First of all, thanks for the links! Great stuff there!
I'm thinking that maybe "Pressure" is more a measure of the resources/effort a defense is expending on attacking the QB on a given play. "Hurry" is maybe more properly a measure of
the QB's reaction to Pressure. I mean, if the defense is rushing five or blitzing (pressure), but the QB doesn't react to it negatively, is it a "hurry"?
Also, it seems to me that a sack is maybe more or less a "hurry" that got home. So, "hurries" + "Sacks" is then maybe a measure of
effective pass-rush pressure.
Also, this is not a thing for which having an "elite" sack-getter is necessarily helpful.
In analyzing the hurries/sacks of individuals and teams from 2016 (you third link), I found a very strong correlation between (A)
the number of different players on a team who recorded hurries and (B) the team total hurries. I also found a somewhat weaker correlation with team sack totals, AND fairly little correlation between effective pressure totals and "elite" sack-getters.
Teams in the Top 1/3 of the league in total hurries (90+) averaged ...
... 7+ different players who recorded hurries (Pats had 7)
... 4+ different players with double-digit hurries (Pats had 5)
... 37 sacks & 98 hurries (Pats had 34 sacks & 94 hurries - in the Top-8)
Less than half these teams had an individual player with more than 9 sacks (the Pats were among the majority of those who didn't), and only 4 of the league's top-12 sack-getters were on these teams.
Teams in the Bottom 1/3 of the league in total hurries (<74) averaged ...
... only 5 different players who recorded hurries
... <3 different players with double-digit hurries
... 31 sacks & 57 hurries
Pass-rush schemes and effectiveness of the various secondaries are the variables, then.
