Link: It’s Not Just About Sacks
Have the Jets turned the corner on pressuring the QB? Could be, according to Tim Graham on ESPN. Still, Ryan notes that it’s not all about sacks.
“Some of it has to do with the opponent you play,” Jets coach Rex Ryan said Thursday. “It’s like the reporters down in Jacksonville asked me [on a conference call to preview Sunday's game against the Jaguars] ‘You’re not getting any sacks, has that been disappointing, your pressure on the quarterback?’ We knocked down Tom Brady 23 times. Does that count for anything?”
The Jets face a lot of maximum protections because of their aggression, but in the past three games, Ryan’s gang has recorded 10 sacks and now is tied with the St. Louis Rams for 27th on the sacks chart.
In their last game before going on a bye, the Jets notched six sacks against the Miami Dolphins two weeks ago.
“Our plans haven’t changed,” Jets defensive coordinator Mike Pettine said. “We had some games where we didn’t get teams in the situations where we felt we could be a little more chaotic, when we get to third-and-long, when the threat of the run is gone and we can be a little less gap-sound and more in the overloads and some of that stuff that involves the chaos.”
Sacks can come in bunches, and for the Jets to get six in their last game against the Dolphins was a big step forward. I also think that moving around where Pace and Thomas have lined up has been a help, allowing for Pace to get after the QB and not always have to deal with the Tight End.
Bassett-good point about sacks come in bunches, I noticed that too.
IMO sacks are one the most overrated stats in football, sometimes you are going to face a QB who just WILL NOT take a sack, they will throw the ball to the other team before they let you get em on the ground.
Take Brady in Week 2, we never got to him in the sack department but we hurried his throws (which all the idiots on YES attributed to “rust”) which was the REAL reason for keeping the Pats out of the endzone.
I look at consistent QB pressure and hits on a QB throughout the course of a game as a real measure of a team’s pass rush. Jason Trusnik has two sacks, since he joined the Browns, the guy isnt exactly the second coming of LT