Brady hit once every 8.5 attempts since mid 07

[PatsFanSince74]

Sorry, but its dead on accurate... Just because it flies in the face of the article doesn't change reality.

not to put too fine a point on it, but it flies in the face of the data. please see my response to Patchick.

 

[Deus Irae]

not to put too fine a point on it, but it flies in the face of the data. please see my response to Patchick.

It really doesn't. We went over this on a ridiculous thread which dealt with this a little while back. This article is simply skewing the data a bit more by leaving out a big chunk of games, so that it's really only saying "When you play the better pass rushing teams, you get hit more" as if that's stunning news.

 

[Eppy]

A part of the reason Brady gets hit so much is because of Brady. Brady is willing to sacrifice himself to hold onto the ball for an extra second or two to allow the receiver get open. There are many times he holds onto the ball forever with great protection, but even great protection can work so long.

It is part of what makes Brady great, but there is a risk to it.

As a Steeler fan, this sounds really familiar.

 

[PatsFanSince74]

But don't you assume that every QB will be sacked significantly more in the playoffs because they're playing, on average, significantly better defenses? So you have to compare Brady's playoff stats to other QBs' playoff stats.

responding to you and Box. Great questions! Here's what the data say:

I looked at the 12 teams who made the playoffs in the 2007/08 season. In total, the sack rate for the 12 principal starters (the Redskins had two different starters for most of the regular season and the playoffs) was virtually identical for the Playoffs as for the regular season.

Regular Season: 5.1%
Playoffs: 5.5%

When you look a little more deeply at the data, of the 12 starters, Brady's Playoff stats stand out like a sore thumb. His Playoff sack rate (eight sacks) of 6.8% was 95% higher than his regular season rate of 3.5%, while the overall Playoff Average (above) was just nine percent higher than the Regular Season. The only QB's to come close were Vince Young, whose playoff stats were 52% higher and Eli Manning whose playoff stats were 44% higher. Phillip Rivers and Jeff Garcia were sacked at rates that were roughly half of their regular season rates. Payme wasn't sacked at all in the postseason. Favre was only sacked once.

So, I conclude that the postseason looks about the same as the regular season in general when it comes to sacks. Some QB's are sacked more in the Playoffs, but the fact that Brady's increase vs. the regular season (and especially vs. his experience of a 2.2% rate in the first ten games of the season, where his playoff rate is nearly three times as high) is an outlier really can't be disputed based on the data.

 

[PatsFanSince74]

As a Steeler fan, this sounds really familiar.

Yeah, on the data, Ben is in his own universe when it comes to being sacked, approximated only by the fearless Vince Young!

 

[patchick]

Brady's Playoff stats stand out like a sore thumb. His Playoff sack rate (eight sacks) of 6.8% was 95% higher than his regular season rate of 3.5%, while the overall Playoff Average (above) was just nine percent higher than the Regular Season.

Right...but did you see this post earlier?

looking at the 2007 playoff stats, that's ALL the Giants' overwhelming rush. Until the Superbowl, Brady's playoff sack rate was his standard 1 in 20 attempts.

IOW, this entire "trend" consists of the beating we all know Brady took in the Superbowl. He was only sacked 3 times in the other playoff games put together. In fact, before the SB, you could have run an article showing that the Patriots' pass protection had really tightened up during the playoffs. To me, that says no reliable trend at all.

 

[Box_O_Rocks]

EDIT: I see Box and I were thinking alike.

 

[PatsFanSince74]

It really doesn't. We went over this on a ridiculous thread which dealt with this a little while back. This article is simply skewing the data a bit more by leaving out a big chunk of games, so that it's really only saying "When you play the better pass rushing teams, you get hit more" as if that's stunning news.

Deus, I ignored your other comment (or picture), but if you want to contest the data I've presented here, great. Please do so. I really don't have a dog in the hunt, other than what the data say. If my data are wrong, show me; this is a topic where I'd rather be wrong than right. But these general statements that something is wrong because people say it's wrong loudly enough and often enough really don't carry much water with me. If you want to cut and paste something from another thread that contains data that contest what I've argued, please do rather than just complain I'm repeating something here. Once again, data, not rants or opinions.

Here's what I think the article says, based on the data; nothing more nothing less.

Brady was sacked more often after the tenth game of the regular season in 2007 and he was sacked much more often in the Playoffs than he was in the first ten games of the season. Please see the data I present in my several responses above and then refute the data, specifically.

Brady was sacked about as often across the board in 2007 as other elite QB's, but his sack rate after game 10 and in the playoffs was considerably higher than nearly every elite QB but Ben Roethlisberger who makes a career out of being sacked and riding motorcycles without his helmet. Once again, if you have data that contest this point and can give me a source, please do.

The above was extrapolated in the article to include hits. I was not able to verify the hit data implied in the article, so I don't include it in my conclusions; however, it's not unreasonable to think that the article might be right on that point as well.

Moving beyond the facts, the above lead to a reasonable concern about Brady's "wellbeing" (for want of a better word). The fact that in the last three or four quarters he's played he's taken a season ending hit and a very worrisome hit (Haynesworth) suggest that this concern is not nuts.

If I'm wrong on any of the above on the facts and data as presented and as narrowly stated, please point out where.

 

[Deus Irae]

Deus, I ignored your other comment (or picture), but if you want to contest the data I've presented here, great. Please do so. I really don't have a dog in the hunt, other than what the data say. If my data are wrong, show me; this is a topic where I'd rather be wrong than right. But these general statements that something is wrong because people say it's wrong loudly enough and often enough really don't carry much water with me. If you want to cut and paste something from another thread that contains data that contest what I've argued, please do rather than just complain I'm repeating something here. Once again, data, not rants or opinions.

Here's what I think the article says, based on the data; nothing more nothing less.

Brady was sacked more often after the tenth game of the regular season in 2007 and he was sacked much more often in the Playoffs than he was in the first ten games of the season. Please see the data I present in my several responses above and then refute the data, specifically.

Brady was sacked about as often across the board in 2007 as other elite QB's, but his sack rate after game 10 and in the playoffs was considerably higher than nearly every elite QB but Ben Roethlisberger who makes a career out of being sacked and riding motorcycles without his helmet. Once again, if you have data that contest this point and can give me a source, please do.

The above was extrapolated in the article to include hits. I was not able to verify the hit data implied in the article, so I don't include it in my conclusions; however, it's not unreasonable to think that the article might be right on that point as well.

Moving beyond the facts, the above lead to a reasonable concern about Brady's "wellbeing" (for want of a better word). The fact that in the last three or four quarters he's played he's taken a season ending hit and a very worrisome hit (Haynesworth) suggest that this concern is not nuts.

If I'm wrong on any of the above on the facts and data as presented and as narrowly stated, please point out where.

Patchick is already pointing it out. I was just noting that the article is just a derivative of an article that was posted a while back, which spawned a long thread where a poster was making up 'facts' from pre-2005, ignoring data, and the like. The only difference is that this one skews the argument even more by deliberately getting rid of the games that don't fit the desired template. It's not intended as any sort of swipe at you, and if you too it that way, my apologies.

 

[PatsFanSince74]

Patchick is already pointing it out. I was just noting that the article is just a derivative of an article that was posted a while back, which spawned a long thread where a poster was making up 'facts' from pre-2005, ignoring data, and the like. The only difference is that this one skews the argument even more by deliberately getting rid of the games that don't fit the desired template. It's not intended as any sort of swipe at you, and if you too it that way, my apologies.

no apology needed, we're just arguing football and facts and for my part i'm sorry i missed the other thread.

but, how is the data skewed in this case? the article argues that teams changed their Defensive strategies after the Eagles were successful in game 11; the data seem to support that it was effective over the last six games of the season and even moreso in the playoffs.

 

[Deus Irae]

no apology needed, we're just arguing football and facts and for my part i'm sorry i missed the other thread.

but, how is the data skewed in this case? the article argues that teams changed their Defensive strategies after the Eagles were successful in game 11; the data seem to support that it was effective over the last six games of the season and even moreso in the playoffs.

Look at the teams involved:

Philly
Baltimore
Pittsburgh
Giants (*2)
San Diego

All big pass rush teams or top defenses in general.

Miami
Jets
Jacksonville

Were the other teams involved in that group. Compare that to the breakdown of teams prior to the 'discovery'.

 

[PatsFanSince74]

Right...but did you see this post earlier?



IOW, this entire "trend" consists of the beating we all know Brady took in the Superbowl. He was only sacked 3 times in the other playoff games put together. In fact, before the SB, you could have run an article showing that the Patriots' pass protection had really tightened up during the playoffs. To me, that says no reliable trend at all.

not exactly. granted, in the Jacksonville game he was only sacked once in 26 attempts (3.8%). he was sacked at the six percent rate in the SDG game and at a 10% rate in the Gints game. his regular season rate wasn't once in 20 (5%) but rather once in 30 or so (3.5%--2.2% in the first ten games; 4.5% or so in the last six and nearly seven percent in the playoffs. i'm afraid, that's a trend. the trend is still that he was getting sacked and hit more as the season and playoffs went on, whatever happened in the Jacksonville game.

look, we're all on the same side here and we're arguing narrow points on which we've staked out positions. i'm willing to leave it with you and Deus, who have gone to the trouble of presenting data, that it's a good idea to protect tommy and let's kick some butt this season.

i will now agree with deus that the horse is beat plenty dead. let's have a beer.

 

[PatsFanSince74]

Look at the teams involved:

Philly 3 sacks; 54 attempts
Baltimore 3 sacks; 38 attempts
Pittsburgh 0 sacks; 46 attempts
Giants (*2) 6 sacks; 90 attempts
San Diego 2 sacks; 33 attempts
5.1%

All big pass rush teams or top defenses in general.

Miami 3 sacks; 33 attempts
Jets 1 sack; 27 attempts
Jacksonville 1 sack 28 attempts
5.4%

Were the other teams involved in that group. Compare that to the breakdown of teams prior to the 'discovery'.

doesn't obviate the trend argument, tho. horse is dead. let's have a beer.

 

[DaBruinz]

not to put too fine a point on it, but it flies in the face of the data. please see my response to Patchick.

I saw your response to Patchick. And I see that you both said the same thing. You expressed it as a % and she expressed it
From as pass attempts per sack. They tell the same story.

The problem is that you jumped to different conclusions after you put the data up.

In 2007, Brady was sacked 21 times on 578 attempts. That equates to 3.5% of his drop backs resulted in a sack. Or a sack 1 in eveyr 27.5 attmpts. But that doesn't include the post season. In the post season, Brady was sacked 8 times on 109 attempts. Which is 7.3% of his attempts or 1 sack for every 13.625 pass attempts.

NONE of it includes HITS.. And, with no comparison to other QBs, Kirwan saying that Brady was hit another 20-25 times give you no basis for comparison. Not only that, the fact he made it a range, tells me that they don't have faith in their stat. And if they don't have faith in it, is it really reliable?

 

[BradyFTW!]

QB Hits are NOT an NFL acknowledged stat. They are an ESPN generated stat in which they do not define what is considered a hit. And because they do not define what is considered a hit, there i no basis for comparison. There is no standard. Just like there is no standard on tackles. Rich Gosselin pointed this out 2 years ago in an article he did showing how there were teams that gave out too many tackles. He pointed out that, in some cases, teams were averaging 2 tackles per play.. Which you can't do. You can only have either 1 tackle or 2 assissted per play.

This. I don't trust 'hit' counts, because there's so much gray area on what does or doesn't constitute one. I especially don't trust the numbers that you can typically find out there because, as DaBruinz pointed out, they're oftentimes impossible. It's like assists in basketball, where it was discovered that certain crews in certain cities award 30%+ more assists than others, even after you correct for any mitigating factors. Where there's gray area, and different people tracking the cities, there will be a large skew.

So instead, let's look at ProFootballFocus- they go back and dissect every play run over the course of the season, and track "Hit as Threw" as a statistic. While these numbers have some of the same inherent dubiousness as whatever Curran was using, at least they're tracked by the same source, according to the same standard. That makes them actually comparable.

So let's do exactly that: look at Brady and then take some comparables: I'll use the formula (Hit as Threw + Sacks / Dropbacks) for 2007. Brady was hit as he threw 7 times. Add that together with sacks, and you get a total of 28 hits before/while throwing in 614 dropbacks. That's a rate of 4.56%. Let's take some comparables:

Brady: 28/614 = 4.56%
Eli Manning: 25/354 = 7.06%
Drew Brees: 12/315 = 3.80%
Jon Kitna: 37/332 = 11.14%
Derek Anderson: 11/314 = 3.50%
Matt Hasselbeck: 22/309 = 7.11%
Peyton Manning: 18/288 = 6.25%
Tony Romo: 25/284 = 8.80%
Carson Palmer: 11/279 = 3.94%
Brett Favre: 13/279 = 4.65%
Jason Campbell: 19/280 = 6.78%
Ben Roethlisberger: 28/267 = 10.48%
Philip Rivers: 18/269 = 6.69%
Jay Cutler: 14/270 = 5.18%
Marc Bulger: 30/246 = 12.19%

I think that's enough. Clearly, on a per-dropback basis, Brady's pass protection was very good. Only 3 QBs were better, and the ones that were worse ranged from moderately worse to much, much worse. So the opposing argument (which Curran seems to haphazardly be trying to make) is pretty much shot.

Now, if you want to argue that Brady took a somewhat alarming number of hits in total, then that's a case that you can actually make. That's a completely separate argument, though, and the reason for it is clear: because only two QB had even half as many dropbacks as he did. Luckily, that's also a much easier problem to fix if Belichick decides that it's even a problem at all: have Brady drop back less.

In short, Curran, once again, submitted a crap article based on a flawed premise with no logical thought process or legitimate evidence at his disposal. The guy's very quickly proving himself to be a hack, which is a shame because I used to like him.

 

[5 Rings for Brady!!]

That was a tremendously insightful piece. Who says you can't get anything meaningful out of BB and this team. And stats aside he does get hit too much and it does have to stop if he's gonna be here for another 10 years (or so...). Glad BB realizes that. And from some of his recent comments it would appear Tommy realizes that too. Now all that's left is to figure out the best way to accomplish that while still winning games.

Yes....and yes.

 

[RayClay]

Kirwan says. “I think Bill Belichick is really smart and he will have something to counter it. Maybe it will be more protection with the tight end. Maybe it’s more of a commitment to the run. Maybe it’s more six and seven-man protections. Bill said to me in the offseason, ‘We’re taking a long look at what teams will do.

Hmmmmm.....

 

[PatsFanSince74]

This. I don't trust 'hit' counts, because there's so much gray area on what does or doesn't constitute one. I especially don't trust the numbers that you can typically find out there because, as DaBruinz pointed out, they're oftentimes impossible. It's like assists in basketball, where it was discovered that certain crews in certain cities award 30%+ more assists than others, even after you correct for any mitigating factors. Where there's gray area, and different people tracking the cities, there will be a large skew.

So instead, let's look at ProFootballFocus- they go back and dissect every play run over the course of the season, and track "Hit as Threw" as a statistic. While these numbers have some of the same inherent dubiousness as whatever Curran was using, at least they're tracked by the same source, according to the same standard. That makes them actually comparable.

So let's do exactly that: look at Brady and then take some comparables: I'll use the formula (Hit as Threw + Sacks / Dropbacks) for 2007. Brady was hit as he threw 7 times. Add that together with sacks, and you get a total of 28 hits before/while throwing in 614 dropbacks. That's a rate of 4.56%. Let's take some comparables:

Brady: 28/614 = 4.56%
Eli Manning: 25/354 = 7.06%
Drew Brees: 12/315 = 3.80%
Jon Kitna: 37/332 = 11.14%
Derek Anderson: 11/314 = 3.50%
Matt Hasselbeck: 22/309 = 7.11%
Peyton Manning: 18/288 = 6.25%
Tony Romo: 25/284 = 8.80%
Carson Palmer: 11/279 = 3.94%
Brett Favre: 13/279 = 4.65%
Jason Campbell: 19/280 = 6.78%
Ben Roethlisberger: 28/267 = 10.48%
Philip Rivers: 18/269 = 6.69%
Jay Cutler: 14/270 = 5.18%
Marc Bulger: 30/246 = 12.19%

I think that's enough. Clearly, on a per-dropback basis, Brady's pass protection was very good. Only 3 QBs were better, and the ones that were worse ranged from moderately worse to much, much worse. So the opposing argument (which Curran seems to haphazardly be trying to make) is pretty much shot.

Now, if you want to argue that Brady took a somewhat alarming number of hits in total, then that's a case that you can actually make. That's a completely separate argument, though, and the reason for it is clear: because only two QB had even half as many dropbacks as he did. Luckily, that's also a much easier problem to fix if Belichick decides that it's even a problem at all: have Brady drop back less.

In short, Curran, once again, submitted a crap article based on a flawed premise with no logical thought process or legitimate evidence at his disposal. The guy's very quickly proving himself to be a hack, which is a shame because I used to like him.

we've been beating this horse all day; please see my posts to Patchick and Deus. i'm done with arguing it. let's get ready to go to Miami.

 

[BradyFTW!]

we've been beating this horse all day; please see my posts to Patchick and Deus. i'm done with arguing it. let's get ready to go to Miami.

I already saw them. The reason why you're not getting any traction is because you're moving the goalposts in an attempt to validate your argument. I don't care to partake in that, and instead I'll just address the premise of Curran's article. Curran interpreted the stats incorrectly, and I just proved it. Brady takes fewer hits per dropback than all but a few QBs.

 

[DaBruinz]

i think the data say that you are wrong on the narrow point the article is trying to make, as I have stated in a couple of responses above.

You can think that the data says that I am wrong, but that isn't reality. In fact, the reality is that the Data provided shows only ONE thing. That Brady got sacked at twice the rate in the play-offs than he did in the regular season. And that stems from ONE game where the O-line gave up 5 sacks.

The article's "narrow point" is based on a stat that is undefined and unrecognized by the NFL. Because of that, it detracts from their entire argument. Not only that, Kirwan SPECULATES that Brady was hit another 25 or 30 times during that same period. He doesn't offer proof. He offers no support. Yet you hang on it like its fact..

The reality is that Brady took 19 sacks in 360 passing attempts. Or Brady took a sack once in every 18.95 pass attempts.

This HITS number is fictitious. Its a made up stat. There is no definition on whether a hit is considered to be a Haynesworth type slam or just nudging the qb as the defender goes by.

To think that this has any validity is like saying that the moon is made of cheese because the craters look like the holes on swiss cheese.