Stat of the Day: Pass Tackles for Safeties

As part of our ongoing Stat of the Day series, we're digging deep into our spreadsheets to run a new stat every weekday until Super Bowl XLIV.

Yesterday, we ran numbers that showed which cornerbacks made the most tackles after complete passes, as well as the most successful tackles after complete passes. Today, we're running those same numbers for safeties. You can read yesterday's Stat of the Day [1] for an explanation of where these stats come from. Safeties, of course, have fewer successful tackles (Stops) than cornerbacks.

Yesterday's Stat of the Day discussion thread seemed to have a lot of complaints that these stats are imperfect, that they don't include missed tackles or plays where a cornerback just plays good coverage. There were complaints that these numbers sometimes reflect a team's coverage scheme rather than player quality, or that a player could get a tackle because the receiver ran out of bounds and he happened to be the closest defender. Guess what: You're right! These stats are imperfect. They only tell part of the story. That doesn't make them uninteresting. We could stick to only writing about stats that account for all possible variables, but then the site would be blank.

Just remember that these stats come from play-by-play, not game charting. That doesn't mean they aren't subjective, but the subjectivity belongs to the official scorers of the 32 teams, not the FO game charting volunteers.

Sometime next week, we'll look at these stats for linebackers.