Was George Blanda incredible at avoiding sacks?

[NWebster]

what would account for 100% of QB sacks taken

we all acknowledge it's not 1 thing but the QB is a BIG contributor.

Not sure what the rest has to do with football so I'll skip by that, nor has "we all acknowledge" been the case at all. For you, yes, you've acknowledged that is it not one thing - others have phrased the stat as if it's 100% a QB stat (it is not.)

Aaron Rodgers (84th all-time in QB sack % - behind Jay Schroeder) was deemed to have been responsible for 11 of the 31 sacks that GB gave up when he was in the game last season. That's closer to a third, not 100%, not 90%, not 80%, not 70%, not 60%, not even 50%, of sacks that go 'on' the QB, in this example. "BIG" . . .

I 'get' the "nothing is 100%", my thing is then don't phrase it as 100%. Don't say "(Insert QB) IS good at avoiding sacks" then slap a flawed and largely irrelevant number after saying so. Don't phrase it as an absolute. Don't give it meaning that it does not have and common football knowledge says that it does not have.

Say "I've watched (insert QB) and he seemed good at avoiding sacks, here's a made-up stat that doesn't really mean anything but it may support what I've seen with my own eyes so I'm sharing it." ... Sort of like how most stats are used: "(Insert DE) was great at rushing the passer. He had (x amount) of sacks." Now sacks are overrated as most great defensive minds will tell you (and that I've indisputably shared throughout this thread) but if the stat/number supports the claim, then great, go for it. Sack rate supports Manning and Marino, for example. Not much else after that and I also do not see this huge 'it's clearly on the QB and not OL' evidence - though I've never cared about the stat so have only looked at a few QB's who have switched teams and I see when they go from a terrible team to a great team their QB sack % is lowered (shocking) which isn't surprising at all and doesn't lead to evidence of sacks being solely on the QB, at all.

I think it would be interesting if you openminded looked at the Broncos from Tebow to Manning.

I'm not sure who sourced your Rodgers sack accountability data either, are they the infallible fil. Watchers. Ag5akn, Steeler fan, Bens sack rate has dropped because Haley is telling Ben to get the ball out of his hands, not because of some huge improvement in his decision making. To me, if I ONLY WATCHED Steeler FILM this is obvious.

[Reaser]

I think it would be interesting if you openminded looked at the Broncos from Tebow to Manning.

I'm not sure who sourced your Rodgers sack accountability data either, are they the infallible fil. Watchers. Ag5akn, Steeler fan, Bens sack rate has dropped because Haley is telling Ben to get the ball out of his hands, not because of some huge improvement in his decision making. To me, if I ONLY WATCHED Steeler FILM this is obvious.

Putting the obvious skill levels aside, Tebow to Manning is style over substance statistically. As was established earlier in the thread when I completely guessed (and later looked up and confirmed) that QB's like Tarkenton, Wilson, Elway, Staubach and Young would have higher sack % than Manning, Marino, Brees and Brady.

Rodgers sack data I believe came from QB Coach Alex Van Pelt but don't quote me on that, I read the article last week and really the only thing I remembered was "Rodgers was to blame for 11 of the 31 sacks" ...

Your Roethlisberger point is more of a point in my favor, no? Not putting it on the QB (as the stat does), you're giving the credit to Haley. Great, goes along with what I'm saying, sacks are not (even close to) 100% on the QB.

As for QB's who have switched teams, only can go with what I previously looked up and Steve Young went from TB to SF his sack % dropped (surprise surprise), is that evidence that sacks are largely on the QB? No, otherwise his sack % would stay the same or within the same range. Joey Harrington's sack % doubled from when he was leading the league in the stat while in Detroit to when he played in Atlanta. Is that evidence that sack % is a QB stat? No, otherwise it would have been in the same range. Warren Moon's fluxuated all over when he was with the Oilers, dropped down when he was with the Vikings then went back up when he was with the Seahawks. Evidence that sacks are on the QB? No, it changes due to team, teammates, coaches, OL, receivers, opponents faced, etc ...

Dave Krieg (120th all-time in sack %) led the NFL in 1996 when he was with Chicago (3.6 %), yet the year before with the Cardinals it was 9.2 %, the year before that with the Lions it was 6.2, the year before that with the Chiefs it was 10.4 and it was 10.4 again the year prior with the Chiefs. So with the Chiefs the sack % was consistent (team stat or QB stat?), when he goes to Detroit it drops 4.2% (team stat or QB stat?), goes to Arizona and it increases 3.0% (team stat or QB stat?), then goes to Chicago and it drops 5.6% (team stat of QB stat?)! He's great to use as an example of this stat because that's the same player with 4 different teams in a 5 year stretch and what do we see, not that the player has the same number every year, but that it changes dependent on team. So QB stat or team stat?

[oldecapecod11]

In 1962, George Blanda was the first ever recorded fantasy football draft pick when the game was created
by The Greater Oakland Professional Pigskin Prognosticators League.

In the 14 years Blanda played after this "honor," the all-time sack avoider was a member of only one team
that reached the Super Bowl and was never again a member of a championship winning team.

Therein lies the importance of avoiding sacks and relegates the sack statistic to the world of fantasy and to the table
of the contract negotiator. "But you see, Mr GM, my client was the sack avoiding champion."
Ho-hum...

Blanda had a wonderful and certainly lengthy career.
Among his achievments are the following:
Most Passing TDs in a game: 7 - 11/19/1961 vs. The Titans of New York (Tied with 6 other players)
Most seasons played: 26 (1949–58, 1960–75)
Most seasons scoring a point: 26
One of only two players to play in 4 different decades: (40s, 50s, 60s, 70s)
Most PATs made (943) and attempted (959)
Most interceptions thrown, single season: 42 (1962)
Most pass attempts in a single game: 68 (with 37 completions vs. The Titans of New York Titans on 11/1/1961)
(broken in 1994 by Drew Bledsoe with 70)
Oldest player to play in an NFL game: 48 years, 109 days
First player ever to score over 2,000 points
Oldest quarterback to start a title game
Most total points accounted for (including TD passes) in a career: 3,418 (not an official stat)

With accomplishments like these, it is a positive insult to the legacy of the man to list him as an "avoider" of any type -
especially a needless and useless and meaningless "statistic."

[Bryan]

I 'get' the attempt at an analogy but putting aside that HR's put runs on the board while sacks don't score points (except in fantasy football and the occasional safety) and that there isn't a baseball equivalent to sacks - for it to be comparable to anything I've said you would need a seemingly endless supply of the greatest minds in baseball saying "HRs are overrated", you would need Barry Bonds to say "HRs are overrated", you would need multiple other players on the top 20 all-time HR list to say they're overrated, you would need HOF or World Series winning GM's to say "HRs are overrated", etc ... Instead of isolating one example out of many.

I'm not really understanding any of this. My analogy was in response to your giving more merit to one game of data (Denver vs SD) than to one season of data (Cutler's season), and giving more merit to anecdotal quotes that aren't really in the same context as what is being discussed as opposed to the actual data. You then claim that its wrong to isolate one example out of many. What? So if you provided me with data that shows the irrelevence of sacks, all I would have to do to 'refute' the data is throw out some quotes of George Allen, Bill Walsh, and Al Davis talking about the importance of sacks? Seems a bit meatballish to me.

... and people aren't making a 1:1 correlation with 'greatness'

It seemed like you were when you said:

Mike Tomczak is 8th all-time in sack %, Joey Harrington is 9th all-time, Derek Anderson is 11th ... So what are we even talking about here?

I'm not familiar with Anderson, and I'm surprised that Tomczak and Harrington are so high on the list, but it does make sense that Tomczak and Harrington would have low sack %'s. Again, its interesting and somewhat illuminating...its not evidence of Tomczak's overlooked greatness.

[Ken Crippen]

I think that this still breaks down to "stats without context are meaningless." No single stat can give you the whole picture. You need additional information (context) to see what is going on. I will use my Rusher Rating statistic that I developed a few years ago as an example. You can use it to break down how efficient a running back is, and how efficient they are in various situations. However, without context, there is only so much you can tell from the stat. Is the running back efficient, or is it a function of the offensive line. You can compare another running back on the team with the same offensive line, but is the play-calling the same? Is the opponent employing a different defensive scheme with the second RB? Is it a function of an efficient passing game (setting up the run) or the running back? You can't tell from one stat. You need context.

As researchers, it is our job to provide the context. We take all of the components available to us (stats, film, personal accounts from the player, teammates, coaches, GMs, etc) and analyze it. The talking heads at ESPN are never going to provide the context. They will just spout a stat or two. They will say "Charles Haley belongs in the HOF because he has five rings." We can be better than that by providing context to the numbers.

[Reaser]

I'm not really understanding any of this. My analogy was in response to your giving more merit to one game of data (Denver vs SD) than to one season of data (Cutler's season)

Your analogy compared HRs to sacks. That doesn't make sense. I said we can strike the Cutler example, it's among a much larger group of examples throughout the thread.

Perhaps my phrasing/sarcasm was confusing but I wasn't giving more merit given to one game than to one season, it was inclusive, one game WITHIN the one season of data.

Let me explain ... Cutler had the best sack %, Denver doesn't get sacked against SD in de-facto division championship game. Those two stats are on the same side, right? Not getting sacked. Not one with more merit than the other, it's saying the same thing. It's showing than here we have Denver and their QB doesn't get sacked, over the season and in their most important game of the season they don't give up sacks.

Now, how important (meaningful or winning statistic) is sack % over the season (Denver missed the playoffs), how important (meaningful or winning statistic) are sacks in their most important game of the season (Denver gave up no sacks, they sacked SD twice, and they lost by 31 points) ... Why? because sacks are overrated. Sacks don't tell the story of the season and they don't tell the story of the game. Sacks are a miniscule % of plays in a game and in a season and are documented with a stat that is fairly meaningless. That stat, sacks, and based off that stat (hence comparable) you have QB sack %, sacks are not a great stat so QB sack % starts off itself as not a great stat, and that's before we get into that people are putting the stat on the QB when the QB isn't 100% of the time responsible for getting sacked - which that part of it is very basic and known football. I'm not sure what's confusing people about that. Though yes, I understand you wanted to pull out one of the many things I've said in this thread because you didn't like the example. Great, as I said in the original reply, we can 'strike' it from the example list.

Use the '88 and '89 49ers - those teams were good right? - being in the bottom 25% of the league in QB sack % as your example of choice then ...

You're acting as if I found one, two or three coaches that have said sacks are overrated. I have the greatest defensive minds of the era, HOF and SB winning GMs, HOF players, super bowl champion coaches and players, long list of head coaches, long list of college coaches, long list of high school coaches, long list of defensive players (including the all-time single season sack leader, even he knows sacks are overrated), it's not a small sample size, I didn't find a throwaway comment made by ONE person someday and am using that to back up my personal view - sacks being overrated is very common knowledge and MANY people currently in football or that have played/coached/scouted football (any level, not just an NFL philosophy) have the view that sacks are overrated, because? Sacks are overrated. The 'context' is on the importance of sacks (so any stat based on sacks), they are overrated. If sacks are overrated then an extremely flawed stat based on sacks against (QB sack %) also lacks relevance.

Not a huge baseball fan (I am a huge Mariners fan though) so with the lack of baseball analogies I still hope that all that helped you understand my view.

[JWL]

Not a huge baseball fan (I am a huge Mariners fan though) so with the lack of baseball analogies I still hope that all that helped you understand my view.

Well, I like baseball. Actually I like it so much so that I cannot really get into football yet and this is coming from a Jets fan who disliked Rex Ryan and was a big Todd Bowles fan before he became the Jets head coach this year.


I think a decent comparison to sacks might be stolen bases.

Baseball teams would prefer to not allow stolen bases (most of the time) just as football teams would prefer not to allow sacks (most of the time). There are some occasions where a baseball team would be indifferent about a stolen base and there are times in football where a quarterback and the coaches and fans are happy about a sack. Such an instance would be if a nose tackle was unblocked and the quarterback was going to be demolished if he didn't purposefully hit the ground (we have all seen Peyton Manning in recent years save himself from potential injuries by dropping to the ground in lieu of getting creamed). Also, a sack would be better than a quarterback throwing the ball up for grabs and letting a defender catch it.

Sacks, like stolen bases, can tell us things and they might be fun to watch and count, but neither stat would usually state whether a team won or lost a game. I agree with Reaser's main point but some of the counter arguments are good too.

[Reaser]

Sacks, like stolen bases, can tell us things and they might be fun to watch and count, but neither stat would usually state whether a team won or lost a game. I agree with Reaser's main point but some of the counter arguments are good too.

Do the Mets leading the NL East have anything to do with you still being in baseball 'mode'? Ha. My M's are a disaster, we're great at putting Smith/Rodney in and letting them snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Stolen bases seems reasonable enough. I don't want to get too far into it but what would then be the comparison to pressure? Since obviously pressure is more important than sacks. Seems like even SB's are more important than sacks, but we'll call it good. At least it's not being compared to HRs or the basketball analogy of a dunk, both of which are scoring 'plays' ...

For some reason seeing "JWL" post reminded me of your valid stance on coaches W-L records and Bruce Arians being 0-0 and winning coach of the year. I don't put that much stock in the award itself but from thinking about that I thought it would be interesting to go over the last 8 or so AP NFL Coaches of the Year and their view of sacks:

2014: Bruce Arians - Have seen him on TV and have read him saying "sacks are overrated" (talks about things that matter, turnovers, getting off the field on 3rd down, red zone defense, etc)

2013: Ron Rivera - I'm not familiar with his view, the only thing I can remember him saying about the meaningfulness of sacks is that there was sacks that don't matter and sacks that do matter, or something along those lines. We'll call that a wash.

2012: Bruce Arians - "sacks are overrated", as above.

2011: Jim Harbaugh - I've seen him say that sacks are NOT overrated (I'd love to sit down and watch the SEA-SF NFC Championship with him, and the NYG-SF NFC Championship when the 49ers sacked the Giants 6 times ... and lost.)

2010: Bill Belichick - "sacks are overrated" and talked about how pressure is what matters and mostly had the 'tone' of media using stats/sacks don't know what they're talking about.

2009: Marvin Lewis - "sacks are overrated", said many many times.
Note: in 2014 his team's defense finished LAST (32nd) in sacks and made the playoffs. In this 2009 season his team's defense finished below league average in sacks and won the division. Also he was DC of the 2000 Ravens (finished 22nd in sacks), one of the greatest defenses of all-time, obviously. So I think he would know.

2008: Mike Smith - "sacks are overrated", as with Marvin Lewis many many times he's made this point. Also as with Marvin Lewis, he was part of (Def. asst/DL) the 2000 Ravens (finished 22nd in sacks), one of the greatest defenses of all-time, obviously. So I think he would know.

2007: Bill Belichick - "it's not about sacks, sacks are overrated" as I remember him saying at a press conference (and he's said similar multiple times). He's only won six conference championships, four super bowls (as HC) and two more super bowls as DC. Speaking of those NYG teams - Bill Parcells is on record as saying: "sacks are overrated", Gary Reasons who was on both those SB winning teams is on record as saying: "sacks are overrated", and so on ...

Bringing it back to QB sack %, the 1986 Super Bowl winning Giants finished in the bottom 25% in the 'statistic' (22nd) ... 'interesting', indeed. About as 'interesting' as Mark Gastineau and Michael Strahan having in common the years in which they set the sack records their teams both went 7-9 (no wonder Strahan knows sacks are overrated). About as 'interesting' as when Derrick Thomas set the single game sack record his team lost the game (Seahawks were sacked 9 times in that game, Chiefs were sacked once) ...

[JWL]

I am still in baseball mode only partially because the Mets are doing well.

This same time of month in 2006 (when the Mets were even better than they are now), I was getting into football.

I think the issue is the NFL itself. I was beaten down by another horrible Super Bowl for me. Of all the possible Super Bowl matchups going into the playoffs, of course the one I least wanted to see was the matchup we got.
Then there is the ball deflation story that has no end in sight.

I was thoroughly into the draft as always but I have otherwise kept my distance from NFL stuff this offseason. NFL Network has not been put on very much.

Historically, the Mets being bad or good has not had anything to do with when I get into football mode. I am usually always in football mode.

[Reaser]

I think the issue is the NFL itself.

Historically, the Mets being bad or good has not had anything to do with when I get into football mode. I am usually always in football mode.

That makes sense ... and so we don't get accused of going off topic, here's the Top 7 Defense's in "Sacks" last season and whether or not they made the playoffs:

1. Bills - No playoffs.
2. Ravens - 6th seed, last team to get in.
2. Eagles - no playoffs (no wonder Bill Davis knows sacks are overrated)
4. Giants - no playoffs
5. Chiefs - no playoffs
6. Jets - no playoffs
6. Jaguars - Ha! no playoffs