arrellbee said:
Well, we'll just have to disagree I guess.
Football statistics are a little frustrating because it's hard to find ones that are fully indicative of a particular aspect of effectiveness that you are interested in.
Interceptions is no exception. I presume what folks want to figure out from that statistic is whether a CB is an effective CB. But does a tipped ball which falls into the hands of a CB have any bearing on whether a CB is effective ? I suggest not. Or if a CB is playing a receiver loosely and the QB misthrows the ball right at the CB without the receiver having a chance at it, does that make the CB effective ? Probably not - and may well even been because the CB was defending in a loose enough manner that he couldn't prevent a reception if the QB hit the receiver properly - that would be poor CB play rather than exemplary. Another aspect is that the CB may be getting interceptions because he is positioning himself and gambling on the interceptions and when he misses, the reception goes for long yardage or a touchdown. That is actually quite pertinent. Remember early on when there was a lot of discussion about Hobbs trying for an interception and missing ?
Fans were certainly clear about whether that was a 'good' thing or not. So you have to consider interceptions very carefully and would have to watch a fair amount of film to be able to judge correctly.
If you are trying to judge CBs, I would propose that passes defensed would be a little better stat to look at, although you would still have to look at that stat in the light of balancing passes defensed versus passes not defensed as a result of the technique of the CB. Just for interest, here's the passes defensed stats from last year. Law is very respectable - BUT you mention Asante Samuel and folks have some serious questions about how good a corner he is - but look how close he is to Ty Law. If we think Ty Law is so good, maybe Samuel is pretty good also. Just a thought.
Sheldon Brown - 25
Ike Taylor - 24
Champ Bailey - 23
Brian Dawkins - 22
Ronde Barber - 20
Shawntae Spencer - 19
Deltha O'Neal - 18
Quentin Jammer - 18
Ty Law - 18
Terence Newman - 17
David Macklin - 17
Brian Kelly - 17
Leigh Bodden - 17
Asante Samuel - 16
Charles Tillman - 16
Domonique Foxworth - 16
Rashean Mathis - 16
Darren Sharper - 16
By the way, if you look at tackles and solo tackles:
Ty Law - 45 - 36
Asante Samuel - 44 - 37
Digger44 said:
The problem with passes defended is that the best corners do not get thrown thrown at, and the worst will have more chances to defend. That is seen by who is in your list.
arrellbee said:
OK - I'm confused. I think what you just said is that Champ Bailey and Ty Law, among others, are sort of the worst defenders since they have higher totals of passes defended ?? ??
Digger44 said:
I didnt say that at all. It is not the true indicator of a good cb. There are good and bad cb's on your list. Your theory doesnt hold water that passes defended are a legit gauge of a good. cb. Ok Ty & and Champ are on there, look at the other garbage on your list. They are not elite cb's. If your theory were legit then all the best corners would have the most passes defended. That isn't the case. Now if you wanna get technical we can start defining passes defended just as some have done with interceptions and claim that Ty's numbers are bogus because he faced poor QB's who gave him more opportunities to defend.
OK - I'm still confused. I understand that there are CBs on the list that you don't think are top CBs. But Champ Bailey and Ty Law
ARE in the list.
DryHeat44 had some observations that there might be more pretty good corners on the list also.
But I didn't claim that passes defended was the best statistic to judge a CB. In fact, I only said that I thought it was a
little better than interceptions as far as being indicative. I commented on how I view available statistics:
"Football statistics are a little frustrating because it's hard to find ones that are fully indicative of a particular aspect of effectiveness that you are interested in."
I acknowledge that it's just my personal take, but passes defended still seems like a
little better stat than interceptions for the reasons mentioned.
It is probably fun to think about what we would really like to know in the way of statistics and what would be more indicative of the effectivesness of CBs:
1 - Start with number of passes that CB was responsible for defending
.....- only the team's coaches could provide that stat
.....- this would reflect the intimidation factor I reckon
Then within that stat of number of passes responsible for:
2 - TDs allowed
3a - Number of 1st down receptions allowed on 3rd down
3b - Number of 1st down receptions NOT allowed on 3rd down
.....- This would include passes defended
AND tackles short of 1st down !!
4 - Number of 1st down receptions allowed
5 - Yardage allowed per pass
.....- Average; passes allowed over 10 yards; and over 20 yards; yards after catch
6 - Passes defended
And then you would also have to figure in some weighting on tackles made against the run. (I would imagine that this is something the Pats look at when evaluating possible draft choices)
You could also figure in sacks - I'm not so sure how much these are the CB versus blitz scheme, but ...
If we had these type of stats, we could have a much more meaningful knock-down drag-out discussion on the effectiveness of CBs of interest !!
