Run Stop Rates 2013

by Aaron Schatz

It's time to start the usual offseason series presenting various 2013 stats from the multitude of Football Outsiders spreadsheets. Today, let's look at Stop Rate for running plays.

Stop Rate is defined as the percentage of a players Plays that were Stops. Plays are any time a player shows up in the play-by-play on defense: tackles, assists, forced fumbles, etc. Stops are plays that stop the offense short of what FO considers a successful play: 45 percent of yards on first down, 60 percent on second down, and 100 percent on third or fourth down.

Obviously, Stop Rate isn't a perfect stat. It measures the plays that a player makes, not the plays he misses or the plays he doesn't even get a chance to miss because he is being properly blocked away from the ballcarrier. Still, it gives you a good idea of where players were making their plays and thus why certain defenses were good or bad at certain parts of the game in 2013.

The tables below are limited solely to running plays, including scrambles. We give Run Stop Rate as well as number of Plays and number of Defeat -- a combination of tackles for loss, forced fumbles, and tackles to prevent a third- or fourth-down conversion -- plus yards per play, which is the average length of a run past the line of scrimmage when this player had a tackle or assist.

This year, our tables are split into four positions rather than three. Outside linebackers in 3-4 defensive schemes are now grouped with defensive ends from 4-3 schemes as "Edge Rushers." This is also how we will be doing tables and stat rankings in Football Outsiders Almanac 2014.

Madden 25 fans, stick with us until the end, as these stats also give us this week's five Football Outsiders elite stars who will be available in packs on Friday, March 7.

In case you haven't heard, Lavonte David had a really good season. Not only did he have an 80 percent Stop Rate, but he also finished tied for ninth in the NFL with 82 run tackles. Cushing's fine numbers were accumulated in just half a season and may have a small sample size effect, as he had never put up a Run Stop Rate above 70 percent before. Briggs had Run Stop Rate over 70 percent every year of his career from 2005 through 2011 before dipping to 67 percent last year, so 2012 represented a fine rebound. Kevin Burnett had never made his run tackles particularly close to the line of scrimmage before last year, but really had a surprisingly strong year for the Raiders and was always in on a lot of plays. Brandon Spikes may have no clue what he is doing in coverage and angered Bill Belichick by showing up late to practice one too many times, but nobody ever said the dude couldn't play the run.

Some of these numbers are based on how defensive schemes work, of course. The Patriots generally have Spikes attack on running plays while Jerod Mayo and Donta Hightower read and react, which is why they rank among the worst Run Stop Rates for 2013. Ellerbe made only one tackle for a loss on a running play all season, although at least it was a pretty sweet one, taking Brian Leonard down at the Tampa Bay 1 on second-and-8 with the Bucs backed up against their own goal line in Week 10. Ernie Sims didn't make a single solo tackle for a gain of less than two yards on a run last year, although he did have a couple of assists on runners stopped at the line of scrimmage.

A lot of edge rushers will have nice high Run Stop Rates with a low number of actual run tackles because they're always flying into the backfield (and sometimes right past the running back). That's clearly not the case with Terrell Suggs, who was involved in a ton of running plays last season. It's also not the case with Osi Umenyiora. It's pretty hard for a defensive end to make his average run tackle at a distance over five yards. This is actually a weird mix of fluke and not fluke. Umenyiora's average yards per play is completely inflated by one hustle tackle where he took down Lamar Miller after a 49-yard gain. However, the rest of the time he was constantly getting pushed three or four yards back from the line of scrimmage, which is why his Stop Rate is also poor.

Lamar Miller was actually king of the fluky hustle tackle this year. He's also responsible for Carlos Dunlap's average yards per tackle being 3.1 despite his excellent Stop Rate, because Dunlap tracked Miller down after a 41-yard gain. Oh, and stripped the ball. That's why we measure both yards per tackle and Stop Rate. Sometimes the mean is not the best indicator of quality.

Hey, look, J.J. Watt is very good. Not a shock! It's also not a shock to see that Star Lotulelei, Brandon Mebane, and Calais Campbell play the run well. But it's a little surprising just how many run tackles Damon "Big Snacks" Harrison made at the nose tackle position in the Jets' 3-4. I'm guessing that when you have Sheldon Richardson on one side and Muhammad Wilkerson on the other, you get to see a lot of single-teams instead of the double-teams that usually take on a nose tackle.

Chris Jones and Joe Vellano show that you really don't want to depend on an undrafted rookie and a sixth-round pick cut by another team before the season, but that's what happens when your two veteran tackles go down before midseason. That's a big reason the Patriots were 30th in Adjusted Line Yards. (Actually, Tommy Kelly wasn't much stronger against the run, with a 58 percent Run Stop Rate on 19 tackles. Vince Wilfork is the guy they missed.) We've written numerous times about how Ahtyba Rubin comes out near the bottom of this list year after year after year. Seeing guys like Cameron Jordan and Ray McDonald here is a bit more surprising.

Wait a minute, D.J. Swearinger??? Rivers McCown just rolled over in his grave, or would if he were dead. Hey, we're not measuring penalties per play here, we're measuring run tackles, and Swearinger was parked close to the line and did a pretty good job against the run. (I'm guessing he ended up taking down a few guys who had been slowed down by that Watt fellow in front of him.)

The real impressive player here is Browns strong safety T.J. Ward. The Browns had plenty of problems this year but Ward was not one of them, especially when it came to playing the run. Ward's total of 66 run tackles was tied for the league lead among defensive backs with Ryan Clark of Pittsburgh and Barry Church of Dallas. However, Clark had a 45 percent Run Stop Rate while Church was at 24 percent. Ward was all the way up near the top of the league with a bunch of defensive backs who were nowhere near as active against the run as he was. Ward also led all defensive backs with 12 run defeats; Troy Polamalu (10) was the only other defensive back above eight. Ward hits the open market next week. Any team out there need a strong safety?

Of some interest to Ravens fans are the players who just missed this list. Ladarius Webb and James Ihedigbo were both at 54 percent Run Stop Rate, and those two players along with Graham demonstrate that the Ravens' secondary was pretty good in run defense.

For this week's elite Football Outsiders stars in Madden 25 Ultimate Team, we decided to choose players based on the best average yards per run tackle stats rather than Run Stop Rate. With that in mind, here are this week's players:

• LOLB Lance Briggs, CHI (97 OVR) - led 4-3 linebackers with an average run tackle of 1.9 yards
• LE Cory Redding, IND (95 OVR) - led 3-4 linemen with an average run tackle of 0.9 yards
• SS T.J. Ward, CLE (94 OVR) - tied for lead among defensive backs with an average run tackle of 3.8 yards and a total of 66 run tackles
• DT Star Lotulelei, CAR (90 OVR) - tied for lead among 4-3 defensive tackles with an average run tackle of 1.0 yards
• DT Brandon Mebane, SEA (90 OVR) - tied for lead among 4-3 defensive tackles with an average run tackle of 1.0 yards

Cory Redding is not listed in the tables above because he had only 28 run tackles, but if we drop the minimum to be ranked to 25 plays, Redding's average run tackle distance of 0.9 yards was the best among 3-4 linemen but half a yard.