Greene versus Haley for HOF

[bachslunch]

Greene over Haley because of the longer career and likely more quality seasons. Both have reasonable HoF arguments, and am fine with either getting in.

[JohnTurney]

Greene over Haley because of the longer career and likely more quality seasons. Both have reasonable HoF arguments, and am fine with either getting in.

I think both get it, but the order is the question. . . I am hearing they cancel each other out. Team Haley votes just for him and team Greene votes just for him. It's like the WR logjam but on smaller scale with only two of them. Next pass rusher comes up in two years, Jason Taylor.

[Reaser]

I've heard that argument . .. (cut for forum space)

I doubt you were comparing sacks to HR's but just in case, obviously sacks don't produce points and have little correlation to winning, which of course HR's put runs on the board. I've been making this argument since High School - best friend was DE who would get infuriated when I would say sacks are an overrated stat. Which may not be correct, overvalued might be the better word?

Let's use J.J. Watt, who we know is a great player who - unlike many who get sacks - isn't solely defined as a player by his # of sacks. Well he had 20.5 this season and played 1050 snaps, so the sack stat accounts for less than 2% of the snaps he played. Similar to any defensive player who has decent sack numbers, 2%, what about the other 98%?! That's part of my issue with sacks. If someone gets over 10 it's a good year, but he could have done nothing on 900 plus other plays and all because of "sacks" he would be considered good. Doesn't add up.

Next is the actual value. Since 2000 we've had three championship defenses that are considered by most to be among the greatest ever - if not the greatest single season defense(s) ever. 2000 Ravens, 2002 Bucs, 2013 Seahawks. NONE finished in the top 5 in sacks. The Seahawks were only 3.5 over league average, and arguably the best defense of that group - the 2000 Ravens - finished in the bottom half of the league in sacks.

Plus if getting sacks was so important then not giving up sacks would be equally important. Wilson was sacked 44 times last season, won Super Bowl. Look how many times the Steelers got sacked in 2008, Champions.

Sacks correlation to winning - the point of the sport - is not high, in my honest opinion. There's so much more important; points for, points against, turnovers, third downs, red zone, field position, defensive passer rating, etc ... If I was a defensive coach - and some may find this a backwards way of looking at it - I'd actually hope more for hits and hurries on the QB, than sacks. Give me hits/hurries and I'll take the resulting forced ints, rather than a couple relatively meaningless first or second down sacks that - especially in this era - the yardage is easily made up for on 2nd and/or 3rd down.

Regardless, I like looking at stats and I like looking up sacks like anyone else, but I've always found it to be such a small amount of the total game (Watt example) and not overly important to winning (coaches i played for seemingly agreed), plus it bothers me - of course - with All-Pro selections and selecting someone who gets some sacks at the expense of a much better football player who does a whole lot more than tackle the QB at or behind the LOS on a miniscule percentage of snaps.

All that's in general. For Greene, I didn't find him to be particular good against the run, or is pass coverage for that matter. Though I respect others opinions so if others think he was "good enough" in that area, then great. I just don't like an entire resume or HOF case to be solely based on what I consider not all that meaningful of a statistic.

[Gary Najman]

I think they would pick Haley first based in his Super Bowl rings, but I believe Greene was the better player. I would not be bothered if any one of them makes it, however, both deserve it.

[JohnTurney]

I've heard that argument . .. (cut for forum space)

Let's use J.J. Watt, who we know is a great player who - unlike many who get sacks - isn't solely defined as a player by his # of sacks. Well he had 20.5 this season and played 1050 snaps, so the sack stat accounts for less than 2% of the snaps he played. Similar to any defensive player who has decent sack numbers, 2%, what about the other 98%?! That's part of my issue with sacks. If someone gets over 10 it's a good year, but he could have done nothing on 900 plus other plays and all because of "sacks" he would be considered good. Doesn't add up.

Iv'e found it's more of a step function than linear. To be able to get 2% sacks is something few players can do, and like the princess who has to kiss a lot of frogs to get a prince, so are sacks. You can get close, get close, then bang a sack takes a team out of scoring position or moves them back. Or you draw a holding call that gets the offense behind on down and distance. It also can electrify a crowd. But it is my view from being an observer of a game that no one is going to be great on 2% of their plays and little on the other 98%. To get to that 2% you have to be pretty great on most of the others. You can't just be a dog and get 2% sacks. That is also the HR comparison, you get up there take you hacks, but if you hit 30-40 homers, you are also doing a good job on the 120 times you strike out because it's part of the process . . . sacks are the culmination of a process that takes some luck, but some great skill and not everyone can do it. Some guys with great strength and speed just cannot do it, but others with heart and technique and a knack for pass rushing can get it done.

And maybe there have been someone who gets 10 sacks and considered good (by who I don't know) but I've not seen that. You have to do something on every play to even have a chance at 10 sacks because it's hard to do. And if someone is a dog, then they never play 900 plays, they play maybe 40% of the tie as a designated guy. But that's just my take.

[Reaser]

That is also the HR comparison, you get up there take you hacks, but if you hit 30-40 homers, you are also doing a good job on the 120 times you strike out because it's part of the process . . .

Okay, I get the HR comparison now. Swing for the fences = hit HR's x amount of times / Rush the passer = sack x amount of times. Opportunities. Makes sense though a hard comparison for me since HR's put runs on the scoreboard and sacks definitely don't. Plus of course would have to go further into how many of the snaps was the player rushing the passer, success rate, and so on.

To bring the numbers down (for example), if a player is on the field for 100 plays and gets 2 sacks, those that place an emphasis on sacks would have that player playing at an All-Pro (even HOF) level. To me, there's 98 other plays that I'm interested in. Maybe the player hit the QB a bunch of times, maybe he was great at setting the edge, maybe he chased down a RB from behind, maybe he got blocked on the majority of those other 98 plays and had little to no impact on the game(s)? 2 plays out of 98 is far too few - for me - to say and/or confirm someone is a great player - especially as there's more to football than getting sacks and there's a lot more stats that have more importance in the sport of football. None of that is even getting into one dimensional players (though you previously hinted at that so will leave that be.)

If someone wanted to use a stat to show pass rush ability I'd rather see hits, hurries and sacks combined, or something along those lines. Relatively speaking, putting pressure on the QB is important, but the sack as a standalone statistic really isn't.

Just because they're the two most recent games, looking at both conference championship games, both winners had less sacks than their opponents, yet they won.

Maybe just how I view it though, like most things it's probably part of ones experiences. I played for some pretty good coaches and not once was it said "the key to this game is getting more sacks than the opponent" or on our ridiculously long "goal boards" that had: win, win 1st qtr, win 2nd qtr (etc), win turnover battle, win on 3rd down, etc ... definitely was not a goal for our defense to get x amount of sacks or a team goal to get more sacks than the opponent or any of that, because sacks have significantly less meaning in real football than people want to make it out to be (e.g. determining a players greatness essentially by using one statistic, a stat that has little to do with winning football games.)

So from the coaches I've played for (at much lower levels, obviously) to NFL coaches pointing out that "sacks are overrated", I usually agree with DC's and position coaches who say something along the lines of "QB pressures, disruptions, hurries, hitting the QB is more important than sacks." Though others obviously put a premium on sacks, coaches and fans alike, so to each is their own.

[JohnTurney]

If someone wanted to use a stat to show pass rush ability I'd rather see hits, hurries and sacks combined, or something along those lines. Relatively speaking, putting pressure on the QB is important, but the sack as a standalone statistic really isn't..

I get that . . .but Nick may or may not confirm, but in watching and also studying team stats, which are not official, I find a high correlation between sacks and hits and hurries. Not in all cases, so it's not 100% corollary, but I'd bet 70-90% that the guys who leads his team in sacks will also have the most hits and hurries in the same way the guy with the most home runs, in most cases will have the most flyouts on the warning track.

[Reaser]

I find a high correlation between sacks and hits and hurries. Not in all cases, so it's not 100% corollary, but I'd bet 70-90% that the guys who leads his team in sacks will also have the most hits and hurries

Applying common sense (on my end) that makes sense. I don't want to harp on it - though it's an interesting discussion - but even with a high correlation it shows that sack isn't the important pass rush stat, which means that it shouldn't be the primary stat used for pass rushers, and even worse, shouldn't be the ONLY stat used. Then you expand it to note that there's more to playing DE/OLB than rushing the passer (obviously) and it goes back to using one stat (sack) to define a players career or credentials or HOF resume, and that doesn't make sense, to me. In the end it's not even the best - or at a minimum, most important - stat for pass rushing, and overall on it's own it's not a meaningful stat in terms of what's important in football and more so what's important in winning football.

[Reaser]

Nick may or may not confirm

Speaking of Nick, I liked the "Defeat Factor" article he had in one of the recent "Coffin Corner" issues. Combining sacks and stuffs for an overall defensive stat. I wonder how and where Greene and Haley rank in that?

As we know, I'm not a huge stats guy (well I like stats but I don't place much importance on them), but if there's going to be a stat or stats, I like where that's headed, accounting for both pass rush and run defense (and in a way, pass defense for the 'pass stuffs') ... Of course I'd like to substitute some kind of hits/hurries/sacks combination in place of sacks for the pass rush stat, and also include passes defensed (which like stuffs has two parts, batted balls at the LOS and actual pass coverage). Finally, turnovers has a bigger impact than all of that so a combined FF/FR/INT stat may make sense.

Which I guess ups the all-around defensive player stat to four parts; pass rush (hits/hurries/sacks), run defense (stuffs/include pass stuffs), passes defensed, and TO's (FF/FR/INT) ... Of course personally I'd always revert back to what I see with my own eyes, but if there was a 'primary' defensive stat - and this spitball proposal probably isn't perfect - then roughly something like that is what I'd prefer - as long as it didn't get too convoluted.

[Bob Gill]

This discussion about the relative merit of sacks is interesting. I think both of you guys are right, and the real problem is not with sacks per se, but with the fact that sacks are the ONLY numbers readily available for defensive linemen. With nothing else to go on, people see that one guy had 12 sacks and another had 8.5 and base their evaluation mainly (or even entirely) on those numbers.

To continue the comparison with home runs: One guy might have 28 homers, but a batting average of .229 with 155 strikeouts and proportionally low numbers in other categories, while another guy might also have 28 homers, but with a .297 average, 37 doubles, 85 walks and so on. But in football, it's like all we have to go on is the one number, home runs, and the rest is missing, so unless you've seen a high percentage of the games, you don't know how a given player did on everything else.