Positional Analysis – Linebackers

The first post in this series was on Defensive Backs.  Now it’s time to move to the Linebackers.  Again, these advanced stats are from the Football Outsiders Almanac 2009, from their Game Charting Project.  With the major changes made to the linebacker group this year, it will be very hard to get any useful information from these numbers, but I will at least make the effort… 

Here’s a recap of some of the Football Outsider stats:

Plays: Total number of Plays including Tackles, Passes Defensed, Interceptions, Forced Fumbles, and Fumble Recoveries (Special Teams tackles are not included).

Stop: Total number of Plays that prevent "success" by the Offense (success is defined by 45% of yards needed on first down, 60% of yards needed on second down, and 100% of yards needed on third and fourth down).

Defeat: Prevent Offense from converting a first down on third or fourth down, a Tackle behind the Line of Scrimmage, or a Play that results in a Fumble or an Interception.

Run Yards (RunYd): Average Yards gained on Runs this defender makes the Tackle.

Stop Rate: Percentage of Run Tackles that were a Stop.

Targets: Number of plays this defender was listed in coverage.

Success Rate: Percentage of Pass Plays that the Offense did not have a successful play.  This includes Interceptions, Incompletes, and short gains that do not meet the baseline for "success".

Adjusted Pass Yards (AdjYd): Average Yards gained on plays with this defender listed in coverage, with a slight adjustment for quality of the Wide Receiver.

Rank: These are the ranks for the various stats.  There were 89 Linebackers that made enough Plays to be ranked.

DVOA: The majority of the ratings featured on FootballOutsiders.com are based on DVOA, or Defense-adjusted Value Over Average. DVOA breaks down every single play of the NFL season to see how much success offensive players achieved in each specific situation compared to the league average in that situation, adjusted for the strength of the opponent.

For more info on Football Outsider stats, check here.

Outside Linebackers

One thing we can all agree on – and these numbers generally support – is the idea of addition by subtraction.   Keith Brooking is an all-time Falcons great, but he was a below average linebacker (to put it kindly) last year.  He was near the very bottom of the league in Stop Rate, Success Rate, and AdjYd; he was slightly better in RunYds, but still in the bottom half of the league.

via alt.coxnewsweb.com

His replacement at the weakside is Mike Peterson.  While he has looked very good in limited action in the first two preseason games, his numbers don’t look too much better than Brooking’s.  His Run Defense numbers are slightly better, but that could be something as simple as him playing MLB instead of OLB.  His numbers in coverage were almost as bad as Brooking’s (they had the exact same Success Rates, but Brooking was giving up 1.3 more AdjYd).  Peterson’s numbers in 2007 were even worse than last year, although he did miss 6 games with a broken hand.

Another addition to the linebacker group is Jamie Winborn.  He is strictly here for depth, as he has only started 32 of his 92 career games, but his numbers are fairly encouraging.  He is not a pass rusher (0.5 Sacks in each of the last two years), and he shouldn’t be used in coverage (7.2 and 7.1 AdjYd in ’08 and ’07, respectively).  But he looks to be a good Run Stopper (with good Stop Rates and decent RunYds the last two years), especially when you consider the awful Defensive Line the Broncos fielded in front of him.

Michael Boley is another guy the team decided to let sign elsewhere after last year.  In past years, he always looked great in these advanced stats, but he was a liability versus the run last year (even though the move originally surprised me, the coaches were absolutely right that he needed to be replaced on Run downs).  He was in the bottom 7 of all ranked linebackers in both Stop Rate and RunYds.  He was, however, still very good in pass coverage – ranking in the top third of the league in Success Rate and AdjYds.

via www.atlantafalcons.com

The favorite to replace Boley at strongside is Stephen Nicholas.  The problem here is that he hasn’t been on the field enough to post many statistics (hopefully everybody read the story of why he wasn’t on the field much last year).  There are no advanced stats from last year to confirm it, but I seem to remember him performing fine in coverage when he was on the field in the Nickle package.  Plus, his 1.0 Sacks last year was 1 more than Brooking and Boley combined.

Coy Wire started in place of Boley at the end of last season, but he was involved in only 21 "Plays", so he’s not ranked.  But the raw numbers look decent: his 3.1 RunYds were the best of the team’s linebackers last year, and his numbers in coverage were at worst average – 51% Success Rate and 4.7 AdjYd.

Middle Linebacker

via cdn.bleacherreport.com

Now we get to the star of the show, Curtis Lofton.  He was simply fantastic as a rookie.  He had a 70% Stop Rate (#25), and was credited with 69 Run "Plays" (17 more than Brooking, while only playing two downs).  His 3.9 RunYds was a little high, but with Peria Jerry, Trey Lewis, and other changes along the D-Line, plus that extra year of experience, hopefully his average tackle will be about a yard closer to the line of scrimmage this year.  He was only credited with 15 Targets, but his numbers in coverage looked great in that limited time – 67% Success Rate (10% better than Boley) and 4.0 AdjYd (1.4 yards better than Boley).  He also had 13 Defeats in part-time duty (Brooking and Boley each had 14).  I am certainly expecting big things from Lofton this year.

Final Thoughts

Here are two big problems for this year:

1)     The Linebackers only had 2.0 Sacks last season, good for #29 in the NFL as a percentage of total Sacks (and D-Backs had zero), even though VanGorder sent 6+ Rushers 8.6% of the time (#14 in the league) and 7+ Rushers 3.0% of the time (#5 in the league).  Either VanGorder is going to have to trust the Front Four to put pressure on the QB, or these new Linebackers (and D-Backs) that blitz are going to have to actually get to the QB so the team isn’t exposed to the big play.

2)     The Linebackers will probably still be below average in Pass Coverage.  Not awful like last year, mind you, but below average (the team was 28th in DVOA vs. Tight Ends and 29th vs. Running Backs).  Lofton should be fine, and Peterson will be better than Brooking, but still not great.  That leaves Nicholas – I don’t know what to expect from him, but he will almost certainly be worse than Boley in his first year starting.

I think this unit is much improved from last year, but I still worry it will possibly be the weakest unit on Defense this season.