Broken Tackles 2010 Part II

June 14, 2011, 5:06 pm ET

Photo: USA Today Sports Images

by Aaron Schatz

Today, more of our series presenting various 2010 stats from the multitude of Football Outsiders spreadsheets. Last week, we looked at broken tackles from the point of view of the defense. Today, let's look at broken tackles from the point of view of the offense.

As I noted last week, broken tackles are a stat from game charting, not from the standard play-by-play. We defined a "broken tackle" as one of two events: either the ballcarrier escapes from the grasp of the defender, or the defender is in good position for a tackle but the ballcarrier jukes him out of his shoes. If the ballcarrier sped by a slow defender who dived and missed, that didn't count as a broken tackle. We only measured broken tackles for standard plays; volunteers didn't have the time to track them for all special teams plays.

The resulting numbers are subjective, obviously, but there were over two dozen charters involved, so no team's numbers could be overly slanted because of the bias of a single specific charter. We know that there are a other groups on the Web who track broken tackles, and because of the subjectivity, their numbers won't be exactly the same as ours. Given the mistakes that are easy to make when marking players off of television tape, a difference of one or two broken tackles isn't a big deal. But looking at the players with the most and fewest broken tackles does a good job of showing us which ballcarriers are able to power through defenders -- or avoid them with agility -- and which ballcarriers go down quickly when there's contact.

Here is a list of all running backs with at least 20 broken tackles in 2010:

Most Broken Tackles, 2010 RB
Player	Team	BT	Runs	Rec	Touches	BT/Touch
23-A.Foster	HOU	45	325	68	393	11.5%
28-C.Johnson	TEN	41	316	44	360	11.4%
25-L.McCoy	PHI	38	207	78	285	13.3%
44-A.Bradshaw	NYG	38	275	48	323	11.8%
33-M.Turner	ATL	38	334	12	346	11.0%
20-D.McFadden	OAK	37	223	47	270	13.7%
24-M.Lynch	BUF/SEA	36	201	22	223	16.1%
28-A.Peterson	MIN	35	284	36	320	10.9%
40-P.Hillis	CLE	35	270	61	331	10.6%
22-F.Jackson	BUF	34	222	31	253	13.4%
27-L.Blount	TB	33	201	5	206	16.0%
34-R.Mendenhall	PIT	33	324	23	347	9.5%
Player	Team	BT	Runs	Rec	Touches	BT/Touch
28-F.Jones	DAL	30	184	49	233	12.9%
32-M.Jones-Drew	JAC	30	300	34	334	9.0%
32-C.Benson	CIN	30	321	28	349	8.6%
39-S.Jackson	STL	28	330	46	376	7.4%
29-C.Ivory	NO	27	137	1	138	19.6%
25-J.Charles	KC	27	231	45	276	9.8%
28-J.Stewart	CAR	25	178	8	186	13.4%
27-K.Moreno	DEN	25	183	37	220	11.4%
46-R.Torain	WAS	22	164	18	182	12.1%
27-R.Rice	BAL	22	307	63	370	5.9%
20-J.Forsett	SEA	21	118	33	151	13.9%
24-C.Williams	TB	21	125	46	171	12.3%
35-M.Tolbert	SD	21	181	26	207	10.1%
39-D.Woodhead	NE	20	97	34	131	15.3%

Now, leaguewide we marked five percent fewer broken tackles this year compared to 2009. That's probably not tackling getting better, its just a natural year-to-year swing when we're still tuning the proper definition of a subjective metric. Still, even taking that into consideration, there were some surprising drops from 2009 to 2010. We marked Ray Rice with 57 broken tackles in 2009, second in the league behind Chris Johnson. That dropped by more than 60 percent, to just 22 broken tackles last year. Maurice Jones-Drew dropped from 52 to 30. Steven Jackson dropped from 49 to 28. Further down our list, Joseph Addai dropped from 29 broken tackles to just nine, and Beanie Wells dropped from 20 broken tackles to just four.

There's really no equivalent player who had the same amount of touches in both 2009 and 2010 but had many more broken tackles in 2010. The closest is probably LeSean McCoy, who went from 24 broken tackles to 38.

(If you want to see 2009 numbers, click here. The individual numbers are an ESPN Insider piece, the team numbers were free on Football Outsiders.)

Here's another way to look at things, the highest and lowest rates of broken tackles per play. We're adding together catches and carries to get the total number of touches for each player. This is just running backs, with a minimum of 80 touches:

Highest Broken Tackle Rate, 2010 RB
Player	Team	BT	Runs	Rec	Touches	BT/Touch
29-C.Ivory	NO	27	137	1	138	19.6%
24-M.Lynch	BUF/SEA	36	201	22	223	16.1%
27-L.Blount	TB	33	201	5	206	16.0%
39-D.Woodhead	NE	20	97	34	131	15.3%
23-P.Thomas	NO	17	82	30	112	15.2%
20-J.Forsett	SEA	21	118	33	151	13.9%
20-D.McFadden	OAK	37	223	47	270	13.7%
28-J.Stewart	CAR	25	178	8	186	13.4%
22-F.Jackson	BUF	34	222	31	253	13.4%
25-L.McCoy	PHI	38	207	78	285	13.3%

Lowest Broken Tackle Rate, 2010 RB
Player	Team	BT	Runs	Rec	Touches	BT/Touch
23-T.Choice	DAL	2	66	17	83	2.4%
26-C.Wells	ARI	4	116	5	121	3.3%
21-L.Tomlinson	NYJ	10	220	52	272	3.7%
30-J.Kuhn	GB	4	84	15	99	4.0%
42-B.Green-Ellis	NE	10	229	12	241	4.1%
21-F.Gore	SF	11	203	46	249	4.4%
29-C.Taylor	CHI	6	112	20	132	4.5%
23-S.Greene	NYJ	10	185	16	201	5.0%
20-T.Jones	KC	13	246	14	260	5.0%
22-M.Forte	CHI	15	236	51	287	5.2%

Yes, that's two undrafted rookies in our top three, and four undrafted players in our top five. That group of undrafted players is broken only by Marshawn Lynch, who apparently was already in Beast Mode before the playoffs even started. Remember, these are regular season numbers only, and don't include the big run against New Orleans. By the way, Lynch is a great example of how the ability to break tackles is very different from the ability to push through the line in short-yardage situations. As Doug Farrar pointed out on Yahoo! a few days ago, Lynch was one of the worst running backs in the NFL on third downs last season, despite all these broken tackles.

I am surprised by how few broken tackles we marked down for Frank Gore. He wasn't particularly high in our 2009 charting either, with 24 broken tackles on 281 touches (8.5 percent).

The charters did a better job of marking broken tackles by quarterbacks this year, so we were able to split out quarterbacks evading sacks from receivers evading tackles after the reception. Michael Vick, no surprise, led all quarterbacks in broken tackles with 20; that includes both missed sacks and missed tackles after he scrambled past the line of scrimmage. Only three other quarterbacks were marked with more than five broken tackles: David Garrard (11), Tim Tebow (11), and Josh Freeman (10).

Percy Harvin led all wide receivers in broken tackles for the second year in a row, with 13. Here's a look at the top ten wide receivers and tight ends in broken tackles:

Most Broken Tackles, 2010 WR/TE
Player	Team	BT	Runs	Rec	Touches	BT/Touch
12-P.Harvin	MIN	13	18	71	89	14.6%
85-P.Garcon	IND	12	2	67	69	17.4%
13-N.Burleson	DET	12	7	55	62	19.4%
11-B.Gibson	STL	11	3	53	56	19.6%
84-J.Morgan	SF	11	2	44	46	23.9%
84-J.Gresham	CIN	10	0	52	52	19.2%
81-T.Owens	CIN	10	0	72	72	13.9%
82-K.Winslow	TB	9	0	66	66	13.6%
19-B.Marshall	MIA	9	2	86	88	10.2%
82-M.Manningham	NYG	9	1	60	61	14.8%
80-E.Bennett	CHI	9	3	46	49	18.4%

A list with the lowest rate of broken tackles for wide receivers would be kind of silly, since there were a lot of wide receivers and tight ends with only one or two broken tackles. Of note, we had only two receivers who had more than 30 catches with zero broken tackles according to our charters, and both were Houston Texans: Andre Johnson and Kevin Walter. And it isn't like the people charting Houston were particularly stingy about marking broken tackles -- they marked plenty for Arian Foster, and remember that Houston led the league in broken tackle rate on defense.

Finally, here's the overall list for broken tackles on offense:

Broken Tackles by Offenses, 2010
Offense	Plays	Plays w BT	Total BT	Pct Plays w BT
TB	951	77	94	8.1%
PHI	1022	77	92	7.5%
JAC	1014	72	80	7.1%
BUF	950	67	73	7.1%
NYG	1022	71	80	6.9%
CLE	914	61	68	6.7%
CAR	962	63	76	6.5%
OAK	1024	67	75	6.5%
SEA	947	61	71	6.4%
ATL	1090	68	78	6.2%
DAL	1026	63	73	6.1%
NO	1053	64	75	6.1%
MIN	983	59	65	6.0%
NE	970	57	69	5.9%
TEN	902	53	61	5.9%
CIN	1039	61	71	5.9%
Offense	Plays	Plays w BT	Total BT	Pct Plays w BT
DEN	1017	58	67	5.7%
PIT	975	55	68	5.6%
HOU	1023	57	66	5.6%
KC	1052	58	62	5.5%
STL	1046	57	65	5.4%
WAS	993	54	62	5.4%
MIA	1031	55	57	5.3%
SD	1020	54	61	5.3%
DET	1057	53	56	5.0%
SF	937	46	58	4.9%
IND	1081	52	60	4.8%
CHI	924	41	47	4.4%
ARI	933	40	45	4.3%
BAL	1009	43	48	4.3%
GB	988	42	46	4.3%
NYJ	1078	43	44	4.0%

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Comments

41 comments, Last at 18 Jul 2011, 5:54pm

#1 by Russell (not verified) // Jun 14, 2011 - 5:54pm

I suspect that Matt Schaub has alot to do with Houston wide receiver's lack of broken tackles. It was almost painful to watch all the times Johnson would have to slow down or even come to a complete stop waiting for Schaub's weak throws to get to him. Pretty easy to tackle a guy standing still.

#33 by Mr Shush // Jun 15, 2011 - 7:38pm

Schaub doesn't have a great deep ball, it's certainly true, but Johnson also played almost the whole season with an ankle injury and may well have been going down on initial contact to avoid exacerbating it. Walter just plain isn't powerful or elusive enough to be likely to break a lot of tackles.

#2 by tunesmith // Jun 14, 2011 - 5:54pm

Tebow with 11 broken tackles after playing less than 1/4 the season... yeesh.

#3 by Aaron Brooks' … (not verified) // Jun 14, 2011 - 6:59pm

How did Nate Burleson get to 12 BTs?

#4 by Karl Cuba // Jun 14, 2011 - 7:09pm

Do you have a figure for the average league-wide rate for breaking tackles as a point of comparison?

Also, I'm really looking forwards to Harbaugh's offense, get the ball in the hands of Davis, Crabtree and Morgan (with his break rate of over 20%) and let tham make a play. I just hope these current rumours about progress in the labour talks have some truth to them because the niners need training camp more than almost every team, their players haven't been coached in the scheme (and arguably haven't really been coached well for about ten years).

#5 by tunesmith // Jun 14, 2011 - 7:11pm

By the way, I think there's a bug with the site in that the audio for the ads starts playing on page load.

#6 by BaronFoobarstein // Jun 14, 2011 - 7:26pm

"Touches" is a bit confusing. I originally thought it was the number of times a defender had touched the carrier. Doesn't that make more sense for the denominator than number times the player possessed the ball?

Anyone have the numbers for Roethlisberger?

#18 by Karl Cuba // Jun 15, 2011 - 8:08am

With all the brouhaha surrounding Roethlisberger I think Florio would have reported if he'd broken his tackle;)

#32 by MJK // Jun 15, 2011 - 6:29pm

Doesn't that make more sense for the denominator than number times the player possessed the ball

I thought the same thing at first, but I don't think so upon reflection. I imagine counting times a defender touched the carrier is highly subjective...and in the cases where the carrier jukes past a defender in good position (or high-jumps over him) and never gets touched, that would give you one broken tackle divided by zero touches...so you can skew the ratios really easily.

On the other hand, using "ball touches" (receptions plus rushes) makes a lot of sense...it allows you to compensate for the fact the different running backs are utilized differently.

For a great example, consider Danny Woodhead. He barely makes the list of RB's with at least 20 broken tackles, and is 26th on the list. So we might conclude that he isn't that great at tackle-breaking. However, the Patriots use a committee approach at RB, and even when Woodhead or BJGE were heavily utilized in a game, each got only about half the carried. On the other hand, LeSean McCoy and Chris Johnson were getting something like 95% of their team's RB touches, so they had a lot more opportunities to break tackles. Ball touches generally directly reflects a player's snap count and therefore allows you to compensate for utilization differences. When you factor in ball touches, Woodhead is 4th on the list, implying that he is indeed a fairly shifty back.

#35 by Shattenjager // Jun 15, 2011 - 7:50pm

Chris Johnson had 82.9% of his teams RB touches (he had 360, Javon Ringer had 58, and Ahmard Hall had 16).
LeSean McCoy had 72.7% (he had 285, Jerome Harrison had 48, Eldra Buckley had 22, Mike Bell had 17, Leonard Weaver had 1, and Owen Schmitt had 19).
BenJarvus Green-Ellis had 51.9% (he had 241) and Danny Woodhead had 28.2% (he had 131, Fred Taylor had 45, Sammy Morris had 27, Kevin Faulk had 14, and Thomas Clayton had 6).

I just added these up because I was curious about what their percentages actually were.

#7 by Sequence (not verified) // Jun 14, 2011 - 7:38pm

"...five undrafted players in our top six."

Justin Forsett was actually a 7th-round draft pick in 2008.

#9 by Aaron Schatz // Jun 14, 2011 - 8:47pm

Whoops! I'll go fix that.

#8 by Reinhard (not verified) // Jun 14, 2011 - 8:44pm

Broken tackles don't take place in isolation. In a slightly bigger hole it's easier to break the tackle, and it's harder to make it.
I'm thinking of Arian Foster. I actually really like him and don't get why he is so disliked, but the players voting his FB one of the top players in the game, along with Andre Johnson the best WR in the NFL out there, it does open things up for him nicely.

#34 by Mr Shush // Jun 15, 2011 - 7:42pm

That may be true, but subjectively I would say that Foster has outstanding agility in the open field coupled with pretty good power. He made a lot of significant gains on plays that could easily have been ended in the backfield.

#36 by Shattenjager // Jun 15, 2011 - 7:51pm

Arian Foster is disliked? (This is not arguing--I'm seriously asking.)

#37 by sanderrp@gmail.com // Jun 15, 2011 - 9:05pm

Actually the vast majority of broken tackles tracked by game charters occur in the open field, at least in my experience. Tackles around the line of scrimmage often don't factor in because there's almost always a blocker involved somewhere.

#10 by Billy B (not verified) // Jun 14, 2011 - 8:51pm

Yes, it seems like Roethlisberger evades a sack on every single play. Or at least on every single big pass play. So it's surprising to see that game charters didn't see more than 10.

#23 by Aaron Brooks' … (not verified) // Jun 15, 2011 - 10:40am

Usually though he never actually broke the tackle -- he just threw the ball with three guys hanging off of him.

#26 by BaronFoobarstein // Jun 15, 2011 - 2:46pm

By the definition given that would be a broken tackle since it's an escape from the grasp of a defender.

#27 by Thomas_beardown // Jun 15, 2011 - 3:23pm

No, it's the ball leaving the player, not the player escaping the grasp of a defender.

I would assume fumbling wouldn't count as a broken tackle either.

#30 by BaronFoobarstein // Jun 15, 2011 - 5:47pm

A player forcing a fumble is credited with a tackle, so a player fumbling the ball did not break a tackle. A player forcing another out of bounds is credited a tackle. A player hanging on to a quarterback who throws a forward pass is not credited with a tackle. Going by the language above, "the ballcarrier escapes from the grasp of the defender," I can see that you may be right depending on interpretation of the language (good old de dicto vs de re making an appearance).

But in light of the way tackles are credited statistically and an understanding of the relative desirability of outcomes it seems that a once a defender has a carrier grasped a "tackle" is a play where the defender wins by making the tackle in the traditional sense, forcing a fumble, halting forward progress resulting in a dead play, or forcing the carrier out of bounds. A "broken tackle" is a play where the ball-carrier wins by eluding the tackle whether through a juke, shaking off a tackler, or executing a legal forward pass.

I don't think a thrown ball is a particularly borderline case since the ball-carrier has definitively "won" the encounter in which a grasp occurred with no subsequent tackle. More borderline scenarios would be a player who never escapes the tackler but drags him forward for several yards or until scoring or until another defender arrives to assist.

#31 by Thomas_beardown // Jun 15, 2011 - 6:28pm

No question that the ball carrier won the encounter, but not every victory is a broken tackle.

#11 by Kent (not verified) // Jun 14, 2011 - 9:43pm

I wonder how much a knee injury and then allergic reaction to treatment played into his poor performance. You could notice just watching games that he looked a little timid and was going down on first contact for to easily and far to often for a player of his size.

#12 by Sciz (not verified) // Jun 14, 2011 - 10:22pm

Watching Aaron Hernandez, it seemed like he broke an awful lot of tackles for a TE. Do the numbers confirm this?

#13 by Thomas_beardown // Jun 14, 2011 - 10:24pm

The extremely low rate of broken tackles by Jet's running backs is interesting.

That is a beast of an offensive line they've assembled.

#14 by Dan // Jun 14, 2011 - 11:41pm

Five the of 6 worst tackle-breaking teams made the playoffs. Coincidence? Probably.

#15 by ebongreen (not verified) // Jun 15, 2011 - 12:56am

Oh, I don't know about that. GB, for example, is much more interested in YAC and passing than it is in broken tackles through ground-pounding. The same strikes me as true for IND.

CHI's offense seemed to change radically during the course of the year, so I'm not sure how their philosophy is particularly measurable. OTOH, from the little I saw of both neither BAL nor the NYJ seemed to have an awesomely dynamic passing game, so I'm not sure how they'd count.

#16 by Thomas_beardown // Jun 15, 2011 - 1:05am

Don't you think an offense designed to create YAC would lead to broken tackles from the receivers?

#17 by Ununanonymous (not verified) // Jun 15, 2011 - 3:40am

The Packers stress holding onto the football at all costs. Fumblers get sent into McCarthy's dog house for a long, long time. James Jones would've played a much larger role had McCarthy trusted him.

#21 by Flounder // Jun 15, 2011 - 9:39am

To me, the GB offense has a couple different strengths. Fitting balls into small windows, where the receiver if often almost immediately tackled by multiple defenders (see Aaron Rodgers being really good), and also hitting receivers in stride who have beaten their defender by a step, while designing the play so there are no other defenders within close proximity (see Greg Jennings and Aaron Rodgers being really good).

#28 by LionFanInAZ (not verified) // Jun 15, 2011 - 4:44pm

I would think that an offense that emphasizes throwing the ball into small windows is courting with disaster.

#40 by Flounder // Jun 16, 2011 - 12:03pm

I didn't say they emphasize it. I'm sure GB doesn't. Nevertheless, they are good at it (see Aaron Rodgers).

#38 by sanderrp@gmail.com // Jun 15, 2011 - 9:07pm

A receiver making a defender miss after he's caught the ball is also a broken tackle.

#19 by RichC (not verified) // Jun 15, 2011 - 8:29am

"Lynch is a great example of how the ability to break tackles is very different from the ability to push through the line in short-yardage situations"

When you include dodging a defender as a broken tackle, this happens.

#25 by Roadspike73 (not verified) // Jun 15, 2011 - 12:32pm

Anecdotally, Lynch was always getting hit 2-3 yards behind the line, breaking a tackle, and then getting hit again (while already slowed) at the line of scrimmage. That tends to lead to a lot of broken tackles, but not much yardage. He's not (usually) the type of runner who jukes a defender out of their shoes, that's more Forsett's style (or just letting the defender slip off of him). Lynch tends to shrug off a defender's hit, but then be left so high and slow that he has no chance against the second hit--and with Seattle's makeshift offensive line last year, that second hit came almost as quickly as the first hit did.

#20 by Ranccor (not verified) // Jun 15, 2011 - 9:32am

Couple of observations from a Colts fan perspective:

-All of the RB is in the AFC South without a horseshoe on their helmet are always in BEAST MODE. We already knew that, but this adds to the fire. And Addai falls over when he is hit with a stiff breeze.

-Not surprised at all to see Garcon at the top of the WR chart. He was awesome once he got his hands on the ball, but made way too many easy drops to be consistently good (at least that is what my memory tells me).

#22 by andrew // Jun 15, 2011 - 10:05am

Is that broken tackles # of broken tackles or # of plays in which they broke a tackle?

i.e., if a running back breaks 3 tackles on one play, does it count as 1 or 3?

#24 by Aaron Schatz // Jun 15, 2011 - 11:17am

Aha. It is number of broken tackles, so it counts as three.

#29 by LionFanInAZ (not verified) // Jun 15, 2011 - 4:49pm

This confirmed my suspicion that Earl Bennett was one tough-to-bring-down WR. I was surprised to see Burleson up there as well. One more reason to be happy the Lions picked him up!

#39 by Howdy (not verified) // Jun 16, 2011 - 8:41am

Does down/distance have an impact here? I'm just thinking that in New England, when BJGE gets a carry he's supposed to run into the line and get 3 yards, while they often try to get Woodhead the ball in space. I agree that Woodhead's very shifty (see his TDs against Buffalo and Indianapolis) but I feel like BJGE shed's a lot first contact, or at least always falls forward.

#41 by Andy (not verified) // Jul 18, 2011 - 5:54pm

I've seen Andre Johnson finish very low in this (& similar) metric the past 3 seasons. The odd thing is, he's a big, strong, fast guy -- who you'd think would excel at such a thing. It makes me wonder if it's because of the way HOU uses him most of the time (as a possession receiver, not taking advantage of his athletic ability), and not his actual ability to make defenders miss (ie: does he just not have enough space based on the routes he runs? not far enough down field, or back far enough from the LOS?). I know everyone can probably picture a play or do where he just muscles guys off (vs ARI I think, going in for the TD), so it would seem he DOES have the ability, he's just not put into the position to do so.