A couple of surprises, and the positions on D that i believe need to be upgraded and ways to fix them (1 Viewer)

[TribuneUK]

Oh, great, another thread which states that because a player does not wear a cape and leap tall buildings in a single bound, he must therefore be replaced. Ridiculously high fan expectation much?

And the team should look to upgrade it's current roster in the draft? Wow! There's a stunning revelation!

 

[mikaloyd]

didnt the cardinals have like the 31st pass defense in the NFL last year and the steelers #1?

weren't the falcons ranked number 24?

The theory I was testing was

" Originally Posted by bobad
Go to the NFL stats and find a few sack leading DE's or OLB's, and you will usually find winning teams."





Do players who lead in sacks make their teams winners.

What I found when I checked was that there is no correlation between successful teams and having guys who make more than their fair share of sacks. The Ravens were arguably the best defensive team in the NFL last year. Nobody on the Ravens had 5 sacks. The Steelers were another good defensive team. Their defensive line did not suck. No Steelers lineman was in the top thirty.

People will believe whatever they want, and this is doubly true if believing is easier than searching out facts but there are some GREAT defensive players and teams in the NFL who dont have individuals with many sacks.

Sacks are good and a sack helps out a team on the play the sack happens, but a sack indicates a single good play, nothing more. An excellent sack artist will get 16 a season. 16 sacks by a guy means that he averaged at least one good play a game. That is all. Nothing more. It doesnt mean his team is great at pressuring QBs or that the defense he plays with is any good. It certainly doesnt stand alone to mean his team will win or lose more than their fair share of games. It means he slipped by an offensive line and got to a QB 16 times in a year. Some guys who do that are great players. Some who dont do that are great players. some great players play on great teams. Some great players play on lousy teams.

A parallel argument would be saying that the way to judge a great secondary is by the number of interceptions they have. This year we have Jabari Greer not making any interceptions. Last year we had Jason David making lots of INTs. Does anybody think David gives us a better chance of winning or is a better defender than Greer because of a greater number of interceptions? Nope. No rational Saints fan does And interceptions make a far bigger difference than sacks do. INTs are turnovers. Defense still has to stop the offense after a lil ol sack.

Sacks are just tackles for a loss and after a good QB is sacked he will completely ignore all the arguments in the world about how big a deal sacks are and how a sack makes the sacking team a winner and he jump right up and make the sack meaningless the very next play unless the whole defense stops him. A sack is a good play. But it aint all that.

 

[oldschool]

What I found when I checked was that there is no correlation between successful teams and having guys who make more than their fair share of sacks. The Ravens were arguably the best defensive team in the NFL last year. Nobody on the Ravens had 5 sacks. The Steelers were another good defensive team. Their defensive line did not suck. No Steelers lineman was in the top thirty.

Is it true the Ravens and Steelers don't produce many sacks as a team? I wouldn't expect either DL to have big sack numbers though. 3-4 Defense.

Saints play the 4-3. Grant and Smith combines for 6 tackles, I believe. Decent numbers for 3-4 DE, not 4-3.

 

[AL_Bundy]

I'm sure someone somewhere in the city of Oakland is attempting to make the argument that completion percentage is not a good measure of a QB either.

Didn't Atlanta do this for years with Vick?

 

[NOFALCONS10]

The theory I was testing was

" Originally Posted by bobad
Go to the NFL stats and find a few sack leading DE's or OLB's, and you will usually find winning teams."





Do players who lead in sacks make their teams winners.

What I found when I checked was that there is no correlation between successful teams and having guys who make more than their fair share of sacks. The Ravens were arguably the best defensive team in the NFL last year. Nobody on the Ravens had 5 sacks. The Steelers were another good defensive team. Their defensive line did not suck. No Steelers lineman was in the top thirty.

People will believe whatever they want, and this is doubly true if believing is easier than searching out facts but there are some GREAT defensive players and teams in the NFL who dont have individuals with many sacks.

Sacks are good and a sack helps out a team on the play the sack happens, but a sack indicates a single good play, nothing more. An excellent sack artist will get 16 a season. 16 sacks by a guy means that he averaged at least one good play a game. That is all. Nothing more. It doesnt mean his team is great at pressuring QBs or that the defense he plays with is any good. It certainly doesnt stand alone to mean his team will win or lose more than their fair share of games. It means he slipped by an offensive line and got to a QB 16 times in a year. Some guys who do that are great players. Some who dont do that are great players. some great players play on great teams. Some great players play on lousy teams.

A parallel argument would be saying that the way to judge a great secondary is by the number of interceptions they have. This year we have Jabari Greer not making any interceptions. Last year we had Jason David making lots of INTs. Does anybody think David gives us a better chance of winning or is a better defender than Greer because of a greater number of interceptions? Nope. No rational Saints fan does And interceptions make a far bigger difference than sacks do. INTs are turnovers. Defense still has to stop the offense after a lil ol sack.

Sacks are just tackles for a loss and after a good QB is sacked he will completely ignore all the arguments in the world about how big a deal sacks are and how a sack makes the sacking team a winner and he jump right up and make the sack meaningless the very next play unless the whole defense stops him. A sack is a good play. But it aint all that.

i agree for the most part except for what you said here. many sacks result in forced fumbles which are turnovers and many others result in the offense being backed up 5-10yards that put them in extremely difficult situations which are almost as good as a turnover. they are not all meaningless.

 

[sainthood]

I can see us getting rid of Grant because of salary reasons when we try to resign Brees and Evans. Evans is going to get a big deal. Brees and Evans both might get all time top contracts for a quarterback and guard respectively. If we draft a DE to rotate in with McCray and Smith I think that is a reasonable course of action. It all comes down to dollars per pressure and sack when you look at defensive ends and its hard to look at Grant with the same value particularly if you know he is only going to be able to play three quarters of a season next year.