|
|
Quote: |
Last offseason, we made a pretty significant claim that pass-rush was not as important as previously thought and that coverage was more important than we’ve been led to believe. PFF coverage grades correlated with winning in sample more than pass-rush did from 2006-2018, and it was more predictive of defensive success year-on-year, as well. This upset some people, but it has gotten an increasing amount of support within both traditional football circles and the analytics community. In 2019, we found what we’ve observed that each time we have studied how different PFF grade facets affect defensive efficiency, coverage correlates more highly to things like EPA allowed than pass-rush does. Some of the premier defenses in the NFL — the Patriots, Ravens and Bills, for example —are explicitly favoring coverage in their personnel preferences, while the San Francisco 49ers, Los Angeles Rams, Pittsburgh Steelers and Green Bay Packers have all made an effort to improve in the secondary through the draft, free agency and trades, and they have reaped the benefits as a result. |
BB a little ahead of the curve as usual with his bend but don't break soft cover 2 that Gibbs whined about.
It is nice to see the argument quantified.
It may also provide some cover for DG not procuring nor drafting any meaningful pass rushers this offseason
Are they including collective effect of the quarterback taking many hits over the course of the game?
Are they including collective effect of the quarterback taking many hits over the course of the game?
Hits and pressures supposedly go into their grades, so simple answer is yes. But going down the rabbit hole on how much their grades mean is a riddle without an answer bc nobody knows how their grades are constructed.
IMO the more telling stat than their grades is seeing that Belichek dedicates 1/4 of his cap to paying DB's. I believe the top 5 cap hit secondaries last year were the Pats, Titans, Baltimore, Bears, and Miami (though all their guys were on IR) - so there's certainly some general logic that the teams that invest in their secondaries are seeing results.
But their ratings are so woefully poor that you can't draw any conclusions from them. They have been particularly bad in evaluating line play on both sides, so I don't know how much validity can be placed on a faulty premise. Their grades of the DB's are questionable too because if a DB isn't involved in a play, they often assign a "0" grade because they can't figure out what the player's assignment was supposed to be. Meanwhile, for the DL, they often give a negative grade if the player didn't get push or wasn't involved in pursuit of the play - even if that wasn't what the player was supposed to be doing.