PFF: Top 25 Most Productive Pass Rushers

[Slateman]

Who cares about hits and hurries? Quarterbacks do, because it gives them happy feet and causes them to throw off rhythm. It frustrates the QBs to no end. It means that secondaries don't have to cover as long. I could go on...

You can't just "call bs." There are plenty of reasons why. Dallas could have played more defensive snaps than the Skins. Offenses might have rushed more than against the Skins. 80 snaps over 11 games isn't that much of a difference...it's less than 8 snaps a game more.

The Cowboys' defense has gone up against 40 more passing plays than the Skins' defense, so that's half of it right there lol...and not sure how much playing time Orakpo has missed due to injury as compared to Ware. Both have started all 11 games, but we know Orakpo has had several games where injury put him on the sideline for extended periods. Ware might have as well, not sure.

In other words, there isn't a larger enough sample size to come up with a formula like this. In other words, its BS. Just like half the sabermetric statistics in baseball, even though they have a much larger sample size.

[theTruthTeller]

I guess you didn't click on the link provided that takes you to the article which explains their method. Or is that too much reading for you to do? Sacks are nice but they don't win you games or make the player better than the others.

I guess I'm not super smart like you. Could you help me understand the article? I only have two engineering degrees, so I'm a little slow on complicated math problems like this.

Since you apparently believe that this method cannot be questioned, you'd probably be in favor of trading Orakpo and Kerrigan for Dunlap and Haggans. This would VASTLY improve the productivity of our pass rushing. Seriously, I'd estimate that we'd be ALMOST sacking the QB on at least a quarter of passing plays from those two players alone. Of course, we'd almost NEVER be ACTUALLY sacking the QB, because those two players have 4 sacks combined this year, but they are incredibly productive. Of course, while Haggans and Dunlap almost reached the QB, he'd be completing nearly 50% of his passes, but what the heck.

"Sacks are nice but they don't win you games or make the player better than the others." - Are you serious?

[JBScores]

I think Ware is the best pass rusher in the league. He should be #1.

[Califan007 The Constipated]

In other words, there isn't a larger enough sample size to come up with a formula like this. In other words, its BS. Just like half the sabermetric statistics in baseball, even though they have a much larger sample size.

How in the world did you come to THAT conclusion from what I said? ...

I love how stats are consider "b.s." if they don't conform to fan perception.

---------- Post added December-2nd-2011 at 09:24 AM ----------

I think Ware is the best pass rusher in the league. He should be #1.

I think he's the best (or among the best) sack artists in the league :yes:...but there's more to pass rushing productivity than sacks.

That's a concept that a few others on here are having one helluva hard time grasping. They feel all it takes to tell who are the most productive pass rushers in the league is to look at the sacks stat column on NFL.com.

[Hitman21ST]

Would you rather be hurried on 8 passes or sacked six times?

If you have a high ratio of hurries to sacks, it probably means that the opposing QBs aren't all that concerned about your pass rushing abilities and are holding onto the ball longer. If you have a low ratio of hurries to sacks, opposing teams are probably gameplanning faster developing pass plays.

I'm pretty sure that if they held a league wide draft right now that Ware and Allen would both go several rounds before Dunlap.

Right. Quarterbacks aren't worried about being hurried. Hurrying the quarterback and forcing them to throw early is only what won the Saints the NFC Championship game against the Vikings and the Giants Super Bowl against the Pats. It got Favre (in his best year) and Brady (in arguably his) off their rhythms, causing them to throw the ball before they were ready. But I guess they weren't worried about the two defenses they faced, huh? They definitely had a high ratio of hurries to sacks in those games.

Your two engineering degrees have apparently left you unaware of simple football knowledge.

[Bat~man]

I don't have issues with Raks ability to pass rush. I take issue with the plays he gives up due to taking bad angles, over pursuing or just bad coverage. There are a lot of factors that go into it other than Rak just making some mistakes, but he definitely needs to tighten up some areas of his game.

I would also like to hear his name being called in more divisional games where it really matters. I still like the guy and don't wanna trade him tho, he has the ability and desire to improve.

[Enter Apotheosis]

^^^Yep, he needs to up his hand fighting, give those holding sons of beaches a a snaps worth of judo chops every play- keep their hands away from him and beat their arms up at the same time

Rak is already a good pass rusher but to become great or at least reach his full potential he's should at add an outside rush that converts to an inside move (spin or rip)

I don't have issues with Raks ability to pass rush. I take issue with the plays he gives up due to taking bad angles, over pursuing or just bad coverage. There are a lot of factors that go into it other than Rak just making some mistakes, but he definitely needs to tighten up some areas of his game.

I would also like to hear his name being called in more divisional games where it really matters. I still like the guy and don't wanna trade him tho, he has the ability and desire to improve.

These kinds of posts are exactly where the criticism began. It's gotten a little out of control lately with the "Orakpo is a bum" and the "trade Orakpo" opinion bandwagoners and the inevitable loyal-to-a-fault backlash. Nonetheless, the simple fact of the matter is that there are areas of Orakpo's game that badly need work if he's actually going to be what most of us have hoped he would be.

Problem is that we need to rush Orakpo on every player. none of this coverage nonsense

You have to drop your OLB occasionally. You could argue that we do it with Orakpo too much but we also don't want to take too many rushing opportunities away from Kerrigan and blitzing (5+ rushers) on every play is not a terribly wise idea, either.

[sportjunkie07]

I'm on the Orakpo train and have clearly been arguing for him. I also get what the article is trying to say and everything. But it definitely is hard to argue Allen shouldn't be up there - pressures and all that are great, but he's got some stats just this year that are hard to ignore:

In 11 games this year, Allen has had at least a half sack in 9 of them.

He has 4 games with 2 or more sacks.

He has 7 sacks in 4 division games.

The 2 games without sacks have been the last two, meaning that at one point, he had all of these stats in 9 games.

He has done this on a 2-9 team that has rarely played with a lead.

I agree that pressures are important and there is more than just getting sacks to the whole thing. On multiple occasions this year I've seen Kerrigan or others get sacks because Orakpo forces the quarterback to run right to them. But when it comes to making big plays by sacking the quarterback, it's hard to say Ware and Allen aren't at the top.

i think their formula is flawed because they give too much credit to hurries and hits (non sacks). how many times has orakpo hurried Romo sits to pee only to have Romo sits to pee escape and make a play? they state themselves that rodgers completes 75% of his passes when not pressured and 54% when pressured, yet they count hits and hurries as 75% of a sack though they only have a ~20% affect.

the affect of hits and hurries should be lowered to ~20% (using rodgers info of 75% - 54%) which reflects the affect it has on a completion.

a better formula imo would be:

sacks + ~.20 (hits +hurries) / number of snaps rushing the passer * 100 = pass rushing productivity

[JoeSkins]

I love our bookend OLB's. These guys should be dominant for at least 5 years. Excellent drafting/scouting by us!

To be fair, finding productive players in the first round isn't all that tough for most NFL teams.

[Enter Apotheosis]

To be fair, finding productive players in the first round isn't all that tough for most NFL teams.

I'd still be inclined to give them a good deal of credit for successfully projecting Kerrigan as a 3-4 backer.

[Slateman]

How in the world did you come to THAT conclusion from what I said? ...

I love how stats are consider "b.s." if they don't conform to fan perception.

---------- Post added December-2nd-2011 at 09:24 AM ----------

I think he's the best (or among the best) sack artists in the league :yes:...but there's more to pass rushing productivity than sacks.

That's a concept that a few others on here are having one helluva hard time grasping. They feel all it takes to tell who are the most productive pass rushers in the league is to look at the sacks stat column on NFL.com.

Haven't you ever heard the line, "There's lies, dammned lies and statistics"

Stats are always faulty. The article specifically attempts to take advantage of this.

i think their formula is flawed because they give too much credit to hurries and hits (non sacks). how many times has orakpo hurried Romo sits to pee only to have Romo sits to pee escape and make a play? they state themselves that rodgers completes 75% of his passes when not pressured and 54% when pressured, yet they count hits and hurries as 75% of a sack though they only have a ~20% affect.

the affect of hits and hurries should be lowered to ~20% (using rodgers info of 75% - 54%) which reflects the affect it has on a completion.

a better formula imo would be:

sacks + ~.20 (hits +hurries) / number of snaps rushing the passer * 100 = pass rushing productivity

Thank you, someone gets it. They assigned an arbitrary number to hits and hurries, but offers no reasoning as to why it was given that value.

I say take it a step further. How many of these hits/hurries resulted in an incompletion? Or were on a 3rd down and the offense failed to convert? Is a hit/hurry worth anything at all if the opposing offense gets a first down? Or would you rather your pass rush gotten a sack? Orakpo got a hurry on Romo sits to pee, forcing Romo sits to pee out.of the pocket. Romo sits to pee got a touchdown to Witten. How valuable was that particular hurry? I would say not at all.

Furthermore, I would say hits and hurries that result in a turnover should be given more value. But then we get in to the issue of judging an individual based on an overall team effort.

It's too arbitrary to simply assign hits/hurries any kind of statistical value with out getting more situational information .

[JoeSkins]

I'd still be inclined to give them a good deal of credit for successfully projecting Kerrigan as a 3-4 backer.

I think the difficulty of that transition might be a little overstated when it comes to rookies. It's a huge problem for established players but rookies have to learn football all over again anyway. To paraphrase Wade Phillips, it's easier to find a 3-4 OLB than a 4-3 DE. It's actually a big point by some around here as to why DeMarcus Ware is slightly overrated. However, I do agree that credit is due for not picking someone who couldn't make the transition. That would have been a huge problem because the team would essentially have been without its top three draft selections this season.

[Skinsfan4life83]

Anyone who wants to honestly trade Orakpo is a idiot. Rob Jackson is NOWHERE near as good as Rak. If he was he would be starting. You armchair coaches have no idea what you are talking about. It's completely ridiculous.

[SuperBash]

When Ware and Suggs are not in the Top 10, I question the Validity.

[Hitman21ST]

i think their formula is flawed because they give too much credit to hurries and hits (non sacks). how many times has orakpo hurried Romo sits to pee only to have Romo sits to pee escape and make a play? they state themselves that rodgers completes 75% of his passes when not pressured and 54% when pressured, yet they count hits and hurries as 75% of a sack though they only have a ~20% affect.

the affect of hits and hurries should be lowered to ~20% (using rodgers info of 75% - 54%) which reflects the affect it has on a completion.

a better formula imo would be:

sacks + ~.20 (hits +hurries) / number of snaps rushing the passer * 100 = pass rushing productivity

Actually, it should be about .6(hits+hurries), and here's why:

You can't just take the two percentages and subtract the numbers, you have to find the multiplier to get to the second number. Let's give Rodgers' normal completion rate (75%) the value "x". To get to his pressured completion rate (54%), you need to multiply "x" by .6, approximately.

So, while the .75 number might not be accurate, it's a lot closer to what it should be than your .2 number.

[Slateman]

Actually, it should be about .6(hits+hurries), and here's why:

You can't just take the two percentages and subtract the numbers, you have to find the multiplier to get to the second number. Let's give Rodgers' normal completion rate (75%) the value "x". To get to his pressured completion rate (54%), you need to multiply "x" by .6, approximately.

So, while the .75 number might not be accurate, it's a lot closer to what it should be than your .2 number.

That doesn't make sense. There's a 20% difference between unhurried and hurried throws. A hurry or hit is a 20% chance of an incompletion.

And, this needs to be done league wide or the totals of every opposing QB faced by the individual player.

[Hitman21ST]

That doesn't make sense. There's a 20% difference between unhurried and hurried throws. A hurry or hit is a 20% chance of an incompletion.

Wrong, a hurry/hit is a 20% GREATER chance, up from a 25% chance. You've practically doubled your chances of an incomplete pass with a hurry or hit. 54% chance of completion is just about a 60% increase in the chances of an incomplete pass than a 75% chance.

[Diesel__44]

This list is garbage. Carlos Dunlap has THREE (3) sacks on the season and 15 tackles. Orakpo is a fan favorite but he has been invisible this season and has been a huge disapointment. His inabilty to set the edge and beat one on one match ups isn't affected by my Redskin bias.

[zeroburrito]

looks like carlos dunlap is going to get a HUGE contract next year and jared allen may not be in the nfl(guy has lost it. he's like rank 43 on that list).

talk about a massive fall in production.

[theTruthTeller]

Right. Quarterbacks aren't worried about being hurried. Hurrying the quarterback and forcing them to throw early is only what won the Saints the NFC Championship game against the Vikings and the Giants Super Bowl against the Pats. It got Favre (in his best year) and Brady (in arguably his) off their rhythms, causing them to throw the ball before they were ready. But I guess they weren't worried about the two defenses they faced, huh? They definitely had a high ratio of hurries to sacks in those games.

Your two engineering degrees have apparently left you unaware of simple football knowledge.

The Giants Patriots game where Brady was sacked 5 times? Thanks for proving my point! BTW, if Manning had been sacked rather than hit on his pass to Tyree, Brady would be wearing another ring. The Giants made the sacks, the Patriots didn't.

So you honestly would rather have 8 hurries than six sacks?

So you honestly would rather have Dunlap rushing the passer than Ware or Allen?

---------- Post added December-3rd-2011 at 07:09 AM ----------

Actually, it should be about .6(hits+hurries), and here's why:

You can't just take the two percentages and subtract the numbers, you have to find the multiplier to get to the second number. Let's give Rodgers' normal completion rate (75%) the value "x". To get to his pressured completion rate (54%), you need to multiply "x" by .6, approximately.

So, while the .75 number might not be accurate, it's a lot closer to what it should be than your .2 number.

That's crazy. You're calculating the percentage change of completions caused by a hurry and magically morphing it into a comparative value of a sack.

When Rodgers is hurried or hit, his percentage drops 20% from an unhurried throw. When he's sacked, it drops 75% from a unhurried throw. So a hurry is worth about a quarter of a sack, from the standpoint of a completion. But in addition, a sack results in a loss of yards, while an incompletion results in no yards.

[Califan007 The Constipated]

That's crazy. You're calculating the percentage change of completions caused by a hurry and magically morphing it into a comparative value of a sack.

When Rodgers is hurried or hit, his percentage drops 20% from an unhurried throw. When he's sacked, it drops 75% from a unhurried throw. So a hurry is worth about a quarter of a sack, from the standpoint of a completion. But in addition, a sack results in a loss of yards, while an incompletion results in no yards.

that only makes sense if the only negative result of a QB pressure/hit is an incomplete pass.

And by the way, your math is wrong lol...when Rodgers is pressured his percentage drops 28%. when he is sacked it drops 100%.

Then again, the chance that a hurried throw will be intercepted increases with QB pressures and hits, but that chance is eliminated altogether when he is sacked. How many times have we heard (and said) "he should have taken the sack instead" when a QB throws an INT?

[theTruthTeller]

that only makes sense if the only negative result of a QB pressure/hit is an incomplete pass.

And by the way, your math is wrong lol...when Rodgers is pressured his percentage drops 28%. when he is sacked it drops 100%.

Then again, the chance that a hurried throw will be intercepted increases with QB pressures and hits, but that chance is eliminated altogether when he is sacked. How many times have we heard (and said) "he should have taken the sack instead" when a QB throws an INT?

I was pretty specific that I was only computing the effect on a completion. Sacks provides other negative results including fumbles, QB injuries and pain, loss of yards.

Rodgers doesn't complete 100% of his unhurried passes, it just seems that way. His completion percentage drops from 76% to 0 when he gets sacked. A drop of 76%. When he's hurried/hit, it drops from 76% to 54%. A drop of 22%.

[i corrected my math here, because my initial post had a minor error that caused a significant change in the ratio]

Let's just do the real math. For every 100 unhurried passes Rodgers throws, he completes 76 passes. If he were sacked on 10 of them (you can use any number you want, it won't change the answer), he

would only complete .76*90=68.4 passes. What number of hurries/hits would be needed to drop his overall percentage from 76% (unhurried) to 68.4% (with 10 sacks)?

.54x + .76(100-x)=68.4

therefore .54x+76-.76x=68.4

7.6=.22x

x=34.54

Therefore, you would need 35 hurries/hits to have the same effect on completions as 10 sacks. Accordingly, each sack is worth 3.5 hurries, or each hurry/hit is worth .29 sacks with regard to the completion percentage.

Of course, this is only for Aaron Rodgers.

How many times have you heard "he should have thrown the ball away rather than taken the sack"?

[Califan007 The Constipated]

I was pretty specific that I was only computing the effect on a completion. Sacks provides other negative results including fumbles, QB injuries and pain, loss of yards.

I know, but when we stick to completion percentages when talking about the value of sacks vs. QB pressures/hits, we severely limit how important QB pressures and hits can be.

Not to mention that we also overlook what role QB pressure from other players on the defense plays IN those sacks. In your example, if Rodgers is sacked 10 times, what if 5 of those sacks is directly due to other defensive players applying some good QB pressure? The sack will get all the "credit" but the pressure that led to the sack will not be considered. We can't assume that every sack is due simply to one player somehow getting to the QB on their own.

Bottom line, for me anyways, is that some on this thread are dismissing the very real importance of QB pressure and how effective it is in limiting an opposing offense's passing game. The idea that QB pressures should only count at 1/5th of a sack only makes sense if you view a QB pressure as a guy who almost got a sack but wasn't good enough to get it and occasionally causes the QB to throw an incompletion.

How many times have you heard "he should have thrown the ball away rather than taken the sack"?

Yep...a sack is worse than an incompletion...and an interception is worse than a sack. QB pressures help cause BOTH sacks and interceptions lol...:cool:

[Slateman]

But in this formula, sacks and non sack pressures are seperate entities. They are scored differently. They are seen as seperate events.

Like I said, the formula is greatly flawed. It doesnt take in to account the result of the non sack pressure. Pressures that lead to turnovers should be given a greater value than a sack. Pressures that result in an incompletion should be given far less. Pressure that result in a completion should be given a negative value, unless it was a 3rd down or 4th down and the completion did not result in a first down AND led to either a punt or turnover on downs.

Sabermetrics in football ... We have opened Pandora's Box ....