Many of you read the article in Pro Football Prospectus 2007 about hits and hurries, entitled "Beyond Sacks." I thought I would try to update the information for 2007 occasionally during the season, so we could see whose pass rush contributions are hidden when we only look at sack totals.

First, let's look at hurries. These come from game charting, so they are WILDLY incomplete. This is only Weeks 1-4, some halves are missing (including all of Week 3 HOU-IND), and the data hasn't been fully cleaned up yet. Nevertheless, here are the leaders in the data we do have:

74-A.Kampman GB 8
92-B.Berry ARI 8
91-T.Hali KC 7.5
56-D.Johnson KC 7.5
94-D.Ware DAL 7
55-T.Suggs BAL 6
92-A.Haynesworth TEN 6
92-S.Rogers DET 6
99-B.Keisel PIT 6
97-P.Kerney SEA 6
55-J.Abraham ATL 5.5

Second, hits. These come from the official play-by-play, and include all hits -- including those on plays canceled by penalty. To score as a QB hit, the quarterback has to be knocked to the ground. Unfortunately, like last year, we're finding that the official scorers have wildly different views of what counts as a hit. In general, the same stadiums that scored too few hits last year are scoring too few hits this year. The worst is Pittsburgh -- only one QB hit was scored in three home games, on both sides of the ball. Knowing the Pittsburgh defense, does it make sense that they would go three games and only knock the quarterback down once?

Luckily, the people at the NFL know about the situation, thanks to Football Outsiders. FO charters are also on the lookout for hits that are missed in the official scoring, and we've already contributed a bunch of corrections for Weeks 1-3.

Here are hits through Week 6, not counting sacks:

94-D.Ware DAL 8
93-K.Vanden Bosch TEN 8
55-T.Suggs BAL 7
50-M.Vrabel NE 6
92-S.Rogers DET 6
94-T.Warren NE 6
95-K.Wimbley CLE 6
97-P.Kerney SEA 6
94-K.Gbaja-Biamila GB 6
98-A.Odom TEN 6

It should be noted that Tennessee has two players in the top 10 for QB hits even though a) they've only played five games and b) they aren't getting any help from the scorers. The Titans have 11 hits at home in two games, and 17 on the road in three.

Posted by: Aaron Schatz on 19 Oct 2007

10 comments, Last at 14 May 2009, 7:47am by eyeless