Numbers You Should Know

Mid-Season Review

By Nick Webster

It’s mid-season (kind of, bye-weeks make it impossible to have a true mid-season) and its time to check in with some interesting numbers that people don’t always focus on.

We like to rate defenders on their ability to make big plays, so in addition to talking about sacks, we measure stuffs, a tackle of either a runner or a receiver on a completed pass behind the line-of-scrimmage. Stuffs, like sacks—but not like the NFL’s tackles for loss—are credited as .5 when two players share in that tackle. Stuffs also differ from tackles for loss in that contact with a ballcarrier who fumbles but is not taken to the ground are considered stuffs. 

Recall that in the NFL odd way of reasoning, forcing a fumble downfield is a tackle, forcing a fumble while sacking the QB is a sack, but forcing a fumble on that sack is not a tackle for loss. Don’t ask us—we like the stuff—its measured just the same way sacks are and therefore is comparable.

There’s lots of new blood on the leaderboard here at mid-season, a transition that really started a year ago after years of Lavonte David and JJ Watt passing the mantle back and forth. Of course, Watt has been injured and off the board sadly for a second straight season, but David—while still productive – has just seen his play fall off, in part due to smaller nicks and injuries.

Rk	Name	TOTAL Stuffs
1	Derrick Kindred	10.0
2	Zach Brown	7.5
3	C.J. Mosley	7.0
	Cory James	7.0
5	Christian Kirksey	6.5
	Timmy Jernigan	6.5
	Jahleel Addae	6.5
	Telvin Smith	6.5
9	Chandler Jones	6.0
	Anthony Barr	6.0
11	Jadeveon Clowney	5.5
	Michael Bennett	5.5
	Grady Jarrett	5.5
	Darron Lee	5.5
15	Blake Martinez	5.0
	Allen Bailey	5.0
	Jerry Hughes	5.0
	Matt Judon	5.0
	Nick Vigil	5.0
	Sean Lee	5.0

The season leader, by a margin, is a name you’ve probably not heard much about—in part due to being mired in Cleveland, but in part due to his being a young player without huge pedigree (4^th Rounder from TCU) who appears to be just coming into his own. Derrick Kindred through eight games is on a pace to put up more stuffs in a season than anyone other than JJ Watt in his monstrous 2012 campaign. There are plenty of other names of note on the list as CJ Mosley continues to be a quietly excellent force on the Ravens D, Telvin Smith continues to impress in Jacksonville and Jadeveon Clowney is putting to rest all talk of being a 1^st overall pick bust.

Rk	Name	Pass Stuffs
1	Anthony Barr	4.0
	Adrian Amos	4.0
3	Harrison Smith	3.0
	Eric Kendricks	3.0
5	Jamar Taylor	2.5
	Nick Vigil	2.5
	Cory James	2.5
8	D. Rodgers-Cromartie	2.0
	Orlando Scandrick	2.0
	Christian Kirksey	2.0

Reviewing stuffs on just passing plays, both Anthony Barr and Adrian Amos are actually on pace to exceed the most pass stuffs in a single season—7 by Ray Lewis and DeAndre Levy in their primes.  This is a function of their excellent play, it being early in the season, but also a more general trend to short screens and passes behind the line of scrimmage.

We also enjoy understanding which players have the most QB hits. Again, the NFL has a funny way of counting these, let’s explain; a sack in which the QB is taken to the ground with the ball is a QB hit, a sack where a fumble is forced and the QB is not taken down to the ground is not a QB hit, a play where a QB releases the ball on a passing attempt and is subsequently taken to the ground is also a QB hit. We count QB hits as plays where no Sack was credited and the QB was taken to the ground. So you can see, using our numbers, excluding a player's sacks, how often he took down the QB.

Rk	Player	Tm	QBH
1	D.Buckner	SF	12
2	G.McCoy	TB	11
	D.Wise	NE	11
	L.Williams	NYJ	11
5	A.Donald	LA	10
	T.Flowers	NE	10
7	J.Simon	Ind	8
	J.Casey	Ten	8
9	M.Bennett	Sea	7
	C.Wake	Mia	7
	C.Jones	Ari	7
	K.Mack	Oak	7
	C.Long	Phi	7
	R.Ayers Jr.	TB	7
	B.Orakpo	Ten	7
	Y.Ngakoue	Jax	7
	E.Griffen	Min	7
	C.Dunlap	Cin	7
19	J.Hughes	Buf	6
	P.Smith	Was	6

 This is a very interesting list in the fact that many of the top players are not high on the sack list, these pass rushers save a few, are getting close but not getting home. DeForest Buckner might be another under the radar budding star, 7^th Overall pick a year ago, he’s toiling in obscurity on a very poor 49er team. Gerald McCoy is already a star in the league, but viewed through the sack tables might be presumed to be having a down year . . . not the case, he’s been far more disruptive as a pass rusher than his 2 sacks would suggest. Leonard Williams also might be presumed to be down – no sacks so far this season – but is proving disruptive, punishing enemy QB’s frequently.  And finally Aaron Donald is just great in every aspect of the game, with Watt out for a second season he has to be considered the best D Lineman in the game, bar none.

Finally – there has been an absolute scarcity of blocked kicks this season in the NFL. Last year, all told including punts, field goals and extra points 39 kicks were blocked. Bennie Logan, Ra’Shed Hegman, Jason Jones and Shea McClellin each blocked two kicks last years and the 6-8 Margus Hunt blocked three. Until this past weekend, however, just 10 kicks had been blocked so far this season.  But thanks to a Fall storm bringing downpours to the East coast there were 6 blocks this last weekend, though no single player has more than one so far.

Let us know what you think; passing TD’s are fun, as are receptions and interceptions, but we enjoy the subtle and infrequent as well—hope you do too.