The NFL is back. Many teams are still in preseason form, which isn’t very nice for my Falcons team. As we look around the league for stats and fantasy waiver wire pickups on Tuesday, I wanted to address a little something that has bothered me from my time as a Falcons fan.
“QB Pressures Mean Nothing if the QB Completes the Pass.”
Another Falcons game-day came and went and in typical Falcon fashion we ended the day with 1 sack. The lone sack came from Grady Jarrett, Not our pass rush DE Vic Beasley or Takk “I’m Good” McKinley.
Constantly, I hear about QB hits and pressures and it has to be the secondary for not providing good enough pass coverage or play calling. The answer is simple. If you can’t get to QB in time for him to be sacked then you just aren’t good enough as a pass rusher.
QB Pressures provide value on plays, certainly, however if the QB completes the pass to the check down or even standing in the pocket and taking the hit it offers no value to the defense.
Out of the 28 teams that have played as of this writing, only 2 teams have 0 sacks on the season. Jacksonville played Patrick Mahomes and the Giants played arguably the best offensive line in the NFL, so we can’t hold it too much against them but they both lost their games pretty handily.
11 teams ended up with 1 sack on the day. Out of the 11, only 4 won their games. Of those 4 winners, ALL 4 played a team that either had 1 sack or 0 sacks. Obviously, there are many factors that play into winning a football game but sacking the QB seems to be one of the underlying reasons for success in today’s NFL and unless teams can get after the QB in time or make him incomplete the pass, it’s going to be a long season for the have nots.
15 teams finished with 2+ sacks for week 1. The records of those teams totals 9-4-2.
Sack the QB or get him to incomplete the pass. That’s how you win in today’s NFL. It’s a shame my Falcons haven’t loaded our defensive front with pass rushers and unless Dan Quinn can muster up some scheme blitzes it seems we are still going to have an issue. Let’s hope the guys play a little better next week.
-J-Raz
The Other Side Sports 