Is Kirk Cousins the best free-agent quarterback in recent memory? Should Trumaine Johnson or Malcolm Butler have gotten the larger contract? And what makes a free-agent contract good or bad, anyway?
20 Apr 2012
by Aaron Schatz
Let's continue our series presenting various 2011 stats from the multitude of Football Outsiders spreadsheets. Last week, we looked at broken tackles from the offensive perspective. Today, we'll look at it from the defensive perspective.
(Note: Before we get started, a clarification from last week's piece. I noted last week that Michael Vick had 17 broken tackles escaping sacks, more than twice as many as any other quarterback. After going back and doing a bit more cleaning of data, I have to adjust that statement a bit. Four plays we had listed as broken tackles by Tim Tebow were actually "Houdini" plays because Tebow broke the tackles behind the line of scrimmage on pass plays. Well, by "pass plays" we mean they started as pass plays and were pass plays for at least one or two seconds. So Tebow now has 12 "Houdinis." Tebow and Vick are still tied at 22 total broken tackles, the most for quarterbacks.)
Broken tackles are a stat from game charting, not from the standard play-by-play. We define 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 defenders were able to wrap up and which ones got run over or faked out by a great lateral move.
We can also look at broken tackle rate. For each defender we compared broken tackles to the total of broken tackles and solo tackles. We decided not to include assists, because a missed assist is not usually something we would mark as a missed tackle opportunity -- after all, another defender is getting a successful tackle at the exact same time. However, we did remove special teams tackles so we were only looking at defensive plays.
Here are all the players that our game charters recorded with 10 or more broken tackles in 2011:
Player | Defense | Brk Tkl | Tackles | Rate | x | Player | Defense | Brk Tkl | Tackles | Rate |
Darian Stewart | STL | 19 | 65 | 22.6% | x | Michael Griffin | TEN | 11 | 64 | 14.7% |
Sean Jones | TB | 17 | 75 | 18.5% | x | Charles Godfrey | CAR | 11 | 68 | 13.9% |
Tanard Jackson | TB | 16 | 32 | 33.3% | x | Troy Polamalu | PIT | 11 | 69 | 13.8% |
Jabari Greer | NO | 14 | 69 | 16.9% | x | Navorro Bowman | SF | 11 | 114 | 8.8% |
Sean Weatherspoon | ATL | 13 | 92 | 12.4% | x | Brian Rolle | PHI | 10 | 44 | 18.5% |
Sherrod Martin | CAR | 12 | 55 | 17.9% | x | Nate Allen | PHI | 10 | 46 | 17.9% |
Eric Wright | DET | 12 | 72 | 14.3% | x | Ronde Barber | TB | 10 | 70 | 12.5% |
Quintin Mikell | STL | 12 | 77 | 13.5% | x | Kam Chancellor | SEA | 10 | 83 | 10.8% |
Jordan Babineaux | TEN | 12 | 81 | 12.9% | x | Antrel Rolle | NYG | 10 | 84 | 10.6% |
Quincy Black | TB | 11 | 53 | 17.2% | x | DeAndre Levy | DET | 10 | 89 | 10.1% |
Akeem Ayers | TEN | 11 | 54 | 16.9% | x | Daryl Washington | ARI | 10 | 99 | 9.2% |
Jamarca Sanford | MIN | 11 | 56 | 16.4% | x |
St. Louis safety Darian Stewart paces the league with 19 broken tackles by our count, but some sort of special prize has to go to Tanard Jackson, who we counted with 16 broken tackles in only 10 games. A lot of the same players repeated at the top of this list for 2009 and 2010, but there were only five players with more than 10 broken tackles in both 2010 and 2011: Barber, Griffin, Levy, Martin, and Mikell. Part of the reason why there are so few repeaters is that many of these players didn't see the field as much in 2010. Stewart was primarily a special teamer as a rookie, although he had three broken tackles with only 15 solo tackles on defense. Jackson only played two games in 2010 due to suspension and injury. Eric Wright and Justin Babineau weren't starters, one reason they had only three broken tackles apiece.
If very few players had lots of broken tackles in both 2010 and 2011, what happened to the players who led the league in broken tackles two years ago? Adrian Wilson's total of 16 broken tackles now looks like a real fluke between 2009's two and 2011's six. Tennessee linebacker Will Witherspoon dropped from 15 broken tackles to five, Arizona linebacker Paris Lenon dropped from 14 broken tackles to three, and Detroit linebacker Stephen Tulloch dropped from 13 broken tackles to three. Arizona safety Kerry Rhodes went from 11 broken tackles in a full season to zero in half a season.
Now let's look at the highest and lowest broken tackle rates. First, here are the best and worst rates for linebackers, with a minimum of 50 tackles:
Player | Defense | Brk Tkl | Tackles | Rate | x | Player | Defense | Brk Tkl | Tackles | Rate |
Quincy Black | TB | 11 | 53 | 17.2% | x | Michael Boley | NYG | 1 | 76 | 1.3% |
Akeem Ayers | TEN | 11 | 54 | 16.9% | x | Philip Wheeler | IND | 1 | 60 | 1.6% |
Rob Ninkovich | NE | 8 | 50 | 13.8% | x | James Laurinaitis | STL | 2 | 119 | 1.7% |
Jo-Lonn Dunbar | NO | 9 | 61 | 12.9% | x | Dan Connor | CAR | 1 | 58 | 1.7% |
Sean Weatherspoon | ATL | 13 | 92 | 12.4% | x | Jordan Senn | CAR | 1 | 53 | 1.9% |
Barrett Ruud | TEN | 7 | 50 | 12.3% | x | Von Miller | DEN | 1 | 52 | 1.9% |
Joe Mays | DEN | 9 | 66 | 12.0% | x | Patrick Willis | SF | 2 | 81 | 2.4% |
Chris Gocong | CLE | 8 | 59 | 11.9% | x | Wesley Woodyard | DEN | 2 | 69 | 2.8% |
Aaron Curry | SEA/OAK | 7 | 56 | 11.1% | x | Mathias Kiwanuka | NYG | 2 | 66 | 2.9% |
Mason Foster | TB | 7 | 62 | 10.1% | x | Brian Urlacher | CHI | 3 | 90 | 3.2% |
If you want to see evidence of the decline of the Tampa Bay defense, check out Quincy Black's broken tackle rate. In 2010, Black had only two broken tackles with 53 tackles, a 3.6 percent rate. Last year, Black had the worst broken tackle rate of any linebacker with at least 50 tackles.
Michael Boley's one broken tackle in 2011 matches his one broken tackle in 2010. Yet you never really hear Boley's name mentioned when analysts talk about the best tacklers in football. I'm surprised to see Philip Wheeler so high given the long track record of poor tackling by Colts defenders. (Wheeler signed in Oakland as a free agent this offseason.) I'm a lot less surprised to see Patrick Willis' name in the top ten. He's had only 11 broken tackles total in the three years we've been tracking the stat, despite making more plays than almost any defender in football.
Now, let's look at the highest and lowest broken tackle rates for defensive backs, with a minimum of 40 tackles:
Player | Defense | Brk Tkl | Tackles | Rate | x | Player | Defense | Brk Tkl | Tackles | Rate |
Darian Stewart | STL | 19 | 65 | 22.6% | x | Chris Harris | DEN | 1 | 60 | 1.6% |
Sean Jones | TB | 17 | 75 | 18.5% | x | Jacob Lacey | IND | 1 | 52 | 1.9% |
Chris Gamble | CAR | 9 | 41 | 18.0% | x | Brandon Browner | SEA | 1 | 51 | 1.9% |
Sherrod Martin | CAR | 12 | 55 | 17.9% | x | Aaron Ross | NYG | 1 | 51 | 1.9% |
Nate Allen | PHI | 10 | 46 | 17.9% | x | O.J. Atogwe | WAS | 1 | 44 | 2.2% |
Dunta Robinson | ATL | 9 | 43 | 17.3% | x | Carlos Rogers | SF | 1 | 42 | 2.3% |
Jabari Greer | NO | 14 | 69 | 16.9% | x | Patrick Chung | NE | 1 | 40 | 2.4% |
Jamarca Sanford | MIN | 11 | 56 | 16.4% | x | Tim Jennings | CHI | 2 | 74 | 2.6% |
Johnathan Joseph | HOU | 8 | 43 | 15.7% | x | Kyle Arrington | NE | 2 | 68 | 2.9% |
E.J. Biggers | TB | 9 | 51 | 15.0% | x | Richard Marshall | ARI | 2 | 65 | 3.0% |
Kendrick Lewis | KC | 9 | 51 | 15.0% | x |
Apparently, the Carolina defensive backs were as bad at tackling as the linebackers were good. Quality tackling in the secondary is a big reason why the mostly-terrible New England defense could often get away with a "bend but don't break" style. Players like Jabari Greer, Johnathan Joseph, and Aaron Ross are good examples of how coverage ability doesn't seem to have much correlation with tackling ability. Same goes for Asante Samuel (8 broken tackles, 31 tackles, 20.5 percent rate). Carlos Rogers, at least last year, was an exception, as was Darrelle Revis (2 broken tackles, 45 tackles, 4.3 percent rate).
And file under odd: Sabby Piscitelli, who led our broken tackle count in 2009, had only one broken tackle in 2010 and 2011 combined.
Defensive linemen don't make anywhere near as many plays as linebackers and defensive backs, so there aren't a lot of linemen with more than two or three broken tackles. Dometa Peko of Cincinnati and Jason Jones of Tennessee led our count with six broken tackles apiece, a little bit of a surprise since we counted zero broken tackles from each player in 2010. Jones is really the broken tackle king for linemen since Peko made twice as many tackles as Jones did. Cliff Avril had five broken tackles last year and leads all defensive linemen with 10 broken tackles over the two-year period of 2010-2011. Lots of linemen had zero recorded broken tackles, including Chris Canty, Andre Carter, Jason Babin, Geno Atkins, and Brandon Mebane (with 46 tackles, the most among players with no broken tackles in 2011).
Finally, here's the list of broken tackles by all 32 defenses. Two defenses were far, far ahead of the rest of the league when it came to broken tackles: Tampa Bay (9.0 percent of plays) and Philadelphia (8.1 percent of plays). No other team was above 6.5 percent. When you see such a big gap between these two teams and the rest of the league, it makes you wonder if we had an issue where the charters doing Tampa Bay and Philadelphia were too relaxed in their subjective determination of what counted as a broken tackle. But I don't think this was the case. If this was an issue with the charters, we would expect Tampa Bay to be high in both offensive and defensive broken tackles, but they were just average on offense. Philadelphia actually was very high on both sides of the ball, but that can't be an issue with a single charter because we have more game charters who are Eagles fans than any other team. That means that they rotated who got to chart the Eagles and who had to chart some other team, and the Eagles games were well spread-out among multiple charters. In addition, Tampa Bay and Philadelphia having a lot of broken tackles makes subjective sense. The Eagles were known for their bad tackling all year, and the Bucs were known for completely giving up on the season.
San Francisco and the New York Giants had the lowest rates of broken tackles on defense.
Broken Tackles by Defenses, 2011 | ||||
Offense | Plays | Plays w BT | Total BT | Pct Plays w BT |
TB | 981 | 88 | 106 | 9.0% |
PHI | 968 | 78 | 97 | 8.1% |
STL | 1008 | 66 | 75 | 6.5% |
CAR | 955 | 62 | 71 | 6.5% |
SD | 939 | 60 | 65 | 6.4% |
NO | 998 | 63 | 72 | 6.3% |
TEN | 1065 | 67 | 82 | 6.3% |
DET | 1044 | 65 | 74 | 6.2% |
ATL | 957 | 57 | 62 | 6.0% |
KC | 979 | 57 | 66 | 5.8% |
OAK | 1048 | 61 | 72 | 5.8% |
HOU | 946 | 54 | 58 | 5.7% |
NE | 1052 | 59 | 65 | 5.6% |
JAC | 958 | 53 | 59 | 5.5% |
WAS | 974 | 52 | 62 | 5.3% |
NYJ | 977 | 52 | 58 | 5.3% |
Offense | Plays | Plays w BT | Total BT | Pct Plays w BT |
MIN | 1010 | 53 | 64 | 5.2% |
CHI | 1038 | 54 | 60 | 5.2% |
IND | 1040 | 54 | 60 | 5.2% |
CIN | 993 | 51 | 61 | 5.1% |
DAL | 959 | 49 | 55 | 5.1% |
PIT | 956 | 48 | 59 | 5.0% |
DEN | 1043 | 52 | 60 | 5.0% |
SEA | 1031 | 51 | 56 | 4.9% |
GB | 1038 | 50 | 64 | 4.8% |
MIA | 1028 | 49 | 58 | 4.8% |
BUF | 986 | 44 | 50 | 4.5% |
ARI | 1077 | 46 | 54 | 4.3% |
BAL | 992 | 42 | 48 | 4.2% |
CLE | 1016 | 43 | 52 | 4.2% |
SF | 965 | 37 | 42 | 3.8% |
NYG | 1056 | 40 | 41 | 3.8% |
34 comments, Last at 28 Apr 2012, 6:57pm by LionInAZ
Comments
Re: Broken Tackles 2011 Part II
I thought this was going to be a list of Vikings DBs not named Antoine Winfield. Very surprised to see Minnesota right at the top of the bell curve. I guess missing a tackle and being out of position to allow easy catches are two separate things.
AZ Cardinals
Nice to see the Cards ranking so well. Of course, for the first half of the season the defenders were so badly missing assignments, they were never in position to make tackles.
Re: Broken Tackles 2011 Part II
Wonder if having all the NFCS D's in the top 9 means anything for the division in general, or if it's just that all of them are known for their offenses (at least this past year).
Re: Broken Tackles 2011 Part II
Michael Turner, Cam Newton, Lagarrett Blount, Jonathan Stewart, Pierre Thomas, Josh Freeman, Jaquizz Rogers, Drew Brees, and Matthew Stafford all appeared on last weeks top lists. Atlanta is second, while the rest are all above the average. I feel like there were several interdivision shootouts that contributed to the broken tackle numbers.
Re: Broken Tackles 2011 Part II
nitpick: Stafford would be the only one on the list involved in an interdivision shootout; the rest would be intradivision games. (I was going to add something about how he wouldn't have had that much of an impact anyway, aside from being a QB, but then Detroit played 4 games against the South, only two fewer than the South division teams themselves.)
Re: Broken Tackles 2011 Part II
Aaron Rodgers, Adrian Peterson (of course), Calvin Johnson, and Nate Burleson were all on those lists too.
Re: Broken Tackles 2011 Part II
Wow did not think the Giants would rate so well. Also very surprised that Deon Grant isn't up there. Love the guy and the work ethic and leadership he bring, but he was a huge liability on the field.
I mean his complete whiff on Fred Jackson and Drew Brees (you read that right) should count as two each.
Mildly surprised at Boley although I shouldn't be now that I think about it. Big part of the defense.
Re: Broken Tackles 2011 Part II
I also did not expect it, but on reflection, I cannot really think of too many blown tackles this year. Especially compared with recent years.
Re: Broken Tackles 2011 Part II
This can't be correct. GB in the top 10? GB has been a terrible tackling defense for a while now, and last season was the worst. Fully expected GB to be the worst tackling team in the league. Even McCarthy acknowledged that the tackling performance was unacceptable, and McCarthy (and Thompson) never acknowledges anything publicly, particularly if it's a bad trait.
Really surprised by the results.
Re: Broken Tackles 2011 Part II
Yeah, me too. Maybe the defenders were just so slow that there wasn't a tackle to break?
Re: Broken Tackles 2011 Part II
As an Eagles fan I'll happily trade our tackling for yours. Getting rid of Samuel will probably help, but guys like Nate Allen and Brian Rolle are only gonna get bigger roles this year. I notice Dan Connor had a great success rate last year, shame the Eagles missed out on him.
Re: Broken Tackles 2011 Part II
I found it odd also, as Pro Football Focus listed Woodson, Williams, and I think Jarrett Bush as having high numbers of missed tackles in 2011. This probably comes down to the question of how a broken tackle is defined and how it's evaluated by the charter.
Re: Broken Tackles 2011 Part II
"Players like Jabari Greer, Johnathan Joseph, and Aaron Ross are good examples of how coverage ability doesn't seem to have much correlation with tackling ability"
And Jacob Lacey, who can't cover, but tackles like a champ. Comparing him to Eric Wright perhaps explains why Detroit signed him this off-season.
Re: Broken Tackles 2011 Part II
The Texans have one of each starting at corner. Joseph can cover but can't tackle. Jackson can tackle but can't cover. I know which one I'm happier about having on the team . . .
Re: Broken Tackles 2011 Part II
I find it interesting that Green Bay has a 14 tackle gap between the total broken tackles and the number of plays with broken tackles. If I read this correctly that would indicate that on several plays more than one defender missed their tackle.
Tennesse has a gap of 15
Phillie has a gap of 19
Tampa has a gap of 18
All the other teams are between 10 and 1.
Green Bay's BT rate is #8 while the other three our in the bottom 8 of the BT rate.
It would seem that GB is above average at tackles but when they blow it, everyone makes sure they get in the highlight reels too.
Re: Broken Tackles 2011 Part II
Correction. Pit, Oak and Min all have a gap of 11.
Re: Broken Tackles 2011 Part II
I seem to remember that all of Green Bays 'gap' can be explained by 1 or 2 plays. :-)
Re: Broken Tackles 2011 Part II
I can say Blount's(TB) run of 50 some yards had at least 9 BTs in it.
Re: Broken Tackles 2011 Part II
Is anyone else shocked to see Indy in the bottom half of the list? They've had no one in the back seven who could tackle except Bethea for years. Is this personnel changes, or an improvement in the linebackers? I admit not watching much Indianapolis football this past year, it was just too painful.
Re: Broken Tackles 2011 Part II
I'd wager that teams were so confident that they would be able to walk all over Indy that they didn't bother trying to break tackles.
Re: Broken Tackles 2011 Part II
Between Wheeler and Lacey that's 112 tackles with just 2 broken. It's not the tackling, it's getting to the ball before the carrier or receiver is 8-10 yards down the field that is the problem.
Re: Broken Tackles 2011 Part II
Ladies and gentlemen, your 2011 Tampa Bay Bucks!
Re: Broken Tackles 2011 Part II
Look on the bright side: Eric Wright looks like a perfect fit for what we do on defense.
Re: Broken Tackles 2011 Part II
I'm a Cowboys fan and really liked T Newman for a lot of years. But I could swear I saw more broken tackles from him this last season than some of the leaders on the boards above. Did they not count hurdles?
Re: Broken Tackles 2011 Part II
Is there a site that has broken tackles by all NFL players? I'd like to see how many Chris Crocker and Rey Maualuga had.
NFC South
Interesting the all 4 NFC South teams were in the top 10 (or bottom 10 depending on perspective) in defensive broken tackles.
Does this have more to do with poor defensive play or an abundance of great offensive players in the division?
Re: Broken Tackles 2011 Part II
Can somebody on FO do a year-to-year correlation study to see if sure-tackledness is a consistent skill?
Re: Broken Tackles 2011 Part II
This, please. If only to let us poor Eagles fans relax a bit hoping our tackling might regress on its own next year!
Re: Broken Tackles 2011 Part II
Anecdotally, I wouldn't count on it. The Texans' tackling was persistently awful for years.
Re: Broken Tackles 2011 Part II
Also, have you seen Nate Allen tackle? He's just not any good at it, mainly because he takes the weirdest angles. I wouldn't hope he suddenly learns how to do something that just doesn't come even slightly naturally to him.
Disappointed to see Brian Rolle on there, though - I thought he had a really promising season, but if the WILL tackles as well as Nate Allen... blecch. These numbers and all the Asante Samuel trade talk suddenly have me really down on the defense...
Re: Broken Tackles 2011 Part II
It's awfully hard to do a year-to-year correlation study on a metric we've only tracked for three seasons. Give it some time.
Re: Broken Tackles 2011 Part II
actually, if you were to buy into practices of finance being applied to football- a longer time horizon might actually make the model worse. The alternative is to ramp up the frequency, which would mean using weekly data and in that case, 3 yrs might provide enough evidence to make at least some kind of qualitative statement. But then again, finding the right time horizon is itself a difficult thing.
Re: Broken Tackles 2011 Part II
One of Patrick Willis' broken tackles came on the play where he hurt his ankle, or the play right after.
Re: Broken Tackles 2011 Part II
I think you mean the play where he pulled his hamstring right at the point where he had the Rams' fullback bang to rights and then crumpled (I think fullback, I could be wrong). I had the same thought, it seems harsh to criticize if that's the miss but then health is a skill.