Last year, it took outside linebacker Clay Matthews just one game to accumulate three sacks. We are six weeks into the 2011 season, and Matthews is just sitting at two. While some have been quick to defend one of the most well-known players on the Super Bowl defense, others have already decided he isn’t the player he once was.
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So which is it? Has Clay Matthews made a turn for the worse, or is his two sack total not telling the whole story? If you’re familiar with our work, you know we’ve seen Matthews on every play he’s been in and know what the whole story is. Read on and be clued in.
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Recalling 2010
When most people think of Clay Matthews, they think of the beginning of his 2010 season. He had three sacks in each of the first two games, and followed that up with a two hit and five pressure game against the Bears. In just three weeks he accumulated a PFF overall rating of +20.9, which is higher than any 3-4 outside linebacker has this year through six games, and a rating only five 3-4 outside linebackers had over the course of a full season in 2010.
The problem is that his play in those three weeks was out of this world good, with 25 pressures on 93 pass rushes is something we might not see again. Over the next five weeks we still saw a good Clay Matthews as he tallied up a +5.4 rating and 18 pressures on 149 pass rushes. Somewhere along the line Matthews picked up a shin injury though that he played through, but it showed in his performance. From Week 11 through to the Super Bowl, he had a -8.7 overall rating; thanks in large part to an inability to stop the run, and 31 pressures on 315 pass rushes. He was still getting sacks so the decline wasn’t as noticeable as it might have been, but the bottom line is we saw three very different versions of Matthews in 2010.
2011 Clay Matthews: The Pass Rusher
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The number that the majority of people care about for pass rushers is sacks, and because Matthews has just two, they assume he’s having a poor season. It should be noted however, that hits and pressures also tell a large part of the story. In the first four weeks Matthews has had two hits and sacks combined a game, and over the past two weeks that number has moved to three. This gives him a total of 14 sacks and hits on the year – second most in the league behind Jared Allen. While he hasn’t done as good of a job at getting to the quarterback before he throws the ball, he is still getting to the quarterback and bringing him down, which takes its toll even if it doesn’t have the same impact on that play.
Outside of that, there have been 16 other plays where Matthews has generated pressure. On four of those, his pressure helped lead to a teammate getting a sack, and on another it led to an interception. Overall, he's totaled 30 pressures on 220 pass rushes. While it’s nowhere near the excellent play we saw to begin last season, it is a significant improvement over what we saw for the majority of 2010.
2011 Clay Matthews: The Run Stopper
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The bigger problem with Matthews during his injury was his inability to make plays in the run game. This was most apparent in the 2010 game at Detroit where players like fullback Jerome Felton, tight end Brandon Pettigrew, and right tackle Corey Hilliard were able to block Matthews effectively. There were no plays where we graded him positively in the run game, and on the eight plays we graded him negatively, the Lions ran for 47 yards.
After ending up with a -4.9 run defense rating in 2010, he currently has a +6.0; a significant improvement. In six games, he has collected four tackles for losses, three tackles for no gain, three for short gains, and one fourth down stop. Not only is he making more good plays in the run game, but he is also producing fewer negative plays. Last year he had a negative run defense rating on 13.2% of run plays, typically due to someone on offense successfully blocking him, but this year that is down to 9.5%. In 2009, Matthews was far more balanced between being a good run defender and a good pass rusher, and we’re seeing more of that again this year.
2011 Clay Matthews: The Man in Coverage
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At times, the Packers bring Matthews back into coverage, and instead send other players at the quarterback. Last year this happened 7.6 times per game, and this year it has happened 8.8 times per game. While he is better at rushing the passer, he has not been a liability at all in coverage. He has been thrown at three times, and has allowed only a 2-yard catch, with one of the those incomplete passes a pass deflection.
Bottom Line
Is Matthews as good as he was the first three weeks of the 2010 season? Absolutely not. I don’t know if we have ever seen anyone play that well over three weeks (and I’m not sure when we will again), but he is playing better than what we saw for a large part of last year. Currently, his pass rush rating is third-highest for all 3-4 outside linebackers, and his run defense rating is fourth-best, resulting in just James Harrison having a better overall rating. He is arguably more of an All-Pro player now, than ever before, with this just a classic case of sacks not telling the whole story.
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