The sack stat. Also known as the bane of my existence.
Every day I get emails or tweets where someone references how many sacks a player has as the sole reason why they deserve recognition. It’s like a sack is the only way a pass rusher can impact a game, forgetting how pressure also impacts the decision-making and accuracy of a quarterback.
Now pressure doesn’t guarantee a negative play like a sack, but look at it this way: Aaron Rodgers completes 76.1% of passes when he isn’t pressured, and completes “just” 54.4% when he is. It’s a universal truth for all QBs that getting pressured makes them far more inaccurate.
So we devised our own pass rushing formula back after the 2008 season. Given that we are the only people to break down how many times a player rushes the passer we felt the best way of figure out the most productive pass rusher was to use that data, along with our sacks, hits and hurries counts, to give us a magical figure known as Pass Rushing Productivity. A simple formula that looks something like this:
Sacks + 0.75 (Hits + Hurries)/ Number of Snaps Rushing The Passer * 100
That’s enough math for now. Shall we get to the interesting stuff and look at the pass rushers who have gone after the QB at least 200 times?
Leading the Way
If you had to guess the most productive pass rusher in the NFL on a per-snap basis, who would be the first guy you think of? Some of you may go for Dwight Freeney (17th), others may look at those with the big sack numbers like DeMarcus Ware (11th) or Jared Allen (43rd). You’d all be wrong because actually the most productive pass rusher in the NFL is Carlos Dunlap. On 202 pass rushing attempts he’s picked-up just three sacks, but a staggering 11 hits and 24 hurries. Granted most of this has been in the Bengals sub-package defense so he’d afforded more opportunity to pin his ears back, but that shouldn’t discount from what he has done.
Dunlap, with his 15.47 PRP rating, has narrowly held off the challenge of rookie sensation Von Miller who is third in the league in total pressure (55 combined sacks, hits and hurries) and second in the PRP rankings. What makes Miller’s score all the more remarkable is how heavily weighted his pressure is towards bringing the QB down. His 29 QB knockdowns (hits and sacks) are six better than the man in second place in this regard (Andre Carter). These numbers add a lot of statistical evidence to what we’ve been saying since Week 1; Miller is a special talent.
The two men with the most QB disruptions in the NFL, Chris Long and Cameron Wake, join Dunlap, Miller and Trent Cole in a Top 5 short of the established names that have become synonymous with this list. Players like last years’ leader Tamba Hali (20th) and the man with the best rating between 2008 and 2010 John Abraham (12th) aren’t far off the pace, but they’re having to contend with a new class of rushers looking to make an impact. That includes plenty of rookies featuring in the Top 25, with Miller joined by the excellent Aldon Smith (10th), relentless Ryan Kerrigan (18th), and often-overlooked Robert Quinn (21st). Let’s take a look at the overall Top 25.
The Most Productive 25 Pass Rushers
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While the rookies are making a name for themselves, it’s interesting that after Dunlap, you have to go a long way to find the next second-year player, and that’s a defensive tackle in the shape of Geno Atkins in 34th spot. Atkins is the fourth-ranked DT/3-4 DE on the list, with Cullen Jenkins leading all defensive tackles after picking up six sacks, seven hits and 18 hurries on 271 pass rushes. Yet it’s Antonio Smith who is dominating the interior linemen stakes with a 10.66 PRP rating that is good enough for 14th overall. It’s overlooked just how big of a success story Smith has been for the Texans this year, with his impact felt by many a quarterback. Here are the Top 15 interior pass rushers:
The Top Interior Defensive Linemen
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Down at the other end of things you get an understanding of just why the Browns benched Jayme Mitchell. Only Dave Tollefson has a lower rating for a defensive end, and he has spent a fair bit of time playing inside as part of the Giants' “four aces” package. Perhaps one of the more notable names on the list is Jason Jones, who, after dominating inside, has struggled to make much of an impact at defensive end. Perhaps that’s just part of playing in Tennessee, though, with Dave Ball fairing even worse than the man he spells. On that note, next up are the 20 least-productive pass rushers at all positions.
The 20 Least Productive Rushers
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Now, numbers without context can be taken too literally. These numbers do not take into account how quickly a pass rusher got pressure or even if he got it unblocked. For that more intelligent data, you’ll need to look at our pass rushing grades where a defender who beats a man in 1.8 seconds to get a sack, earns a significantly higher grade than one who picks up a clean up sack when the quarterback scrambles out of the pocket. These numbers have plenty of worth in pointing us in the right direction of the best pass rushers in the league, but they have limitations.
Not something that either Carlos Dunlap or Von Miller appear to have when it comes to making life tough for quarterbacks.
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