Football Writers, Pro Football Weekly, and Sporting News) named Lott a first-team All-Pro, but there were more honors in store for the 31-year-old.

The NFL’s Players Association named him Defensive Back of the Year, while the Washington Post and Newsday named him Comeback Player of the Year (while Lott was an All-Pro in ’90, he missed substantial time with knee injuries, and the 49ers allowed him to move on in part because they thought Lott was essentially done). He even finished tied for fourth with Derrick Thomas for the AP Defensive Player of the Year award (behind Pat Swilling, Seth Joyner, and Reggie White).  And Tom Ford at the Tampa Tribune named Lott the AFC Defensive Player of the Year.

One other safety also was named first-team All-Pro by four different organizations in 1991, but he would have to wait a year to earn the championship belt.

1992: Steve Atwater, Denver Broncos

Atwater and Lott were neck-and-neck for the title of best safety of ’91; the same could be said of Atwater and Buffalo’s Henry Jones in ’92.  But Atwater absolutely deserves a spot on our list somewhere, and by ’92, he had established himself as among the elite. If you want to take the longer view, the Broncos star safety was one of the game’s best defenders for a decade. [continue reading…]

Yesterday, we began our journey through the history of the Safety Championship Belt: i.e., the history of who was the titleholder of “Best Safety in Football” in each year from 1950 to 1970. Today, the next twenty years.

1971-1972: Bill Bradley, Philadelphia Eagles

At the University of Texas, Bradley was a running quarterback and punter before moving to defensive back. That position was a natural fit for Bradley, who would become the best safety in the NFL during the early ’70s.  In 1971, he led the NFL with 11 interceptions and 248 return yards, and was a first-team All-Pro choice by the Associated Press, Pro Football Writers, and Pro Football Weekly (the NEA selected Rick Volk and Paul Krause that year).  In ’72, Bradley’s nine interceptions led the league, and he was a unanimous first-team All-Pro selection (AP, PFW, PFW, and NEA).  Bradley would make the Pro Bowl in ’73, but his career arc had peaked in ’72.

1972 (Super Bowl): Jake Scott, Miami Dolphins

Scott was named the MVP of Super Bowl VII, capping the team’s 17-0 season. That’s worth a mention, particularly given the fact that Scott was a Pro Bowler every year from ’71 to ’75, and was named a first-team All-Pro by at least one organization in the last four of those years. He was probably the second or third best safety each of those seasons, so the Super Bowl MVP means he earns at least an honorable mention here. Scott was one of two safeties that made the AP All-Pro team in ’73, but that year, he wasn’t even the best safety on his own team. [continue reading…]

Bill Barnwell, among others, has written about “championship belts” at different positions, with the idea that the title of best player at position X can be passed around like a heavyweight belt. With the retirement of Troy Polamalu last week, there has been some discussion as to whether the Steelers is the greatest safety of all time (for some convincing arguments to the contrary, you can read Neil Paine’s take here).

As complicated as it is to evaluate quarterbacks, running backs, and wide receivers, that’s child’s play compared to comparing individual defensive players. Who is the greatest safety of all time? That’s an even more impossible question to answer, so I’m not going to even try. Instead, today and tomorrow, I’m going to look at who held the unofficial title of best safety in the league over the last 65 years. [continue reading…]

The last three seasons, Seattle’s Earl Thomas has been named a first-team All-Pro by the Associated Press, among others.  In each of the last two years, his teammate at the safety position, Kam Chancellor, was a second-team honoree from the AP. Last year, Thomas was a runaway selection, while Chancellor was just two votes shy of being a first-team choice (which made up for the joke that was the AP second-team All-Pro safety situation from ’13).

Over the course of football history, there have been several organizations that have awarded All-Pro teams.  Principal among those have been the Associated Press, the Sporting News, the Newspaper Enterprise Association, the Pro Football Writers Association, and Pro Football Weekly.  Can you name the last time that any one of those organizations named two safeties from the same team as first-team All-Pros? [continue reading…]

According to Pro Football Focus, Richard Sherman was targeted just 65 times last season. That number is even more remarkably low when you consider that Sherman was in on 552 pass plays for the Seahawks last season.

We all know that Sherman generally sticks to the defense’s left side of the field; as a result, offenses tend to put their best wide receiver on the offense’s left, in order to avoid having to throw at Sherman. But that’s what I want to look at today: which cornerbacks are targeted the least?

Based on data from Pro Football Focus, the average cornerback was targeted on 16.4% of his pass snaps last year. That means an average cornerback would be expected to see about 90.5 targets on 552 snaps; in other words, Sherman saw 25.5 fewer targets than we would expect.

That’s the most impressive number of any cornerback in the league last year, with “impressive” here being a synonym for not being targeted. The second largest number belongs to Darrelle Revis, which perhaps isn’t much of a surprise, either. While with the Patriots, Revis was targeted 79 times on 606 pass snaps, or 20.4 fewer targets than we would expect.

The table below shows that data for each cornerback that was in on at least 175 snaps last season: [continue reading…]

I’ve already spent some time this off-season discussing the Rams fantastic front four. Robert Quinn made the Pro Bowl last season, and he’s a good bet to make the trip to Hawaii again this year as long as he stays healthy. Adding Aaron Donald to a line that also has Chris Long and Michael Brockers means St. Louis should have the best 4-3 defensive line in the NFL this year.

The best 3-4 defensive line? That honor probably belongs to the New York Jets. Muhammad Wilkerson made the Pro Bowl last year and would have been a second-team AP All-Pro choice if that organization knew anything about how to create a ballot. The other defensive end, Sheldon Richardson, was the AP Defensive Rookie of the Year. The nose tackle, Damon Harrison, was easily the top run-stuffing tackle in the NFL last year according to Pro Football Focus, and was PFF’s highest-graded nose tackle overall.  You will probably find this hard to believe, but Rex Ryan has said that he wants to have all three of the Jets starting defensive linemen make the Pro Bowl.

How rare is that? Pretty rare — in fact, a 3-4 line has never sent all three players to the Pro Bowl. But even among 4-3 teams, sending three defensive linemen to Hawaii is a very rare feat. Although you might be surprised about when it last happened.

What other teams have sent three defensive linemen to the Pro Bowl during the Super Bowl era? [continue reading…]