Tag: pressures

Aaron Donald retires with most pressures in NFL since 2018 but Maxx Crosby isn’t far behind

Aaron Donald’s pressure numbers are incredible. Maxx Crosby being just 3 spots behind him is astounding for two crucial reasons.

Today Aaron Donald delivered the stunning news that he is retiring from the NFL after ten seasons. It’s an announcement he has teased for a couple years now, but still comes as somewhat of a shock considering he is clearly still at the top of the NFL hierarchy at age 32.

How dominant has Aaron Donald been? And I don’t mean over his entire career. I mean lately.

While Pro Bowls and All Pros tell the story of how he is easily the best interior defender of his era — and possibly of all time — his pressure numbers top all players, including edge rushers whose job is literally in the title.

According to Next Gen Stats, since 2018, Donald has faced more double teams (117) than any other player in the league by a pretty considerable margin.

  1. Aaron Donald — 117
  2. Jonathan Allen 84
  3. Chris Jones 81
  4. Leonard Williams 71
  5. DeForest Buckner 70

And yet he still leads the NFL pressures. And one name in the top five may surprise you.

  1. Aaron Donald 472
  2. Myles Garrett 454
  3. TJ Watt 388
  4. Maxx Crosby 362
  5. Khalil Mack 362

Yeah, so hidden below Donald’s eye-popping dominance is the realization that Maxx Crosby has had the fourth most pressures in the NFL over the past six seasons. Tied with former Raiders edge rusher Khalil Mack.

Here’s the thing though — Crosby has only been in the NFL for five seasons.

This is compiled since 2018. Crosby came into the league in 2019. So, not only does everyone else on this list have their numbers compiled from one more season than Crosby, but he is the only one on the list whose numbers include his rookie season. All others have been in the league since at least 2017, so they were closer to their primes.

Just something worth noting.

Congrats to the most dominant defensive lineman — and possibly the great defender at any position — on an unreal ten-year career. A no-brainer first ballot Hall of Famer if there ever was one. And the kind of player who the Maxx Crosbys of the NFL can aspire to.

Chiefs center Creed Humphrey put together stellar performance vs. Raiders

Creed Humphrey didn’t allow a sack or pressure in the #Chiefs’ win over the Raiders in Week 12.

The Kansas City Chiefs have been able to rely on the interior of their offensive line all season while reigning MVP quarterback Patrick Mahomes has struggled to find his footing consistently.

A key cog of the Chiefs’ offensive machine is center Creed Humphrey, who managed to help lift Mahomes to one of his best performances of the season in Week 12 against the Las Vegas Raiders.

According to Pro Football Focus, Humphrey didn’t allow a single sack or pressure in the rivalry matchup.

Showings like this are common for the third-year lineman, and while some may take his role in Kansas City’s offense for granted, his outstanding efforts every week are a key reason that the Chiefs have been able to maintain their position in the AFC playoff standings.

Expect to see Humphrey follow up his impressive showing in Las Vegas with another stellar performance in Kansas City’s Week 13 matchup against the Green Bay Packers.

The New Orleans Saints have the NFL’s slowest pass rush in 2023

Your eyes aren’t fooling you. The New Orleans Saints have the NFL’s slowest pass rush, taking more time to get to the quarterback than any other team:

If you’ve been watching the New Orleans Saints defense this year and found yourself muttering or shouting some variant of “That’s too much time!” when the opposing quarterback drops back to pass, you aren’t crazy. Research from Doug Analytics found that the Saints have posted the NFL’s slowed pass rush unit through the first 10 weeks of the season.

And that checks out when you look at other stats. The Saints are tied for the fifth-fewest sacks (18) going into their Week 11 bye. Their Pro Football Reference pressure rate is 19.4%, ninth-worst around the league. That’s a slight improvement over last year’s 17.5% pressure rate, which was fourth-lowest, but the big difference is that the Saints aren’t finishing pressures with sacks. They had 48 sacks a year ago. They would need to average 4.3 sacks per game through these last seven weeks to match that total.

The problem is a lack of speed along the defensive front. Cameron Jordan is still being asked to be their leading rusher off the edge when his body just doesn’t have that extra gear anymore. He’s never been known for his speed off the snap, so Jordan’s game should age well as a run defender and power rusher, but the Saints must compensate for that by getting faster at other spots. Carl Granderson has some speed element to his game and Bryan Bresee can move quickly along the interior, but those are just two of the eight players in the rotation most weeks.

Whiffing on so many early-round draft picks hurts. The Saints swung and missed on first-round defensive ends like Marcus Davenport and Payton Turner and their rookie second-round pick Isaiah Foskey has had few snaps to show what he can do. They badly need one of those guys to step up and add some athleticism to the mix. Jason Pierre-Paul could improve the group but he isn’t helping them get younger.

Interestingly, the next-slowest pass rush in this graph comes from the Washington Commanders. It’s a comprehensive look at teams from Weeks 1 through 10, so that includes edge rushers Montez Sweat and Chase Young, both of whom were dealt at the NFL trade deadline. There was an uproar from Saints fans about not acquiring one of them, but it sure looks like they wouldn’t have cured the specific problem ailing the Saints defense.

A lacking athleticism up front is the issue. The Saints are slow to get after the quarterback, slow to put hands on him, and slow to keep up with him when he rolls out of the pocket looking to throw downfield. We saw them get gashed consistently by Joshua Dobbs and Tyson Bagent in recent weeks after C.J. Stroud did it a few weeks earlier. Any quarterback who can use their legs can challenge them.

Dennis Allen is a believer in the idea that the secondary and pass rush must work in tandem. He’s built this defense so that the quarterback is forced to hold onto the ball long enough for the rush to get home. But even a secondary full of All-Pro corners will get beaten if they’re all asked to cover for four, five, or six seconds. The Saints can’t afford to stop investing resources in the pass rush unit. Hopefully one of those draft picks hits soon.

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Chiefs DL George Karlaftis among league leaders in QB pressures

#Chiefs DL George Karlaftis is among the NFL’s leaders in quarterback pressures after Week 8.

The Kansas City Chiefs’ resurgent pass rush has been a key part of the team’s success through eight weeks of the 2023 NFL season.

Usually led by Chris Jones, Kansas City seems to have another stud on its hands up front in George Karlaftis, who is tied for seventh among all players in the NFL with 39 total quarterback pressures.

Of these 39 pressures, six have converted to sacks for the second-year star who certainly seems to be on the rise heading into the middle part of the season. While Karlaftis has exceeded all expectations, others up front are still waiting to get into a rhythm.

The aforementioned Jones and veteran Mike Danna are tied for second place on the Chiefs’ leaderboard with 5.5 sacks. Nobody else on the team has more than three.

Expect Karlaftis to continue wreaking havoc in opposing backfields as he helps lead Kansas City’s defense to new heights in the coming weeks.

Raiders DE Maxx Crosby leading NFL EDGE in several key statistics

Maxx Crosby leads NFL EDGE players in several key statistics

We know Maxx Crosby is easily the best defender on the Raiders roster. That goes without saying. Every now and then, it helps to see how he stacks up against other players at his position across the NFL. And in those instances you are reminded that he isn’t just the best defender on this team, but arguably the best all-around edge rusher in the league.

How do I come to this conclusion? Well, just look at the stats.

Among edge rushers with at least three sacks this season, here are some of Crosby’s stats and where he ranks.

38 pressures (1st)
30 hurries (1st)
22 solo tackles (1st)
35 combined tackles (1st)
17 solo run stops (1st)
29 combined run stops (1st)
8 tackles for loss (3rd)
5.5 sacks (7th)

His sack total is only 2.5 behind Danielle Hunter and TJ Watt for the league lead (eight). Which means basically he could potentially jump up from 7th to 1st in one game. He’s had one multiple sack game this season and has only once this season been held without a sack.

Two weeks ago he was named Offensive Player of the week when he had four tackles for loss and a sack against the Packers.

Trevor Penning is developing into the player the Saints knew he could be

Trevor Penning is developing into the player the Saints knew he could be. The young left tackle is getting better each week:

There weren’t many positives to write about in the wake of the New Orleans Saints’ big loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday, but left tackle Trevor Penning deserves some praise. The second-year pro was a rare bright spot on offense, allowing just two pressures on 47 snaps in pass protection and dominating as a run blocker — the Saints averaged 5.3 yards per carry running behind the left side of their line but just 3.1 yards per attempt when running to the right.

Sure, Derek Carr didn’t get great use out of the time Penning bought for him. At the end of the day the offense only put 9 points on the board. But we’ll take wins where we can get them, and Penning won most of his reps against a talented Buccaneers rotation at right end. Neither Shaquil Barrett nor Joe Tryon-Shoyinka made much headway against him. Most of their pressures came from the other end of the line.

Penning has gotten better each week. Here are the pressures he’s allowed in each of the Saints’ first four games, per Pro Football Focus charting:

  • Week 1 vs. Titans: 6 pressures (2 sacks)
  • Week 2 at Panthers: 4 pressures (1 sack)
  • Week 3 at Packers: 1 pressure (0 sacks)
  • Week 4 vs. Bucs: 2 pressures (0 sacks)

That’s progress. He’s had two solid games in back-to-back weeks, and that’s exactly what the Saints hoped to see from him. Penning needs to keep up the good work and hone his craft while stacking up wins in the trenches.

One more thing: Penning was forecast to be a penalty magnet in the NFL, owing to his violent style of play in college, and that seemed to be the case in the offseason when he was sidelined at a couple of practices for fighting with his teammates. But he’s kept himself clean in games while avoiding hurting the team with penalties. Penning has been fouled just twice on 268 snaps this season, and one of those (a holding penalty) was declined. The other was a false start. He isn’t racking up personal fouls and giving opponents chunks of yardage the way some analysts predicted.

But we’re only going into Week 5. This is encouraging progress, and we need to see more of it. Here’s hoping Penning keeps it up. We’ll take our wins where we can find them.

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Raiders DE Maxx Crosby tied for most pressures in NFL thru 4 games

No player in the NFL this season has more pressures than Maxx Crosby.

Sunday in Los Angeles Maxx Crosby added two sacks to double his season total, giving him four sacks in four games. Despite that landing him in the top six in the NFL in sacks, it’s actually low considering his overall impact on the game.

For example, his pressure numbers. Crosby has 27 pressures. And there is no one in the league who has more.

The most impressive thing about it is Crosby is a one-man wrecking crew. He has little in the way of help, whether it be from the interior defensive line getting pressure up the middle, the other end spot closing the pocket, or the secondary giving him more time to work.

No, Crosby is getting most of his pressures the old fashioned way — by beating the man in front of him and chasing down the quarterback.

Oh, and his 19 combined run stops is once again far and away better than any other pass rusher in the league.

Packers defense generating a ton of pressures but few sacks in recent weeks

The Packers have turned 49 total pressures into just 3 sacks over the last two games against Josh Allen and Taylor Heinicke.

The Green Bay Packers defense has taken its lumps this season, but as a whole, they’ve been really good at generating quarterback pressures. Unfortunately, oftentimes pressure hasn’t turned into sacks.

Green Bay enters Week 9 of the regular season seventh in pressure rate as a team, led by Rashan Gary, Preston Smith, and Kenny Clark. Gary and Clark both rank sixth in total pressures this season among their respective position groups, while Smith ranks 22nd out of all edge rushers.

As former Packers outside linebacker coach Mike Smith often said, he will take consistent pressures over sporadic sacks every day of the week. Matt LaFleur has echoed similar sentiments, recently saying that they use pressures as their measuring stick, not sacks.

Over the last two games, in particular, the Packers have been excellent at pressuring the opposing quarterback. They were credited with a whopping 29 pressures against Washington and another 20 against Buffalo. According to PFF, Taylor Heinicke was pressured on 51.4% of his dropbacks, while Josh Allen was under duress 53.3% of the time.

However, out of 49 potential sack opportunities, the Packers converted only three. In fact, despite ranking seventh in pressure rate, they rank 18th in total sacks this season – below average.

Pressure, even without a sack, can still disrupt the play, and it did these past two weeks. Both Heinicke and Allen’s completion rates were well below the mark from when they were throwing from a clean pocket. Pressure also helped the Packers’ defense generate two interceptions.

With that said, being just a half-step shy of bringing the quarterback down also led to some big plays for the offense. Allen averaged an impressive 12.8 yards per attempt when under pressure, with a pair of touchdowns. Heinicke, meanwhile, completed seven passes at 11.5 yards per completion, including a third-down conversion that effectively ended the game. He also had defenders around him on the 37-yard touchdown pass to Terry McLaurin.

It goes without saying, but not every pressure is going to turn into a sack, and some of these big plays are still going to happen. Credit also needs to be given to Allen and Heinicke for their play under duress.

But for a Packers team that has such a small margin of error, converting a few more of these pressure opportunities into sacks could certainly have an impact on the outcome of the game. More disciplined rushing lanes and the edge rushers not getting too far upfield and basically taking themselves out of the play could take away some of the opportunities that the quarterbacks have to extend plays. Soft coverages from the secondary have also provided the quarterbacks with easy outlets at times.

This season the Packers have given themselves plenty of opportunities to get after the quarterback, which is always a good thing, but an extra sack or two per game could go a long way for an underperforming defensive unit.

Saints RT Ryan Ramczyk broke Raiders DE Maxx Crosby’s 28-game streak

#Saints RT Ryan Ramczyk did something vs. Pro Bowl Raiders DE Maxx Crosby no tackle has done in 28 games, via @RossJacksonNOLA:

For the New Orleans Saints, Sunday’s win against the Las Vegas Raiders was a statement of resurgence. A momentum-building win that the team hopes can propel them to the top of an NFC South division in disarray. A lot of talk has centered around running back Alvin Kamara and other playmakers on both sides of the ball, but one elite performance deserves to be highlighted: offensive tackle Ryan Ramczyk. The All-Pro tackle has had a stellar season so far ranking in the top-15 (along with Saints left tackle James Hurst) of Pro Football Focus’s pass rushing metric among tackles who have taken at least 250 pass blocking snaps.

But Sunday was an elite individual performance that achieved something that had not been done since Dec. 13, 2020. Week 14 of the 2020 NFL season was the last time Raiders defensive end Maxx Crosby was held without a single pressure in a game. That is, until Ramczyk and the Saints did it 28 regular season games later on Sunday.

The extra layer to this already-impressive feat is that Ramczyk did this in mostly one-on-one situations. New Orleans chose to double-team Crosby only 7 total times throughout their matchup, only 3 times in pass protection. The Raiders edge defender rushed the passer 28 times, matching up with Ramczyk 19 times, 16 in one-on-one situations and never sniffed quarterback Andy Dalton.

Crosby also had matchups with Hurst on a run play during which he lined up on the offensive left side and left guard Andrus Peat as a pulling guard on another rushing snap. New Orleans did not have to dedicate resources to slowing Crosby down for 60 minutes, because Ramczyk was able to handle it on his own. The former Wisconsin Badger may be playing his way into another All-Pro season with Sunday’s game vs. a premier pass rusher being one of the highlights.

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When is it time to start worrying about the Saints pass rush?

The Saints pass rush has been slow to start against Tom Brady and Marcus Mariota, but Dennis Allen might be right to preach patience with his defensive line:

When is it time to start worrying about the New Orleans Saints pass rush? They’ve produced just one sack through two games, and they benched last year’s first-round draft pick, defensive end Payton Turner, after he struggled to make an impact in the season-opener. It’s been a pretty miserable situation to watch each week.

Now, with that said, there’s some important context to consider here. Tom Brady and Marcus Mariota have presented very different challenges to the Saints defense, so it’s understandable to see little pressure on them early on. Brady is the best quarterback in the game at reading the defense pre-snap and reacting quickly to get the ball to his receivers. Mariota is one of the better athletes you’ll see at the position around the league, and his coaches maximize that by designing a lot of throws on the run and from different launch points. As hard as Brady makes it to pressure him in the pocket, Mariota is an elusive target in the backfield.

So those are two different quarterbacks with very different play styles, and they both found success against the Saints. New Orleans doesn’t value speed off the edge; it’s why Zack Baun, an undersized sack artist in college, has been limited to a special teams role in the NFL. They want their defensive ends to be tall and long-armed to make for naturally-stout run defenders who overwhelm opponents with technique and power.

That’s a problem when you’re matched up with Brady and he’s getting the ball out in 2.32 seconds, as was the case on Sunday. The strongest ends in the NFL (and Cameron Jordan and Marcus Davenport are among them) won’t be able to beat their blocker and cover ground that fast. Brady knows that his processing speed is his strength, and he used it against them even to his detriment. His receivers dropped a couple of passes and saw many more fall incomplete because he was hurrying to get the ball out, often before they were ready for it. It’s why the Buccaneers offense gained fewer than 20 yards on all but four of their possessions, not including two kneel-downs. The Saints defense got the better of them for most of the afternoon, even if they weren’t’ sacking Brady.

What about the week before? Mariota was markedly slower to throw than Brady. He averaged 2.91 seconds before throwing, which is a lifetime in NFL terms; for context, his overall time of 3.09 seconds to throw ranks fourth-slowest among all quarterbacks to throw in both weeks this year, while Brady’s 2.26 is the fastest. And as we laid out earlier, chasing Mariota down is a unique challenge in itself. Between all of the pre-snap motion Atlanta dials up in the backfield, the designed rollouts and bootlegs, and Mariota’s real threat to take off and run, it’s another tough matchup for the Saints’ prototype at defensive end. You’re asking guys who weigh, at minimum, about 280 pounds and tower over others at 6-foot-6 to cut and turn on a dime. That’s not going to happen, or at least not happen often.

So what’s to be done? When asked about the lack of pressure, Dennis Allen expressed his satisfaction with the defensive line and preached patience, saying “The sacks will come.” Allen is known for getting blitz-happy when the situation calls for it, but he’s dialed up extra pressure on just 7 dropbacks through two weeks (out of 68 combined dropbacks for Brady and Mariota). And blitzing either of them doesn’t make sense: Brady is a master at reading those designed pressures and adjusting to the open patches of field left behind, while Mariota is the ideal athlete to tuck it and run when faced with a free running lane. Blitzing them isn’t the answer, but it could be the best path forward against other passers coming up next like Baker Mayfield, Kirk Cousins, and Geno Smith.

The Saints aren’t going to change the qualities they value in personnel and suddenly start fielding Baun or other speed rushers. They’re not going to keep playing unproductive players like Turner, either, just because he was drafted highly. Allen has a plan and a vision that has worked well (for the most part) for a few years now, and they’re going to stick to it, for better or worse.

Maybe things settle down and the back seven defenders step up to better contain these quarterbacks so that the big guys up front can get home. It’s a strategy that has worked before. We’ll have to wait it out and see. That’s still a frustrating proposition when you see an empty box score, a first rounder on the bench, and a game in the loss column.

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