The story of the NFL stretches back ninety-two years, to 1920. It has existed as long as the greatest lifetime of a man. The NFL’s most celebrated chronicler, Ed Sabol, is just four years its elder—and tragically, he has already outlived his equally celebrated son.
The history of the NFL is at at turning point: when Ed Sabol passes, the last person who can understand and share its entire story will be gone. Like baseball, the history of the NFL will have to be told through generations, kept and tended and groomed and passed down from parent to child; from scribe to scribe.
My principle sporting passion, soccer, seems to be in the process of shedding its memory, believing itself to be an invincible megabeing that sprung from nothing, fully mega, around 1992.
I have often complained about this phenomenon in the NFL, where anything that happened before Jerry Rice never happened. With every franchise relocation, with every schedule realignment, with every record broken our collective sporting consciousness distances itself further from its glorious past. History becomes legend, legend becomes myth, and things which should not be forgotten fall out of memory.
This week, Alex Karras passed away.
I knew him first as Webster’s dad, a wise and gentle giant with a quick wit and a big heart. I knew him second as ‘Alex Karras, Former Detroit Lion’ in sundry TV appearances, local commercials, and the like. I knew him third as Mongo in Blazing Saddles, and nary an internet scribe mourned Karras’s passing this week without quoting his immortal line. I knew him most recently as the ringleader of the Lions' rowdy band in George Plimpton's Paper Lion.
It is this amalgam of genial wiseacre, big-hearted big guy, and former jock who was anything but dumb that most of us deep in the football Internet streets will picture when we think of The Mad Duck.
It is a gravely incomplete picture.
"For me, Alex Karras will always be a pink giant with a towel wrapped around his waist. He will always have a scowl on his face, a cigar in one paw and a cold beer in the other."
Karras was a fiercely competitive player, a relentless hater and destroyer of quarterbacks. Karras, as Greg Eno reminds us, once nearly killed his own quarterback, Milt Plum. Karras threw his helmet at Plum’s head after Plum cost the Lions a crucial win over the Packers with a late interception.
Karras moonlighted as a professional wrestler. He owned a bar—and not just any bar, a seedy joint with a sports betting ring with ties to the mob. After admitting he’d placed bets on the NFL, too, Karras was suspended for a year. During his suspension, he went back to pro wrestling and kept on doing his thing. When he got unsuspended, he went right back to humiliating quarterbacks, rookies, kickers and other “milk drinkers,” both on the field and off.
Karras is not in the Hall of Fame, despite his on-field dominance and off-field, well, fame. His flouting of law and authority kept him out of Canton, though I guess nobody told the San Jose Mercury-News.
Watch the footage of the legendary Lions defensive tackle. See the athleticism. See the relentlessness. See him fly to the quarterback regardless of everything else. Hear the lamentations of his opponents about his dirty play. Consider the obvious intellect and humor, and the improbably spectacular array of headline-grabbing off-field exploits.
Less famously, Suh is smart. He’ll discuss his vicious pursuit of quarterbacks with charm and loquaciousness. Talk to Suh for a few minutes, as I have, and you’ll feel he’s got a lot more to give the world than quarterback sacks.
Lions fans across the globe spent a lot of words, appropriately, praising good old Alex Karras this week. With Karras’s violent, vicious, dominant play a memory from another generation, and his post-sports career as lovable TV and film personality wore his famous rough edges smooth.
Lions fans across the globe also spent a lot of words dismissing Ndamukong Suh this week. They’re sick of his antics, sick of his temper, sick of dreading whatever his next crazy, embarrassing mistake will be.
I was sick of going 0-16.
It’s hard to think of pro athletes as human beings. But they are: real, complicated, multifaceted people with neuroses and complexes and contradictions and flaws and hopes and goals and favorites and family. They can be a vicious sonuvabitch on the field, and hug their mother off it. They can scream at people in traffic and donate millions to their alma mater. They can be a brilliant, generous, funloving guys and flip out when maybe your actions have consequences you’d rather not have to deal with.
Don’t let this incident be the last straw for you with Suh, or the Lions. He, and they, are young and talented and have the next few years to fulfill their potential. If, as I’ve implied, Suh could become the next Karras, get a head start now on accepting his flaws, so you can accept his many strengths.
I’ve never been to any of the campuses of Copiah-Lincoln Community College. I’ve never stepped foot on their practice field in the heat of August. I have no idea if its facilities are those of a polished football factory, or of a rural high school. Is the grass lush and green, or dusty and scraggly? Is a cajun waterboy at the ready with a filtered backpack, or is there a garden hose with holes in it zip-tied to a chain link fence? I don’t know. I do know that Wesson, Mississippi is a long way from the bright lights of SEC football—and that’s where a huge, cat-quick pass-rusher from Mobile named Nick Fairley expected to be. Fairley told an Alabama TV station:
Juco, it kept me humble. Coming out of high school, everybody is going to the D-I school with a big guy, so everybody knows you. They are going into the big time D-I . . . juco was a great eye-opener and got me level headed and ready to go. So when I got to Auburn, I was ready.
For many players, it’s a long and winding road to the NFL. But for Nick Fairley, it was a long and winding road just from high school to the college of his choice. He was rated as just 3-star DE/DT prospect by both Scout.com and Rivals.com, though my suspicion is that had more to do with his lack of grades than a lack of potential. Clearly, a 6’-4,” 257-pound pass rusher with multiple SEC offers is more than a middle-of-the-road prospect.
Despite strong mutual interest with Auburn, and a verbal commitment, Fairley wasn’t academically able to attend Auburn. After graduating from Lillie B. Williamson high school, he went straight to Copiah-Lincoln, a JUCO which has fed several top prospects to Auburn. After that redshirt year, Fairley terrorized the JUCO competition: he racked up 63 tackles (9.0 per game), 9 TFL (1.3 per game), 28 QB hits (4.0 per game), and 7 sacks (1.0 per game). He also notched two fumble recoveries, one forced fumble, one blocked kick and seven pass breakups.
"I'm very excited to re-commit to Auburn," said Fairley. "I've been waiting on this for a long time, since I went to junior college. Auburn is where I wanted to go out of high school so I decided to stick with them.
"I'm ready to go to Auburn, work hard, get my grades and make an impact."
. . . except it didn't quite work out that way. After recommitting in May of 2008, the Tigers’ 2008 season ended with the resignation of head coach Tommy Tuberville. Having spent a year and a half at Cop-Lin with visions of War Eagles dancing in his head, he didn’t re-open his recruiting. Fairley signed his NLI to attend Auburn on December 17th. However, in January it was discovered that one of his correspondence classes wasn’t completed by the deadline, so Nick had to enroll in late May—missing the spring practices of his sophomore year.
When asked about his unwavering commitment to the Tigers, even after a staff change and the academic goofup, Fairley pointed to the presence of “Coach Rock,” former Auburn standout Tracy Rocker:
“When he was at Auburn, he won the Outland and Lombardi trophies. Not too many defensive linemen have done that. He must know something. He's also been to the (NFL) so he knows what it takes. I would rather get coached by someone that's been there and done it."
Despite missing spring ball—thus being behind his teammates in knowledge of the defense and scheme—Fairley started the Tigers’ first game of 2009, against Louisiana Tech. He had five tackles, a fumble recovery, half a TFL, and 2 QB hits--but also looked every bit as raw as he was. Coach Gene Chizik:
“Being a defensive lineman and starting your first game, things get hairy down there,” Chizik said. “That’s a whole different world down there on the defensive line because it’s so physical. It’s just the nature of the position. Nick played high a little bit, but overall really tried to play physical and tried to play with some effort. I think he falls into the category of we’ve got a long way to go to get him where he needs to be. I think he’s got a chance down the road to be a really good player.”
Fairley would play in all 13 games—and get one more start—his sophomore year. Playing mostly as a reserve, Fairley still notched 28 total tackles, 3.5 TFL, and 1.5 sacks. Impressively, his first career sack (for minus 14 yards) came against Georgia—and he blocked a PAT against Tennessee, maintaining a 13-6 lead right before halftime. He repeated the five-solo-tackle performance of his first game in the last game that season, roughing up Northwestern in a nailbiter of an Outback Bowl.
At this point, it seems kind of ridiculous to recap Fairley’s junior season at Auburn. I’ll just copy and paste from his official bio:
CAREER -- Won 2010 Lombardi Trophy, becoming second player in school history to win the award joining his position coach, Tracy Rocker who won the award in 1988 ... Set AU single-season record of 24.0 TFL's in 2010, setting record against South Carolina in SEC Championship Game ... Also set AU single-season record with 11.5 sacks during junior season, setting record against Oregon in BCS National Championship Game ... Earned Defensive MVP honors of BCS National Championship Game vs. Oregon.
2010 -- Lombardi Award winner (nation's best lineman) ... Nagurski Award finalist ... Associated Press SEC Defensive Player of the Year ... FWAA All-America Team ... Walter Camp All-America Team ... Sporting News First-Team All-America ... SI.com First-Team All-America ... Associated Press First-Team All-America ... CBSSports.com First-Team All-America ... Rivals.com First-Team All-America ... Coaches' First-Team All-SEC ... Associated Press Unanimous First-Team All-SEC ... Phil Steele First-Team All-SEC ... ESPN.com All-SEC ... Outland Trophy semi-finalist ... CBSSports.com Midseason All-America ... Phil Steele's Midseason All-America First-Team ... SEC Defensive Lineman of the Week (11/26-27) ... SEC Defensive Lineman of the Week (10/23) ... SEC Defensive Lineman of the Week (10/16) ... SEC Defensive Lineman of the Week (10/2) ... SEC Defensive Player of the Week (9/13) ... Started all 14 games and totaled 60 tackles with 24.0 TFL's and 11.5 sacks ... Had at least 1.0 TFL in 12 of 14 games and a sack in eight games ... 1st in SEC / 12th in NCAA in sacks (11.5) and 1st in TFL's (3rd in NCAA) (24.0) .
Look, the dude ate people, okay? Nick Fairley subsisted on the flesh, souls, and hearts of opposing offensive linemen. He looked like a man amongst boys, even at the heart of an SEC defense. So, what changed from his sophomore year? What transformed him from a raw, promising prospect to a world-devourer? Fairley told the LA Times that, again, DL coach Tracy Rocker played a huge role:
Tracy Rocker, Auburn's defensive line coach, gets the Tiger's share of credit for fine-tuning Fairley's considerable skill set.
"Coach Rocker flipped a switch to turn on," Fairley said.
This is the most intriguing side of Nick Fairley. For all of the talk of “questions” and “immaturity,” for all of the whispers about his work ethic and his commitment, he has unwavering respect for anyone who’s done it themselves. Tracy Rocker accomplished exactly what Nick Fairley wanted to accomplish, and Rocker was able to get Fairley to play at a dominant level. If only the Lions had someone who could command Fairley’s respect and attention . . .
On whether it concerns him that he'll be part of a three- or four-man rotation at defensive tackle:
"Aww man, playing with Suh is going to be an honor. That guy was the defensive rookie of the year, so to be able to play next to him… I can't wait to get in and pick his brain for the things he did his rookie year."
He did get a chance to speak with Suh shortly thereafter:
On having talked to Suh: “I talked to Suh today and he gave me some great advice; I talked to Kyle Vanden Bosch and all of them guys. I’m really just ready to go and I want to pick their brain … They’re going to give me some great advice so I can come in as a rookie and know what to do.”
On what Suh said to him: “He basically was like, ‘Man, you’ve got be ready to come to work; they’re going to push you and try to get the best out of you, but you’re going to have fun.’ He said that’s one thing that they do here is: have fun and work hard. So I’m ready to come here and get things together.”
I firmly believe that Nick Fairley is walking into the best possible situation. Not only is the Lions’ defensive line one of the most talented position groups in the game, it’s got the strongest culture. Kyle Vanden Bosch sets the bar for effort, intensity, and consistency as high as it will go. Ndamukong Suh is a physical freak and firebreathing monster on the field, a gentle giant with rare understanding off it. Lawrence Jackson is a brilliant young man with a poet’s soul—and a first-round pick’s tools and production. Cliff Avril plays with joy and abandon, but has relentlessly built his body and game up from a third-round OLB ‘tweeter to a prototypical 4-3 rush end. Corey Williams is a naturally big-bodied man who really, really, really can’t wait to get at the quarterback.
Leading them all is position coach Kris Kocurek, whose approach and creativity has drawn raves from players, coaches, and observers alike. Working closely with Kocurek is Gunther Cunningham, who combines a well-earned rep for exacting standards and profane tirades with a genuine love for his players and colleagues deeper than could ever let on in public (even though he lets on in public, too). On top of all that, of course, is Jim Schwartz, The Grandmaster, who drew consistently excellent performance out of notoriously inconsistent talents like Albert Haynesworth and Jevon Kearse.
I don’t want to wax too poetic here—but the Lions have built a truly special unit, a group of players and coaches who will define the identity of this team for years to come. If Nick Fairley wants to get where he says he wants to go, all he’ll have to do is show up in Allen Park and follow his teammates’ lead. If he can stay relentlessly committed to Auburn through the two-year odyssey in between graduating high school and stepping onto campus, he can do that. Frankly, I don’t think his teammates will let him fail. But of course, I’ve written enough about the Lions’ current linemen. What are the experts saying about Nick Fairley?
Positives: Very solid athlete... Good size... Very solid pass rusher... Long arms... Uses his hands well... Quick off the ball... Disruptive... Gets in the backfield... Plays with good leverage... Reasonably good strength... Solid power... Can get penetration... Very solid bull rush... Solid strength at the point of attack... Shoots gaps well... Good arsenal of pass rush moves... Great swim move... Can split and slice through some double teams... Does a good job shedding single blockers and making plays on the ball... Good flexibility and body control... Plays the run well... Does a nice job in pursuit... Actively chases the ball... Makes plays in the backfield versus the run... Stays low... Looks comfortable dropping into short coverage... Good recognition skills... High motor... Plays with intensity... Mean streak... Played through an injured shoulder toward the end of the 2010 season... Tremendous upside... Finished third in the FBS with 24 tackles for loss in 2010... Schematic versatility, could also get looks as 3-4 LDE... Compares to Warren Sapp, Marcus Stroud.
Negatives: Former junior college transfer who started just two games prior to the 2010 season... Can wear down a bit as the game progresses... Will play down to his opponent... Needs to improve lower body strength... Can be engulfed at the point of attack... Questionable work habits... Has taken some undisciplined penalties, and some cheap shots at quarterbacks... Measured in at the combine over an inch shorter and nine pounds lighter than his listed weight, could fall a bit if viewed only as a three-technique tackle who would only appeal to 4-3 teams... Reportedly missed his flight to the combine, missed a team meeting there, and was late for a team interview at his pro day.
Pass rush: Explosive initial burst off the snap. Good flexibility and balance to "get skinny" and penetrate gaps. Uses his hands well to slap away blockers' attempts to get their hands on him. Possesses a rare combination of long arms and quick feet, helping him avoid cut blocks. Good swim move. Locates the ball quickly and has the lateral agility to redirect. Good short-area closing burst. Good effort in pursuit. Surprising speed for a man of his size.
Run defense: Relies on his quickness to penetrate gaps and make plays behind the line of scrimmage more than his strength to hold up at the point of attack. Long, relatively thin limbed for the position and can be knocked off the ball due to his lack of an ideal anchor. Good flexibility to twist through double-teams. Locates the ball quickly and pursues well laterally.
Explosion: Quick burst to penetrate gaps. Can shock his opponent with his quickness, strong initial punch and quick hands to disengage. Has an explosive burst to close when he sees a playmaking opportunity and can make the eye-popping collision without needing much space to gather momentum.
Strength: Good, but not elite strength, especially in his lower body. Has a tendency to come up at the snap and can be pushed back because of it. Possesses very good natural strength, however, including in his core as he can twist through double teams. Very good hand strength to rip through blocks. Good strength for the pull-down and trip-up tackle.
Tackling: Possesses a good closing burst and brings his hips to supply the big hit. Good strength for the drag tackle. Willing to lay out and has good hand-eye coordination to trip up the ballcarrier running away from him.
Intangibles: Former high school basketball player who shows surprisingly quick feet. An ascending talent, but is nonetheless labeled as a player with some true bust potential, as there are concerns about his work ethic. Carries a little bit of extra weight around his middle and is more "country" strong than weight-room defined. Has developed a reputation as a dirty player; repeatedly flagged in 2010 for late hits and there have been instances when he has speared ballcarriers with his helmet, banged into their lower legs purposely and pushed off downed players to lift himself up. One of nine siblings.
SI.com gave him a 3.22, their fourth-highest overall grade:
Positives: Game-impacting defensive lineman whose star is on the rise. Displays great movement skills and an explosive burst to the action. Quickly changes direction and effectively makes plays down the line or chases the action in backside pursuit. Plays with good pad level, fires off the snap with a great first step, and shoots through the gaps up the field. Fast off the edge, effective in pursuit, and makes plays in every direction. Constantly doubled by the opposition yet remains a game changer.
Negatives: Must improve his overall strength. Marginal hand use and displays limited moves getting off blocks. Lacks pure power and can be controlled by single blocker. Mostly a first move lineman that must beat opponents off the snap. Not known as a hard worker in practice.
Analysis: Fairley comes off a career year in which he started the season hot and never let up through Auburn's national title game. He possesses the skills and athleticism to be used as a defensive tackle or two-gap end and has an enormous amount of upside. Fairley will be very productive at the next level if he improves the details of his game and works hard on and off the field.
Positives: Very quick off the ball and disruptive. Has explosive hips and is a violent, head-snapping tackler. Good balance and agility. Has long arms and quick, active hands and knows how to keep defenders off his frame. Times the snap well, throws his hips in the hole and wins one-on-one matchups. Can split the double team. Excellent closing speed — smells blood. Rips off blocks and continually shows up behind the line of scrimmage. Flashed the ability to dominate and take over games, as he did late against LSU and Alabama. Plays with a mean streak and continually seeks to punish quarterbacks (knocked three out of games as a junior) and agitate blockers.
Negatives: Plays too upright with an inconsistent pad level and stalls at the line of scrimmage if he does not win at the snap. Does not play with pop in his hands. Cannot dig his heels in the ground against the double-team — was pancaked vs. Georgia OG Clint Boling. Not a glass eater ideally suited to occupy blocks. Tends to freelance, lose gap integrity and, at times, lose the ball. Not smart or disciplined and brain freezes show up in his play. Lacks power and bulk strength. Is only a one-year producer and has underachiever tendencies — loafs on the backside and takes plays off. Lacks stamina. Plays dirty, seeks cheap shots and has been flagged for foolish, unsportsmanlike penalties. Needs to be pushed and is not a self starter.
Summary: An explosive, finesse three-technique, Fairley could make your draft or break your heart. Showed he could be a dominating force for a national championship team, took over games and could be unblockable in the interior of a "40" front if he stays motivated and uses good technique. However, he will require a very nuanced, demanding positional coach and might need to be limited to 40 snaps per game to maximize his talent. The more highly he is drafted, the greater the likelihood that he will bust, as a big pay day easily could sap his motivation. Compares to Saints 2003 sixth-overall pick Johnathan Sullivan (a bust) and could fizzle out of the league as fast as he arrives if he enters a non-challenging, unstructured environment. Has boom-or-bust potential.
Pass rush: Fairley is the premier one-gap defensive tackle in this year’s class due to his ability shoot the gap and get after the passer. Fairley finished 2010 with 12 sacks, including three in a standout performance against LSU. Most of his big plays come off the swim move. Has quick hands to get his arm over the blocker. Closes in a hurry and with aggression.
Pursuit: Is a player who is almost always on the move toward the ball carrier. Has the athleticism to move all around the line. Despite being somewhat limited in experience, Fairley shows good run/pass recognition. When Fairley plays with a lot of effort, he can move all around the field to make a tackle. But some question if Fairley always gives full effort on every play. As sensational as he is on some plays, Fairley can be completely non-existent on others. It’s an issue that Auburn head coach Gene Chizik brought up early in the season. Fairley showed better effort toward the end the season, however.
Quickness: For player of his size, Fairley has a great burst off the snap. Most of his game is centered around his quickness off the ball. Played basketball in high school and it shows in his foot speed. People will always compare Fairley to Ndamukong Suh and Gerald McCoy and in the quickness category, he’s right there with them. Run defend: Is a long-armed defender who can be disruptive in the run game. Even where the run isn’t coming right at him, Fairley can impact the run game simply by reaching his arms out and rerouting the ball carrier. Does a lot of his work against the run against single blockers. Fairley doesn’t always do well against multiple blockers. Still, he can be an asset against the run by taking up multiple blockers.
Strength: Doesn’t have the kind of strength where he can beat double teams on a consistent basis. Looks like he can get stronger in his lower body. Can get pushed bak too often. Has a frame to add 20 pounds without it having a negative impact on his game.
Tackling: Fairley is a scary tackler. Every time he has room to make a hit, it’s an explosive one. If football doesn’t work for Fairley, his tackling shows he clearly has a future in pro wrestling. He frequently liked to suplex players. Several of Fairley’s tackles could get him fined in the NFL, so it will be interesting to see if he’ll continue his tackling technique at the next level.
Technique: Shows good hand fighting. Uses his hands well to keep blockers out of his pads. Has long arms, which is beneficial to his technique. Doesn’t take false steps that get him out of position.
Is it time? Yes, it's time. It’s more than time. It’s way past time to find out if Nick Fairley will be a boom, or a bust. It’s time to find out if he’ll be the next Warren Sapp or the next Johnathan Sullivan. It’s time to consult the One True Oracle of NFL Success: YouTube highlight reels!
First up, an absolute gem. Here's a high school reel that's just phenomenal. There's no spot shadowing, but just look for the defensive end that's significantly bigger than the defensive tackles, and running faster than the linebackers. He's #90. The best part is around 1:25 when he beats the RT and sacks the quarterback before an unblocked linebacker can get there. No, wait--the BEST part is the MUSIC:
Here's a nice little clip that shows an awesome spin/swim combo sequence at 0:12:
Here's a short film entitled "Fairley Nasty," an ode to Fairley's biggest hits and dirtiest plays throughout his two-year career at Auburn. Of special note are the explosion SF/X laid on top of Ludacris' "Move, B*tch," and Papa Roach's "Last Resort" (!):
Here's Aaron Aloysius not letting me down, providing really nice cutups of Fairley vs. Georgia. This is some proper film right here, and you can see just how frequently, and how hard, he hit A.J. Green that day. I like at 0:33, where the takes on a double-team, anchors, and makes the tackle. Also note 1:50 where he's chop blocked, and shrugs it off.
What stands out to me is Fairley’s body type. Despite being a shade taller and several pounds lighter than Suh, Fairley’s build is completely the opposite. Suh’s upper body is jawdroppingly massive; I’ve said many times that his shoulders are the size of entire hams. From the front of Suh’s chest to the back of his back seems like a distance of nearly three feet. He’s very, very lean through the core but has reasonably thick arms and legs. Fairley, meanwhile, has shockingly thin shoulders and arms for his size; most of his weight is through the middle: he’s big in the britches, thick-thighed, and—while not sloppy fat—has a little fuel tank for his sack machine.
Despite these similar sizes hung on totally different frames, Fairley’s game is almost identical to Suh’s. Similar great first step, similar penetration, similar inside/outside edge rushing ability. He’s not “bad” against the run, but he’s not often going to drop anchor and eat space like Grady Jackson. He plays with an obvious mean streak, and will likely draw some after-the-whistle penalties for crossing the line. He’s too upright at times, and sometimes vacates his lane for the sake of penetration.
Immediately, Fairley projects as a three-tech, just like Suh. However, Suh is a finished product, physically. The only thing he can develop on his frame is adding the gut he doesn’t have—and that would do more harm than good. Fairley, as Rob Rang said above, is “more ‘country’ strong than weight-room defined.” Suh just needs maintain, physically, and focus on execution and technique. But Fairley ought to be able to add significant musculature and strength through NFL conditioning. As he gets up to the “weight class” above Suh, in the 315-325 range, he should evolve into a no-less dominant 1-tech throughout his career.
The comparison I keep seeing is Warren Sapp. Sapp started off as a very similarly built 290-pound penetrating 3-tech, and slowly worked his way up to being a 330-plus-pound 3-4 two-gap DE, before realizing he was better thinner and dropping 50 pounds. I’d hope Fairley could find a happy medium as a two-way 1-tech pushing about 320, very similar to how Corey Williams is built now—only even more explosive than Williams.
Of course, I can't talk about Fairley without talking about the "whispers." I can't write thousands of words about Nick Fairley without addressing the "rumors." Some think he takes plays off. Some think he doesn’t practice hard. Some think he’s too wrapped up in himself, and will put his feet up as soon as he cashes an NFL paycheck. These "whispers," as far as I can tell, are just people repeating and amplifying each other—there’s never a source, named or un-. Whispers become rumors, rumors become facts. It got so bad that some started speculating Fairley might be the target of a smear campaign. Ultimately, Fairley has never been in a lick of trouble off the field, and—excepting his treatment of quarterbacks—he’s well-behaved on it, too.
The concept of the NFL combine is genius and it works great for the coaches / general managers who understand the nature of the beast. Good drafting teams start rumors about prospects that they want to fall to them. Bad drafting teams believe these rumors and play right into the hands of these superior teams. My Golden Rule for the draft assessment is: Listen to everything, believe nothing. What I mean by that is, when you here character rumors, injury concerns, etc, you listen to them but you don’t chalk these up as facts. Instead you do extensive research and find out if these are actual truth based rumors.
Some teams do this, we call those team “playoff” teams. Why? It’s simple, they’re in the playoffs every year because they do the leg work and know fact from fiction. Many NFL teams have become lazy and rely too heavily on the NFL combine. This goes against the first thing I was taught in scouting and that is that your evaluation should be 90% based on game film. When did Nick Fairley get passed by Marcell Dareus in most media draft boards? The answer is after the combine. The game film didn’t change after the combine, but Dareus ran a quick 10 yard split. Who cares, he ran that same speed on the game film that we watched in January, February, March and so on. This shouldn’t make you change your rankings.
CBSsports.com writer Pete Prisco wrote a couple more really nice articles defending Fairley, which ended with a line sure to warm any Lions fan’s heart: “Nick Fairley is the best player in this draft, no matter how many people try to knock him down.” Well, the Lions got the best player in the draft—and Fairley got everything he dreamed about during the long two seasons he spent in junior college. People tried to knock him down, but now it’s his turn to knock people down.
Long ago, there was a one-eyed man, living as a beggar on the street. He survived on the scraps and crumbs left behind by those around him. Mostly, he was ignored—though occasionally some would cruelly mock his misfortune. One day he awoke to find, miraculously, he had two fully-functioning eyes. He leapt to his feet, and sang praises to the heavens.
He ran to the nearest store, and with his last copper bought thick paper stock, ink, and quill. He fashioned a sign that said “EYE FOR SALE.” He returned to his begging spot, proudly holding the sign high. A passerby asked, “You suffered so long for want of a second eye; why now would you willingly sell the first?” The beggar replied, “I figure I can probably get like a fourth round pick for it.”
. . . perhaps that’s a little dramatic. But I’m astonished by Lions fans’ talk about trading Sammie Hill. Yes, the addition of Nick Fairley means that the Lions now have both quality and depth on the defensive line—but that’s not a situation that needs fixing. Suh and Fairley will rotate with Hill and Williams to keep all of them fresh for four quarters—and sixteen games. With those four tackles—plus the corps of ends they have in KVB, Avril, and Jackson—the Lions’ defensive line will be able to rotate in many different looks and packages without compromising the effectiveness of the line.
Not only is that a good thing, it’s the design goal of the defense! As long as that defensive line is dominant—disrupting the pass and containing the run—the Lions’ scoring defense is going to be at least decent, no matter what’s going on in the back seven. However, if injuries or fatigue begin to take their toll, and the DL performance slips, suddenly the whole thing turns to cheesecloth.
Still, let’s say Hill weren’t a member of the defense’s signature position group, where they’re trying to stack talent upon talent at almost any cost. He was a fourth-round draft pick, and is still on his rookie contract. His upside is phenomenal; he has the raw physical tools to become an elite run-stopping DT in the mold of Pat Williams or Grady Jackson. We knew Hill would take a few years to reach that potential—and this year’s Old Mother Hubbard shows that Hill’s already better than most run-stopping 4-3 DTs. So, he's already a valuable contributor, he may be developing into an elite player as we speak, and the cost of keeping him around is minimal. That is the last guy you’d ever want to trade.
Just look at the market, here: Lawrence Jackson was two years removed from being a first-round pick, and had flashed potential despite being a bad schematic fit. The Lions got him for a sixth-rounder, and he played at an extremely high level when called upon. Do really want the Lions to flip Sammie Hill for a sixth, fifth, fourth, or even third-round pick and watch him go to the Pro Bowl elsewhere, while the Lions start from scratch with another rookie?
I’m fascinated by the modern NFL fan’s drive for mediocrity. Whether it’s from playing too much Madden franchise mode, or a lack of understanding what separates the wheat from the chaff in the NFL, we fans (I include myself) want to take our team’s resources and trowel them evenly across the roster: we cheer for our team to get 22 “pretty good” starters.
Wherever we see a “hole” in the starting lineup, we want it “filled”—preferably with a second- or third-round pick if the “hole” isn’t on the OL or DL. In a startling flip from fan attitudes of the 80s, we detest it when a high draft pick, or rich free agent contract, is lavished on a non-lineman (I blame this on the dominance of the 1990s Cowboys). Further, once that “hole” is “filled,” and we have an “extra” player, we want to flip him for whatever we can get because he’s “being wasted.” We believe that all rookies are guaranteed to hit their “upside.” We pretend that injuries either do not happen or are the ineffable will of the Football Gods, so preparing for them is folly.
All told, the modern NFL fan seems to want their team comprised entirely of second- and third-round picks—drafted to fill immediate holes at the time of their drafting—plus mid-tier recycled veteran free agents. Oh, and an offensive line comprised entirely of former first-rounders. No holes, no superstars, no difference-makers either way, just 22 B-minus starters with nothing behind them. The problem with all this is that that team would suck.
What's the lesson here? That the Lions, for the first time in forever, have skill AND talent AND depth. All three are required to win in the NFL; we got dramatic proof of that at the tail end of last season! Sammie Hill and Lawrence Jackson and Bobby Carpenter and Nate Vasher and Shaun Hill and Ashlee Palmer and Drew Stanton won those four straight games as much as Ndamukong Suh and Jahvid Best and Kyle Vanden Bosch and Nate Burleson did; maybe more so.
We've waited so long for the Lions to rise up in strength and become a legitimate contender; don’t be so quick to cripple them.
"Our blood pressure's pretty low on stuff like that," Schwartz said. "We don't want to rush things. You give somebody a set of instructions without being able to communicate with them, it really might not do a whole lot of good so we haven't done a whole lot."
Schwartz explained the raw playbook isn’t going to be of much use to a rookie who hasn’t had the instruction to back it up. That’s doubly true for Fairley, a defensive tackle in a system where DTs play a conventional role. It’s not as though he has three positions to learn, like a wideout or a linebacker. Unlike Ndamukong Suh, there’s no chance Fairley will be asked to play every snap he physically can; Fairley will play situationally. The most important thing for him is being ready to answer the bell—which is exactly what Schwartz said:
Schwartz said Fairley won't have as much to learn as some rookies when football resumes -- "We're not real complicated up front," he said. "It's more of a physical game than it is a mental game for him."
Yes, but what if the lockout extends deep into the summer and then the lockout is lifted with only a short training camp possible before the regular season begins? Won’t Fairley be hampered because the Lions didn’t give him the opportunity to familiarize himself with the material when they had the chance?
Schwartz’s decision makes sense to me on a few fundamental levels. First, I’ve dug up some pro and college playbooks for study purposes—and even with an explicatory “Here is what we are trying to do” foreword, it takes an awful lot of digestion for a layperson. Without the experience of a coach explaining it, without physical demonstration or film study backing it up, it’s almost impossible for a layperson to understand why the squiggles and arrows and dashed lines are any more significant for going this way than any other.
Of course, Nick Fairley isn’t a layperson—he was the cornerstone of a BCS National Championship-winning defense, drawn up by one of the best defensive minds in college football, Gene Chizik. Fairley’s been reading playbooks for years; he knows what all the lines and squiggles mean and can pick it up, no problem—so why not let him memorize everything now?
Because that’s not the important part. Nick Fairley will indeed pick up the “who am I supposed to kill, on what play” part quickly; as Schwartz said the Lions aren’t complicated up front. What Fairley needs is the coaching: the physical demonstrations of how they want their linemen to hit the hole, the film study of last years’ team executing the defense, the coaches’ explanation of the philosophy behind each arrow and dash in that playbook.
I remember when Jim Schwartz took over, he talked about defensive line technique. Marinelli coached his players to “get skinny in the hole,” ($) to attack gaps with a shoulder and penetrate blocks. Schwartz, meanwhile, prefers his D-line to engage their blockers, to attack and control with their arms, to get pressure without losing containment. It meant Schwartz had to coach all the linemen to do, essentially, the opposite of what they’d been doing. Nick Fairley can memorize “On this play I go here,” right now—but if he’ll have to re-learn how to “go there” from scratch, what’s the point? Schwartz would rather Nick Fairley be lifting and running sprints than poring over a playbook—so when it’s really time to learn the defense, he’ll be as ready as he can possibly be.
Let’s start with the good news! First, let me quote the “Bottom Line” summary of last year’s defensive tackles, from last year’s Old Mother Hubbard:
Andre Fluellen is a very versatile, high-effort player only two years removed from being a third-round draft pick. Whether he plays inside, outside, or both in 2010, Flu should get plenty of rotational snaps next season.
Landon Cohen is rapidly developing from a seventh-round flier into a useful rotational DT. While he'll never be a 320-pound line-clogger, he's only 23. If he focuses on lower-body development, improves his leverage, and continues to hone his technique, he’ll be a very nice complement to/backup for/situational replacement of Sammie Hill.
Grady Jackson turned in a B- performance in doing exactly what the Lions asked—stop the run on 1st and 10. Even if the Lions draft or sign a three-down starter, Jackson can still contribute in that role. I expect to see him back on the roster in 2010, though hopefully not as a “starter”.
Sammie Hill is already the Lions’ best defensive tackle, and should prove to be much better in 2010 and beyond. He has the size, strength, and athleticism to become a perennial Pro Bowler, and his steady improvement from preseason to the end of the season shows the effort and coachability he’ll need to get there. He’ll start for the Lions this season, and for many more to come.
Bottom Line: There’s no doubt that the defensive line is much stouter this season than last—that 0.72 YpC improvement in the run defense had to come from somewhere!—this is still a D+/C- line. The Lions absolutely must add an impact starter. Whether that is an elite DT talent in the draft—as in, with the #2 overall pick—or, by trade for a veteran starter, or by making a splash in the free agent market, it must be done.
There was a lot of praise for each individual player, but the Bottom Line for the unit as a whole said it best: “This is still a D+/C- line.” The Lions needed more consistency against the run than Jackson or Hill were managing, and much more penetration up the middle than Fluellen or Cohen were providing. They needed someone to demand double teams inside, to free up the ends outside.
Subtractions:
Grady Jackson was released after one year in Detroit. Landon Cohen didn’t quite make the final 53 for 2010; he was let go just days before the season opener.
Additions:
Ndamukong Suh, or course, was the Lions’ top draft pick, #2 overall. The Lions traded a fifth-round pick to the Browns for Corey Williams and a seventh-round pick. This is what is technically known, to people in the industry, as a “filthy steal.”
Chart?
Chart.
This is a star chart, showing the Pro Football Focus player grades Of the Lions’ four active-roster DTs. If you’re unfamiliar with PFF’s grading methodology, just follow that link. They painstakingly review every player’s performance on every snap in every game, grading their performance on each play from –2 to +2, where “zero” is a typical, “he did his job” level of performance. For context, I’ve included the best- and worst-graded DTs who played at least 25% of their teams’ snaps: the Bills’ Kyle Williams, and the Colts’ Daniel Muir, respectively. The black line shows the league average.
First, we see just how ridiculously good Kyle Williams graded out this year, especially against the run; he was nearly unblockable. This was a good chunk of the reason why the Lions’ runningbacks couldn’t get to the line of scrimmage, let alone past it, when they played the Bills.
Though he played just 372 snaps, Sammie Hill graded out as the Lions’ most effective overall DT, and eleventh-best in the NFL. He was the Lions’ best, and most consistent, run stopper. Hill also went the whole season without a penalty, the cleanest of the Lions’ DTs. Surprisingly, he was also an above-average pass rusher.
Initially, Hill’s performance was underwhelming. He turned in weak grades throughout the beginning of the season, especially against Minnesota. However, after the Jets game Hill turned a corner, and graded positively against both the run and the pass for the rest of the season. His best performance was against Tampa Bay: he played about 40% of snaps, and logged a sack, three tackles, and an assist. I admit, I winced when I re-read my line from last year about Hill having the talent to be a “perennial Pro Bowler,” but his upside is high, indeed—and he’s getting there fast.
Bottom Line: A natural big body who is slowly fulfilling his top-flight physical potential, Hill will remain a big part of the Lions’ rotation as his technique and body develop.
Ndamukong Suh played almost a thousand snaps this year, leading all defensive tackles. In the middle of the season, PFF tried to defuse the Suh hype bomb, explaining that his performance was quite rookie-like. Yes, despite undeniable physical talent, and some monster games and plays, Suh was all over the place in 2010. Sometimes, he flashed truly elite pass-rushing skills; sometimes, he was blown off the ball. Just as I saw with Sammie Hill in his rookie season, Suh struggled against trap and seal blocks. If the man blocking him wasn’t the man directly across from him, Suh was often taken out of the play.
His awesome closing ability means he’s sort of the anti-DeVries: he gets an awful lot of sacks per pressure. However, just as Jared DeVries put a lot more heat on the QB than his sack numbers suggested, Suh’s impacting the game much less than the sack totals would suggest, especially given a thousand snaps to work with.
Let me be clear: a rookie starting, playing a thousand snaps, and getting stronger throughout the year—his best grades were in weeks 8, 11, 12, 14, and 15—is phenomenal. That he successfully brought down the quarterback ten times is amazing. But, remember about the “instant impact” rookie: “amazing” for a rookie is still only “really good” in absolute terms. You can see on the chart above, Suh is nowhere near the best defensive tackle in the NFL. But his floor is “above-average NFL starter,” and his ceiling is . . . well, through the roof.
Bottom Line: Suh is an incredible physical talent, with almost unlimited upside. As a rookie, he performed like an above-average starter, while carrying the heaviest workload in the NFL. If he continues to improve, Suh will become one of the best in the NFL—and maybe one of the best ever.
For all the smart moves, solid trades, and wise decisions Martin Mayhew has made over his two-and-a-half season tenure as Lions GM, none has gotten a higher yield with less of an investment than Corey Williams. By overall grade, Williams was the “least good” of the Lions’ three DTs with enough snaps to qualify for PFF’s rankings. However, that’s almost entirely due to his worst-in-the-NFL grade for penalties, something every Lions fan knows full well about. Williams was the Lions’ best pass-rushing DT, which is saying something; the Lions’ line consists entirely of above-average pass rushing DTs. He was also strongly positive against the run and in coverage.
At the end of the season, Gunther Cunningham said that he thinks Corey Williams is just as deserving of Pro Bowl honors as Suh. Outside of the ridiculous penchant for penalties (several of which kept critical opponent drives alive), the PFF grades agree.
Bottom Line: Williams was a two-way force for the Lions in 2010, and an incredible addition to the roster. With his natural size (6’-4”, 320 lb.), great acceleration, and sometimes-too-quick snap anticipation, Williams is a difficult assignment for any offensive lineman. It would be really, really, really nice if he could cut down on the penalties.
The only other player to earn snaps at DT for the Lions in 2010 was Andre Fluellen. With much fewer snaps than any of the others, he didn’t make the 25%-or-more cut. He was very slightly above “average NFL starter” level in pass rush, but was a liability against the run. Combined with a picking up a penalty, his final PFF grade put him as far below “average NFL starter” as Ndamukong Suh was above.
Bottom Line: Flu is still very young (two years older than Suh), and has developed into a decent pass rusher. He still has a hard time anchoring against the run, and is more of a “pursuit” guy. He’s not, then, an ideal fit for this defense. But anyone with his frame, athleticism, and ability to penetrate will keep getting chances as long as they keep working hard. Flu is a perfectly fine rotational/situational DT—and still has room to grow.
Practice squadder Robert Callaway, fresh out of Saginaw Valley last season, didn’t see any action. I’m sure the 6’-5”, 312-pound local boy will get at least a camp invite this summer.
SHOPPING LIST? As a unit, the Lions’ defensive tackles are complete. They join the Giants, Eagles, Raiders, and Vikings as the only teams where every member of the active DT rotation was graded above average. The oldest, Williams, is 30; Fluellen just turned 26, Suh and Hill are both 24. Unless the Lions want new blood to replace Fluellen (unlikely, as they just tendered him an RFA offer), the Lions should make no moves here.
Throughout the offseason, it’s been speculated that the Lions’ woeful pass defense will get a boost from the revamped defensive line. With Kyle Vanden Bosch and developing Cliff Avril on the ends, and Corey Williams and Ndamukong Suh joining Sammie Hill on the inside, the pass rush should be greatly improved. This should, in turn, take pressure off the unproven secondary . . . right?
I set out to investigate this in part one, using the NFL’s league-wide data over the past two decades or so. I tried to find correlation between seasons when sacks were up, and seasons when passing offense was down. I think I learned more from the comments about how statistics and regression analysis work, than I did about the correlation between pass rush and pass defense—but my early results suggested that there is not a correlation between pass rush and pass defense.
I tried again with part two, blending pro-football-reference.com’s official and official-derived data for 2009, with profootballfocus.com’s manually film-reviewed defensive stats and grades. I came up with a stat I called “pass rush rate,” which was opponent pass dropbacks (attempts + sacks) divided by cumulative sacks, hits, and pressures. Then, I ran a simple correlation between every team’s pass rush rate for 2009, and their yards-per-attempt allowed. The correlation was weak, –0.152. When squared to get the effect size, it was a negligible .023.
Importantly, the real-world analysis bore this out: the Jets had an extraordinary pass defense, by far the best in the NFL. While their pass rush was solid, ranking 9th of 32 in pass rush rate, it was just that—solid, not phenomenal like the overall pass defense was. Amazingly, the Cleveland Browns generated pressure on the quarterback more often than every team except Dallas and Minnesota—and yet, they were the fifth worst pass defense in the NFL! Pass rush alone doesn’t make a defense effective.
For this installment, I wanted to get even more specific: I wanted to isolate defensive line pass rush from everything else. After all, the idea is that getting an effective rush with just the front four will allow much greater flexibility in coverage and blitzing. I aggregated the stats of just the defensive linemen, and compared them to what I already had.
Now, let me tell you a legendary tale . . . or, well, I guess, just a legend:
Name: The name of the team.
A: The primary defensive alignment.
Pass Rush Rate: The percentage of opponent dropbacks (Attempts + Sacks) on which the defense achieved a pressure stat (Sacks + QB Hits + Pressures + Batted Passes).
DL Pass Rush Rate: The percentage of opponent dropbacks (Attempts + Sacks) on which the defensive line achieved a pressure stat (Sacks + QB Hits + Pressures + Batted Passes).
% of rush from DL: The percentage of defensive pressure stats (Sacks + QB Hits + Pressures + Batted Passes) generated by defensive linemen.
NAME
A
Pass Rush Rate
DL Pass Rush Rate
% of rush from DL
Dallas Cowboys
3-4
48.2%
18.2%
37.8%
Minnesota Vikings
4-3
47.7%
38.9%
81.7%
Cleveland Browns
3-4
44.0%
19.1%
43.4%
Miami Dolphins
3-4
43.3%
36.0%
83.1%
Philadelphia Eagles
4-3
43.1%
35.4%
82.2%
New York Giants
4-3
43.0%
35.3%
82.0%
Atlanta Falcons
4-3
42.9%
35.1%
81.8%
Green Bay Packers
3-4
41.6%
13.5%
32.5%
Pittsburgh Steelers
3-4
41.3%
10.1%
24.4%
Houston Texans
4-3
41.2%
32.7%
79.4%
New York Jets
HYB
40.3%
19.3%
47.9%
Denver Broncos
3-4
39.7%
13.1%
33.0%
Tennesee Titans
4-3
39.6%
36.0%
90.9%
San Francisco 49ers
3-4
39.4%
16.5%
41.9%
Washington Redskins
4-3
39.2%
29.2%
74.5%
Carolina Panthers
4-3
39.2%
35.4%
90.3%
Arizona Cardinals
3-4
38.5%
18.7%
48.6%
New England Patriots
HYB
37.8%
18.8%
49.8%
Chicago Bears
4-3
37.3%
29.9%
80.1%
San Diego Chargers
3-4
37.3%
12.5%
33.5%
Kansas City Chiefs
3-4
37.1%
12.8%
34.5%
St. Louis Rams
4-3
37.0%
28.7%
77.5%
Oakland Raiders
4-3
36.6%
30.5%
83.3%
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
4-3
36.3%
29.6%
81.6%
Indianapolis Colts
4-3
35.8%
33.2%
92.8%
Baltimore Ravens
4-3
35.6%
25.2%
70.7%
Seattle Seahawks
4-3
34.2%
27.2%
79.4%
New Orleans Saints
4-3
34.2%
23.6%
69.2%
Buffalo Bills
4-3
32.5%
27.6%
84.9%
Cincinnati Bengals
4-3
32.2%
26.2%
81.3%
Detroit Lions
4-3
29.2%
23.5%
80.2%
Jacksonville Jaguars
HYB
27.9%
10.3%
37.0%
We can see a few things in action here. First, the Lions were terrible: second-worst in the NFL in Pass Rush Rate. Second, the numbers get more wildly varied from left to right. Most teams generate a pressure stat on 30-40% of the time their opponents drop back to pass, with the extremes at 27.9% and 48.2%. Most teams generate pressure from the defensive line between 15-35% of the time, with extremes at 10.1% and 38.9%. The percentage of the pass rush that comes from the defensive line is all over the board, from 92.8% all the way down to 24.4%. What does this mean?
Given the amazingly wide range of percentage-of-pass-rush-from-defensive-line stats, and the zero (okay –.120, R-squared .014) correlation between them and Pass Rush Rate, I knew that scheme was a major factor. The Colts generated almost all of the pass rush from the defensive line, just as a Tampa 2 is supposed to. Their two ends, Robert Mathis and Dwight Freeney, accounted for 24 of Indy’s 33 sacks, 23 of 45 hits, 78 of 139 pressures, and 1 of 4 batted balls. That’s right, Mathis and Freeney were fifty-seven percent of the Colts’ pressure statistics; they were the Colts’ pass rush. Meanwhile the Steelers, despite having one of the league’s better pass rushes, got only 24.4% of their rush from their line.
I separated the teams out by scheme, grouping 4-3 teams together, and 3-4 and hybrid teams together. Since the Lions are a 4-3 team, and that’s what this exercise is all about, I discarded the 3-4s and the hybrids, and set about correlating PRR with Y/A, for just 4-3 teams:
Okay, so these are the 2009 4-3 defenses, and their overall Pass Rush Rate regressed against opponent Yards per Attempt. Look at the R-squared; there is literally zero correlation between these two statistics. Okay, we expected that to an extent—but what if we do it for just defensive line? If the rush is getting there without blitzing, that should make coverage better—so, we should see a tighter correlation when we regress DL-only Pass Rush Rate against Y/A Allowed:
That’s a little itsy bit better, but there’s still no real correlation happening here. Okay, what if we do it for percentage of pass rush that comes from the defensive line?
Okay, we’re making tiny, tiny incremental progress, but this is still nothing we can call correlation. Yards per Attempt, my favorite measure of per-play passing effectiveness, is completely disconnected from pass rush, DL-only pass rush, and percentage of pass rush generated by the DL. But we know for a fact that teams with good pass rushes have good defenses, right? I mean, the Vikings have a good defense, right? Right.
Okay, now we’re talking. In all of my pass rush data mining, the strongest meaningful correlation I could find was between what percentage of pass rush comes from a 4-3 defensive line, and how many points that defense surrendered on the year. As I said way back in part one:
We're left with the depressing conclusion that the only good pass defense is good pass defense. However, that's not really the case, either. Sacks and interceptions, though they don’t affect the interplay of pass offense and pass defense outside of themselves, are still extremely important in terms of total defense. Stopping drives and preventing scoring is the primary job of a defense; a third-down sack or a red-zone INT can erase sixty or seventy yards’ worth of Montanaesque passing effectiveness.
So again, as I’ve been saying: an improved pass rush won’t improve a team’s pass defense—but it will improve the team’s scoring defense. Here’s the second-strongest correlation I found: percentage of PRR from a 4-3 DL regressed against Passing 1st Downs Allowed:
Okay, again, this makes sense: the more pass rush you can generate from your 4-3 defensive line, the fewer passing first downs you allow . . . but we’re not done yet. I calculated the simple correlation factors for every offensive stat I thought might be illuminating. Note that these are NOT the R-squared effect sizes you see in the charts above—since that eliminates the direction of the correlation, which is important here. To get those effect-size figures, square the amounts in this table:
Category
%DB/P
%DB/DLP
%P/DL
Att/PD
points
-0.133
-0.360
-0.547
-0.237
total first downs
-0.007
-0.210
-0.431
-0.262
passing first downs
-0.015
-0.241
-0.482
-0.132
running first downs
-0.187
-0.257
-0.232
-0.114
yards per attempt
-0.064
-0.139
-0.190
-0.062
yards per completion
-0.147
-0.316
-0.418
-0.293
completion percentage
0.135
0.269
0.325
0.356
interceptions
-0.133
-0.081
0.037
0.165
touchdowns
0.175
0.205
0.123
0.134
passer rating
0.156
0.148
0.049
0.012
Look at completion percentage: there is a weak, but positive correlation between PRR, defensive line PRR, and percentage of PRR from DL and completion percentage. So, as the defensive line gets more pressure, generally quarterbacks complete more of their passes—but, at what cost? Look again at yards per completion; there’s a moderate negative correlation between increased DL pressure and average completion length.
There is a definable “cringe effect!” When the defensive line generates more pressure, offenses generally tend to complete more and shorter passes—“going into a shell,” as it’s called. It’s this mechanism, completing more passes for fewer yards, that explains why yards-per-attempt allowed doesn’t change as the pass rush rate increases. Teams will dink-and-dunk in the face of the rush—meaning they convert fewer third downs, and score fewer points.
So. How much better will the Lions’ defensive line have to be? Well, as we saw, their pass rush numbers are terrible. In order for the Lions to improve their Pass Rush Rate to the league average, they’d have to increase it from 29.2% of snaps to 37.7%. To increase DL PRR to league average, they’d have to increase it from 23.5% to 30.7%. The percentage of PRR from the DL is about right, 80.2% versus 81.3%.
The league average team faced 567 dropbacks last year, compared to the Lions’ 571, so I’ll normalize the Lions’ pressure stats to 99.3%: 22.83 QB sacks, 34.76 QB hits, 100.29 QB pressures, and 7.94 batted passes. I’ll do the same for the DL pressure stats, from 18 to 17.86, from 26 to 25.82, from 82 to 81.43, and from 8 to 8.94. Now, to compare to the NFL average, find the difference, and voila:
Team/Data
%DB/P
%DB/DLP
%P/DL
QBSk
QBHt
QBPr
BP
DLSk
DLHt
DLPr
DLBP
Detroit Lions (normalized)
29.2%
23.5%
80.2%
22.83
34.76
100.29
7.94
17.86
25.82
81.43
7.94
NFL Average 4-3
37.7%
30.7%
81.3%
33.00
52.00
118.00
10.00
25.00
40.00
98.00
9.00
Delta (absolute)
8.5%
7.2%
1.1%
10.17
17.24
17.71
2.06
7.14
14.18
16.57
1.06
Delta (percentage)
29.1%
30.6%
1.4%
44.5%
49.6%
17.7%
25.9%
40.0%
54.9%
20.4%
13.3%
We can conclude that, in order to bring their pass rush up to NFL average levels for a 4-3, their defensive line will have to increase their sack rate by 40%, their hit rate by 54.9%, their pressure rate by 20.4%, and their batted-ball rate up by 13.3%—and they’ll need a few more sacks and hits from the linebackers and secondary, as well. I’m still working on projecting all that data out into points allowed, first downs allowed, etc., but there you have it. If the Lions face the same number of dropbacks in 2010 that the average NFL team did in 2009, the difference between KVB/Avril/Williams/Suh and Avril/Hunter/Cohen/Hill will have to be worth an improvement of 7 sacks, 14 hits, 17 pressures, and 1 batted ball over 2009’s 18, 26, 82, and 8 to get back to average.
We have found that there is no inverse correlation between that pass rush effectiveness and passing effectiveness; on plays where a sack does not occur, per-play pass yardage is unaffected.
We have found that there is no inverse correlation between interception rate and passing effectiveness; on plays where an interception does not occur, per-play pass yardage is unaffected.
These may have been exaggerations. Commenters, emailers, and strangers on the street have since filled me in. The correlation coefficients looked dismissible to my amateur eyes, but weren’t—not entirely, anyway. There was a –.068 correlation coefficient between “dropbacks per sack” and “raw yards per attempt”. Essentially zero, I thought, but it’s closer to –.1 than to zero—and that’s more than nothing. Not much more, but more.
The correlation coefficient between "attempts per interception" and "yards per attempt" was –.091. That’s still only approaching .1; a weak correlation at best. Still, my two statements above aren’t entirely accurate. Over the past 20 years of NFL data, there has been a very mild inverse correlation between sacks, and pass effectiveness on non-sack downs (and the same goes for INTs).
This all implies that the pass rush might indeed affect offense even when it doesn’t hit home—but I couldn’t prove it with the data I had. I’d been working with the 50,000-foot-view: year-over-year leaguewide NFL trends; he low resolution of this data may have blurred the very effects I’m hoping to measure.
Not entirely surprisingly, the better a defense is at producing sacks and interceptions, the better it is on downs where neither occur. For every point per game that a defense generates due to sacks, the overall pass rush generates 1.2 ppg of additional value. Interceptions are also powerful, but not as much so. Each ppg of value a defense generates through interceptions is worth 0.9 ppg of additional value.
This relies on “expected points,” here explained by Brian Burke of Advanced NFL Stats. EP is a way to recognize the reality that four yards gained on 3rd-and-3 are not nearly as valuable as four yards gained on 3rd-and-8. By finding the historical likelihood of scoring on a given down and distance from a given field position, Burke has created baseline EP values. By finding the difference between the EP values from before a play to that play, you can gauge what that play is worth (in EP Added, or EPA).
Using EP allowed the Mathlete to quantify exactly what sacks—and the associated pass rush on non-sack downs—are worth.
From 2006-2009 in games between two D1 teams in competitive game situations (the “universe” for this and most of my analysis) the average defensive unit produced 2.3 ppg worth of sacks and 2.0 ppg worth of interceptions.
So, an average defense produced 2.3 ppg worth of sacks, and gained 2.76 ppg worth of “footsteps effect” from the pass rush. Likewise, the average defense snared 2.0 ppg worth of interceptions, and 1.8 ppg worth of “dink-and-dunk effect”. Mathlete concluded that all he found was the dog wagging the tail: sacks and picks are merely indicators of good defensive performance, not the other way around.
However, this is all still limited to sacks, and attempting to derive the “cringe effect” on non-sack plays. However, I’ve pulled down data from ProFootballFocus.com. They use film review to grade individual performances, as well as capture unofficial or untracked stats—like QB hits, and QB pressures. Rather than attempt to measure the size of the tyrannosaur by the size of the ripples in the water cup, I’ll look at the actual data.
The data I’m using is PFF’s player data for the 2009 season, aggregated into team numbers. A caveat, these numbers do vary from the official NFL totals, especially with subjective stats like sacks, half-sacks, and tackles. From what I’ve seen, the differences are small, but it’s worth getting out there. Anyway, the first order of business: test my assumption that pressures correlate with sacks.
Result? “Yes,” but not as strongly as I’d assumed. The correlation coefficient was .584, quite strong. But as an anonymous commenter noted:
One of the best indicators of nature of the relationship is the effect size calculation. You can obtain an effect size by squaring your correlation coefficient. This will tell you the amount of variability the variables contribute to each other. There's a lot of noise in NFL data so an effect size will tell you how much unique data is explained by the correlation alone.
Rule of thumb for effect sizes: small .2; medium .5; large .8
The effect size here is displayed in that graph as R-squared: 0.3413. It’s far from one-to-one, but it’s safe to say that teams that get lots of pressures tend to get lots of sacks, and vice-versa. For what it’s worth, the best “finishers” are the Redskins, getting 43 sacks to 109 pressures. For academics’ sake, the Falcons were the other way around: 160 pressures to only 31 sacks. The Lions were . . . well, terrible: 23 sacks, and 101 pressures.
Next up, let's take that “hit” and “pressure” data out for a spin:
This is the total yards per attempt allowed, regressed against the percentage of dropbacks where “pass rush” was generated. Dropbacks are “attempts + sacks”, and I’m dividing that number by cumulative sacks, hits, and pressures. The resulting correlation is weak, –0.152, and when squared to get the effect size, it’s a negligible .0232.
So, once again, we’re seeing no real connection between pressure and good pass defense. You see the most interesting data point? Yeah, that one—the one where they’re allowing three-quarters of a yard less per pass attempt than the 2nd-best team. That’s the New York Jets; they allowed a miniscule 4.91 yards per pass attempt, while finishing 19th in PFF-scored sacks, and 9th in per-dropback “pass rush” rate. So, the Jets had a good pass rush, but nothing that correlates to the incredible per-play passing effectiveness seen here.
Secondly, my eyes were drawn to the third-rightmost data point, and how we’d have to scrape it off the Yards-per-attempt ceiling. That would be the Cleveland Browns, whose 47 sacks, 42 QB hits, and 139 pressures generated pressure on 42.93% of dropbacks. That pass rush rate is third-best in the NFL, behind only Dallas (46.91%) and Minnesota (44.77%). Yet, Cleveland’s pass D was flat terrible: it allowed 7.44 yards per attempt, ahead of only Oakland, St. Louis, Miami, and, yes Detroit (7.80).
Things are not looking great for our thesis. If the Lions improved their 2009 per-dropback pass rush rate to match Cleveland’s, from 27.85% to 42.93%, we’d certainly expect a better improvement in allowed Y/A than 7.80 to 7.44.
Last time, passes defensed were to coverage what sacks were to pass rush; I presumed that in years where passes defensed were up, “coverage” was better. In this case, though, I have Pro Football Focus’s “thrown at” and “reception allowed” figures. Again, let’s dispense with trying to derive the whole picture from one rare subset of outcomes. FYI: Total TAs don’t equal attempts, and total receptions allowed don’t equal total receptions. I presume the discrepancies are from uncatchable passes, screen and swing passes that aren’t thrown “into coverage”.
I’ll divide total per-team receptions allowed by total per-team TAs to get a per-team Percent Caught, as PFF does on a per-player basis. This should be an actual measurement of the quality of pass coverage. Let’s regress it against Y/A:
Bingo. There’s as strong of a correlation between percent of catches allowed by coverage and yards-per-attempt, as there is between pressures and sacks. Oh, and who’s that team with the astonishingly low percent-caught, and correlatedly low Y/A? Yup, it’s the Jets. The evidence is mounting: pass rush doesn’t equal pass defense, pass defense equals pass defense.
But, that’s not the whole story, is it? After all, isn’t the magic of a 4-3 defensive line supposed to be that it can generate pressure without a compromising coverage? Won’t there be great improvement in a 4-3 that generates pass rush from the line, without having to blitz linebackers and DBs? Stay tuned for the next exciting adventure!
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