It counts against something. I asked an acquaintance who’s pretty high up. It was like 5 years ago but I think they have a certain budget for operations worked into the NFLPA agreement. I jokingly asked them if they could use a cash advance (my industry) or if I could do their credit card processing. He said he’d put me in touch with the right people for the cash advance but the processing is handled by the meadowlands. I laughed and told him I was jk. Idt the Jets are in the market for a short term loan. Woody, I’ll advance you $500k with a payback of $12,500/week for 52 weeks. If you want to buy Chelsea, I can help make it happen
Defensive players in particular LB and DL don’t go into the HOF for having the most hurries. No one has been able to give any solid data on the actual effects of hurries, for every incompletion that a hurry produces there is a positive play where a QB avoids the pressure by escaping the pocket or moving up into the pocket and makes a productive play. If hurries were that effective no one would be scoring in the NFL, with the exception of Brady no QB has that much time to throw, the pocket always breaks down and QB has to make a decision. The NFL average for a QB with a 7 step drop to throw the ball is 3 seconds, that means there will be pressure or hurry within 5 seconds, what that says to me is that hurries mean very little because teams are still moving the ball. JD and Saleh said it, “they don’t like the fact that their FA signings have missed so many games.” It’s not an insult towards Lawson but I can guarantee if they had to do it over again, they wouldn’t sign him to that type of money based on his injury history.
I have been saying this on this board for quite some time. I even used the Buffalo vs Chiefs game as proof that hurries are overrated. Bills have best defense in football and best secondary in football, that game showed Bills defense hurry Mahomes all game and he still escaped the pressure and made plays over and over despite the amount of pressure he was under. That’s why Bills went out and signed Miller to a big time contract, they need someone who can stop the play period!
Where is the data for when the QB gets out and makes a play. Brett Farve threw the most interceptions in the history of the NFL and he’s considered one of the greatest to play the game. I have already admitted that there will be a bad play made by the QB, an interception or an incomplete pass. What the data doesn’t show is how many times they escaped the pressure or hurry and made a play keeping the drive alive or scoring a TD. No one who uses analytics will put that down on paper because it will disprove the hurries fallacy.
The data shows what you want. The times the QB gets away and makes a play is reflected in that data as their QB rating drastically decreases when under pressure. That data includes the good QB play and the poor QB play. It might not have as big an impact on the next play as a sack but then again pressures often result in sacks by other players, ends a drive, causes a turnover or leaves the opposition in a 3rd and long. Pressures often result in other players like Jordan Jenkins getting sacks when he led the Jets in sacks. Many people have argued with data that pressures are much more consistent and a better reflection of what you will get year by year in a player. It certainly is debatable the absolute value of pressures vs. sacks and whether pressures are a better indicator of future player performance but to argue pressures have no value is a bit over the top. Pretty much everyone who watched Lawson dominate in camp and intra-squad scrimmages last year agreed he was ready for a monster year and was clearly the best player on the field every time he stepped on the field. I would not want to go into the weeds to far here as I don't agree with the way NC phrased his post but NC was right about the Bills poster's post about Lawson being absurd. His post was either a troll post or completely lacking in substance and knowledge which essentially becomes both.
"Pressures" are a useless statistic. If they changed the name to "failed tackle" or "missed sack" it would still mean the same thing as far as what happens on the field. When you watch a football game, the QB gets the ball out in like 2 secs, a "pressure" just means the defender is a second short of making a play, and boy does that happen a lot
Pressures used to matter when they were tied to QB Hits, but players aren't allowed to touch most QBs these days. Now pressures are second runner up to being effective.
I agree with 99% of this and you have a great read on the pressures vs. sacks debate, but the only thing Bills over Jets said was that he didn't think Lawson was "that good". It was a pretty mild take even if someone disagrees with it.
I mean, this is quantifiably not the case as @Noam showed. Pressures do have a negative impact on plays. QB's who feel like they have to rush things are much more prone to inaccurate throws leading to incompletions or interceptions. My personal stance is that sacks are more meaningful because they usually end drives and guys who get a lot of sacks usually get a lot of pressures anyway. Pressures absolutely do have an impact though. There's also an argument that the market undervalues pressures so you get more bang for your buck signing guys in free agency who have high pressure rates but low sack numbers. Lawson is a weird one where his pressure rate has consistently been very high over his career but he's never been able to convert many of them to sacks.
Sacks are 100% meaningful but I believe they are more difficult to project from year to year unless a pass rusher is truly elite ala the TJ Watts of the world. If you have a handful of guys with the ability to generate pressure frequently, one of them will get home. When you only have one or two guys generating pressure, the QB is probably going to break out of the pocket in today's NFL. Both stats have their place. You need pressure to generate sacks, but eventually, they need to be converted into sacks.
"Hurried: Times QBs were hurried - defined as a situation when the QB is forced to throw the ball earlier than intended or is chased around/out of the pocket as the result of defensive pressure." Having the QB throw the ball earlier than intended is a good thing. So is him throwing the ball away in order to avoid a sack, which is counted as a hurry. Not sure why people think that the majority of the time when a QB is hurried he avoids the pressure and throw a 30 yard TD. Doomsday mentality I guess.
What stat should I use? I also mentioned tackles but averaging 20 tackles a year isn't great. I could have brought up hurries but I believe the season he ranked highest in hurries was only about 37th highest. He is s good player but we need a player that can get to the QB consistently. He is going to need to have the best season of his career to make that $15m salary palatable
I meant when Mosley signed in 2019, got injured, then opted out in 2020. I could see fans being frustrated that Lawson instantly got injured too, with how much they were being paid and the difference makers we thought they would be. And yeah, understood about Lawson. We know he is injury prone, and coming off a major injury, but I definitely have high hopes for him. Looks like he is putting in the work too. All we can ask for at the moment.
The difference between Lawson and Mosley is that Mosley was already a great player when they signed him, who demonstrated success. Lawson never did.
