The Seahawks' Press Crew is Inflating Tackles

PERSPECTIVE
By Nick Webster

How do we know?

There are a few different ways. First of all let me define what we’re talking about here, some teams coaching staffs collect tackle statistics, and their relative definitions of a tackle can vary widely.  What do you do when a player runs out-of-bounds, is anyone credited with a tackle, the closest defender, a defender if they ran them OOB? What about the second guy in, the third, etc.  Well, in recent years the NFL has done an excellent job of better standardizing unofficial statistics like tackles, passes defensed or forced fumbles by giving prescriptive guidance to the folks who compile play-by-plays.  For the purposes of this discussion, tackles are those that are compiled by the league from play-by-plays . . . the type you’ll find on NFL.com, Pro Football Reference, or any of the typical web-sights, though not necessarily what might be in next years team media guides.

So how do we know the Seahawks are inflating, and how do they compare to other teams?  First, let’s look at the number of total tackles (solo tackles plus assisted tackles) they’ve credited as a portion of all the tackle opportunities. Tackle opportunities are completed passes minus passing TD’s allowed plus rushing plays minus rushing TD’s allowed, these are the plays where a defender could have made a tackle. There is typically more than one tackle credited per opportunity over the course of the season as – we can all observe – there are certain plays where, clearly, more than one player is in on the tackle.  Year-to-date (through 16 of 17 weeks) across the league for every tackle opportunity 1.22 total tackles (solo tackles plus assisted tackles) have been credited.  But the Seahawks lead the league crediting 1.33 tackles per tackle opportunity, they’re followed up by the Bills and Giants at 1.32 and 1.31, respectively. The Chiefs, Colts and Jags, respectively, have credited 1.1, 1.11 and 1.12 tackle per opportunity. 

Team	Solo	Ass	TT	%Solo	StDev	Toppy	Solo%Toppy	Ass%Toppy	TT%Toppy
Ari	619	168	787	78.7%	1.3	692	89%	24%	114%
Atl	592	265	857	69.1%	-0.4	698	85%	38%	123%
Bal	555	251	806	68.9%	-0.4	662	84%	38%	122%
Buf	619	291	910	68.0%	-0.5	687	90%	42%	132%
Car	557	292	849	65.6%	-1.0	703	79%	42%	121%
Chi	646	189	835	77.4%	1.0	698	93%	27%	120%
Cin	575	292	867	66.3%	-0.8	704	82%	41%	123%
Cle	552	288	840	65.7%	-0.9	743	74%	39%	113%
Dal	595	271	866	68.7%	-0.4	677	88%	40%	128%
Den	636	238	874	72.8%	0.3	725	88%	33%	121%
Det	599	198	797	75.2%	0.7	693	86%	29%	115%
GB	613	190	803	76.3%	0.9	659	93%	29%	122%
Hou	537	257	794	67.6%	-0.6	640	84%	40%	124%
Ind	574	199	773	74.3%	0.5	694	83%	29%	111%
Jax	638	155	793	80.5%	1.6	711	90%	22%	112%
KC	620	159	779	79.6%	1.4	708	88%	22%	110%
LA	623	206	829	75.2%	0.7	716	87%	29%	116%
Mia	593	336	929	63.8%	-1.3	740	80%	45%	126%
Min	554	268	822	67.4%	-0.6	656	84%	41%	125%
NE	483	294	777	62.2%	-1.5	664	73%	44%	117%
NO	597	231	828	72.1%	0.2	684	87%	34%	121%
NYG	661	263	924	71.5%	0.1	705	94%	37%	131%
NYJ	535	274	809	66.1%	-0.9	692	77%	40%	117%
Oak	601	159	760	79.1%	1.3	650	92%	24%	117%
Phi	548	232	780	70.3%	-0.2	653	84%	36%	119%
Pit	594	248	842	70.5%	-0.1	656	91%	38%	128%
SD	615	197	812	75.7%	0.8	684	90%	29%	119%
Sea	507	417	924	54.9%	-2.8	695	73%	60%	133%
SF	675	241	916	73.7%	0.4	769	88%	31%	119%
TB	644	165	809	79.6%	1.4	687	94%	24%	118%
Ten	598	183	781	76.6%	0.9	663	90%	28%	118%
Was	643	262	905	71.0%	0.0	713	90%	37%	127%
League	18,998	7,679	26,677	71.2%	0.0	22,121	86%	35%	121%

These may seem like small differences, but the upshot is that Bobby Wagner, the leagues’ total tackle leader with 155, if we adjust all teams to 1.22 tackles per tackle opportunity** falls to second behind little known Christian Kirksey who trails in the raw numbers by 25 with just 130 total tackles.

		ALL
RK	Name	Tkl	Asst		TT
1	Bobby Wagner	75	80	155
2	Sean Lee	93	52	145
3	Zach Brown	93	45	138
4	Kwon Alexander	102	33	135
5	Alec Ogletree	95	37	132
T5	Christian Kirksey	83	49	132
7	Zach Orr	89	41	130
8	Benardrick McKinney	78	50	128
9	Paul Posluszny	94	33	127
10	Tahir Whitehead	93	32	125

But, of course, the obvious argument is that some teams naturally do more gang tackling than others, this should be naturally observable in the types of disparities represented in the numbers cited above.  But there is a way to understand this better as well, as these stats are compiled by the press box crew for the home team, we can observe tackle statistics for the same team in home games versus road games, for a team who truly gang tackles more often, you’d expect the ratios of solo tackles to assisted tackles to be fairly consistent. What do we observe then for teams like the Seahawks?

Home Games			Away Games
Solo	Asst	% Solo	Solo	Asst	% Solo
214	286	43%	299	138	68%

Notice a difference?  League wide solo tackles are 71% of all tackles and the road figure of 68% is certainly witin spitting distance of that, however, the home figure is simply implausible. In fact the ratio of tackles to tackle opportunities, if the Seahawks played every game at home would be over 1.4.  Here are some key ‘Hawks’ stats at home versus on the road:

	Home			Road
Name	S	A	%S	S	A		%S
Bobby Wagner	27	57	32%	49	23	68%
KJ Wright	25	40	38%	38	14	73%
Earl Thomas	10	14	42%	14	8	64%
Richard Sherman	16	10	62%	20	10	67%
DeShawn Shead	27	18	60%	28	6	82%
Kam Chancellor	20	22	48%	21	11	66%

Consider the fact that certain position will naturally gang tackle more than others – CB’s are unlikely to be gang tackling, LB’s and DT’s are very likely to . . . but the trends here are indisputable, there’s home cooking going on in the Seattle press box. So, the Seahawks get credited with more assists than other teams, more total tackles than other teams as a function of that, and it’s all at home that makes the difference. Is this home cooking, or just a press box with a more liberal view of tackles?  How do opponent defenders fare in tackle to opportunity ratio and tackle to assist ration when playing in Seattle?

Solo	Asst	Ratio	Comp	CompTD	Rush	Rush TD	T Oppy	Ratio
247	296	45%	189	15	218	11	381	143%

Well, interestingly, is appears that the press box crew is equally an outlier and not just in the favor of Seahawks. In fact, the more you play in Seattle, it seems, the more assists and total tackles you’ll make.

Does any of this really matter, maybe, maybe not. Tackles are about the least sexy statistic you can find, on just about every play someone makes a tackle. However, a couple seasons ago it was on the shoulders of one huge tackle game that Luke Kuechly separated himself from the pack to win Defensive Player of the Year, keeping J.J. Watt from winning four straight. A quick Google search for LukeKuechly from his rookie season through the start of last year (he got some hits as the anthers went on their Super Bowl run), reveals that the week following his 24 tackle game – one in which he had 9 solo tackles and 15 assists - shows that he had the most hits immediately following that 24 TT game.

So I’d argue that, tackles matter, we have crews compiling them in a materially different manner, and that matters. This needs to be resolved, but before Tony Dungy casts one more vote for Bobby Wagner as MVP, it needs to be understood!

** Adjustment is calculated as players’ tackles divided by teams’ tackles per opportunity multiplied by league average tackles per opportunity.  For Wagner 155 / 1.33 * 1.22 = 142