Yakuza Rich: Wade's One of the Best in the Sacks Game

[NextGenBoys]

The last 12 super bowl winners have had an average of 42.8 sacks in the regular season.

3 of the 12 super bowl winners finished with less than 40 sacks in the regular season.

1 of the last 12 super bowl winners finished with less than 35 sacks in the regular season.

The last 12 Super Bowl losers finished with an average 43.8 sacks in the regular season.

Only 2 of the last 12 Super Bowl losers finished with less than 40 sacks in the regular season.

Only 1 of the last 12 Super Bowl losers finished with less than 35 sacks in the regular season.

On average, the last 24 teams that went to the Super Bowl finished with 42.9 sacks in the regular season.


So yeah, sacks are important. Not only do the correlate to regular season wins, but playoffs as well. My guess is that when you get in the postseason it becomes a game of turnovers. So you're likely to see at least one team in a game that is good at forcing turnovers. And if you cannot sack the QB, you're at a disadvantage.




YAKUZA

I'm not saying you are doing this, so dont take it that way, but stats can be manipulated in many different ways to get your point across.

Sacks are important no doubt, but the only stat that matters is the score.

 

[gollum]

I'm not saying you are doing this, so dont take it that way, but stats can be manipulated in many different ways to get your point across.

Sacks are important no doubt, but the only stat that matters is the score.

I don't think he's doing it at all...his/the stats are what they are. He's just pointing out, with stats as supporting documentation, that it is a common characteristic that normally, the more successful teams get to the QB.

 

[Yakuza Rich]

Great example of how effect bypasses cause near the top of that list (see rush yards per attempt ranking vs. number of rushes per game). Generally speaking, teams get more sacks when they're winning big and the opponent is forced to pass.

Not exactly true. That correlation isn't all that big of a margin.

And if I run a correlation (based on 2007 numbers) between sacks and sacks per pass attempt, it comes out to 0.90. Which means that the difference in sacks and sacks per pass attempt really isn't all that big. Generally, where a team ranks in sacks they will rank in the same region in sacks per pass attempt. For instance, Dallas ranked 3rd in total sacks, and 5th in sacks per pass attempt. Dallas had a high powered offense which forced opponents to throw the ball, but they were legtimately good at getting to the QB.

The Colts on the other hand finished 3rd in points scored, only allowed 3.8 yards per carry and finished 27th in sacks and 26th in sacks per pass attempt.






YAKUZA

 

[Yakuza Rich]

Are there any stats that show sacks per pass attemps average? For example team A passed the ball 45 times last game and Team B had 4 sacks. Then the next game Team C passed the ball only 32 times and team B had another 4 sacks. Better average per pass attemps.
Or am i looking at that somewhere here on this chart and i'm just not smart enough to see it.
Thanks!

theogt is giving a correlation coefficient number. These numbers have a range of -1 to +1. The closer to +1, the stronger a direct correlation there is.

So let's say we are trying to find the correlation coefficient of temperature and number of drinks sold and the correlation coefficient comes to 0.9. That means that it's very likely that the higher the temperature, the more drinks will be sold.

The closer to -1 means the stronger the negative correlation is. So if we find the correlation of temperature to soup sold to be -0.8, that means it's very likely that the higher the temperature, lesser soup will be sold.

And the closer to 0 means there is no correlation. So if we get a correlation of temperature to sales to be .009, that means there is no real cause and effect here. Temperature has no impact on sales.

Last year the NFL team average of pass attempts per sack was one sack per 15.5 pass attempts.

Dallas did finish 5th pass attempts by the opposing team. But the Commanders finished 4th (and had 33 sacks), the Browns finished 6th (and had 28 sacks) and the Giants finished all the way down at 23rd and led the league in sacks.

It's absolutely true that there is a difference between sacks and pass attempts per sack. But the difference is usually overstated and generally teams that have a good number of total sacks are just good at sacking the QB at a high rate as well.

So for the sake of simplification, I believe it's best to focus on total sacks.




YAKUZA

 

[theebs]

just realized I got the cowboys season preview magazine in the mail today. Norm hitzges has a column on the cowboys trend of fading and on wade phillips trend of fading.

Pretty startling how poor wade phillips teams have been at the end of the year. Something is off. Lot of factors go into it but it if it happens this many times something is off.

God I hope this ends this year. The heartbreak of another fade would be pretty tough to take this year.

wade phillips career.

year ----Team-------start----------finish

1993 Denver 7-4 2-4
1994 Denver 7-6 0-3
1998 Buffalo 7-4 3-3
1999 Buffalo 7-3 4-3
2000 Buffalo 7-4 1-4
2007 Dallas 12-1 1-3


ouch. I hope this all comes to an end this winter.

 

[Chocolate Lab]

just realized I got the cowboys season preview magazine in the mail today. Norm hitzges has a column on the cowboys trend of fading and on wade phillips trend of fading.

Pretty startling how poor wade phillips teams have been at the end of the year. Something is off. Lot of factors go into it but it if it happens this many times something is off.

God I hope this ends this year. The heartbreak of another fade would be pretty tough to take this year.

wade phillips career.

year ----Team-------start----------finish

1993 Denver 7-4 2-4
1994 Denver 7-6 0-3
1998 Buffalo 7-4 3-3
1999 Buffalo 7-3 4-3
2000 Buffalo 7-4 1-4
2007 Dallas 12-1 1-3


ouch. I hope this all comes to an end this winter.

Funny how some of those "finishes" are six games, some three games, some four games, etc.

Norm wouldn't possibly have come up with a conclusion in advance and then dug for facts to support them, would he?

 

[theebs]

Funny how some of those "finishes" are six games, some three games, some four games, etc.

Norm wouldn't possibly have come up with a conclusion in advance and then dug for facts to support them, would he?

yeah I am sure he did. I think he was just pointing out the obvious though, for some reason his teams fade, and a couple of those teams faded late and then lost in the first game they played in during the playoffs.

none of it will matter hopefully this year. I almost hope we play on wild card weekend at home so this team can win and get that out of the way!!

little early to be talking playoffs though.

 

[jobberone]

that is pretty impressive, however, it leads me to believe that sacks are NOT the important entity in winning playoffs games.

Sacks are good. So are avg points per game given up. So is rushing yd. So is yd/pass att. I'm sure there are others.

Pressure is necessary. Sacks are helpful. Stout run is necessary. Keeping down yac and yds per catch.

I don't remember a Dallas team that did great things that wasn't stout up front, got after the QB and created TOs.

 

[jobberone]

How well you run is more important than how often your coach calls run plays.

Running often has a much higher correlation with winning than running well.

Semantics aside, they're both true, and (as you probably know) they're not contradictory.

If you're not running well then most of the time you're not running that often. Obviously you can get 2-5 yds on first and second and pass for a first down all the way down the field. But in general if you run a lot you're doing it because its working for you.

I think turnovers correlate to playoff wins better than any other stat but I'm talking off the top of my head and I'm not certain its true.

 

[percyhoward]

Not exactly true. That correlation isn't all that big of a margin.

Teams get more sacks when the opponent is forced to pass more. All you have to do is look at QB game logs and compare times sacked in 35+ attempt games to <35 attempt games.

It's absolutely true that there is a difference between sacks and pass attempts per sack. But the difference is usually overstated and generally teams that have a good number of total sacks are just good at sacking the QB at a high rate as well.

So for the sake of simplification, I believe it's best to focus on total sacks.

The Vikings got 38 sacks to the Broncos 33, but fearing Minny's run D, teams passed the ball against the Vikings almost 200 more times than they did against the Broncos. That's more than five whole games worth of pass attempts that the Vikings faced that Denver didn't, and all they got out of it was 5 more sacks!

So while it may be simpler to say the Vikings were 8th, and the Broncos were 16th in total sacks, it's a lousy measurement of how good each team was at sacking the QB on a given pass play. It's actually little more than an indicator of the strength of the Vikes' run D.

 

[percyhoward]

In general if you run a lot you're doing it because its working for you.

Number of rushing attempts has a higher correlation to winning than yards per attempt does.

The Cowboys winning last year had more to do with Barber's yards per attempt than it did with Jones' number of rushing attempts.