Link: Tackling Matters
While the focus on cornerbacks is usually interceptions, Pro Football Focus takes a look at what might be a more important focus for them, missed tackles, and ranks the leagues top and bottom performers.
Kyle Wilson had a better year for the Jets in 2011, but he still ranked at the bottom, 85th out of 101. While one might expect Revis to show up in the top 20, according to PFF, in 2011 he was out of that group, but did rank extremely well in run support.
In addition to being the best cornerback in the NFL–and maybe the best since Deion Sanders–Darrelle Revis also went the entire season without missing a tackle in run support. The Jets’ defensive stud made 14 solo tackles and was in on another assist in the run game without a single miss, tying him for the lead with Arizona’s A.J. Jefferson.
In total, 23 corners went without a miss against the run, but only seven of them attempted more than a dozen tackles in that area. Joining Revis and Jefferson in this group are Bradley Fletcher from the Rams, Brandon Browner of Seattle, Kareem Jackson from Houston, Carlos Rogers from the 49ers and Carolina’s Darius Butler. Antoine Winfield, of course, also showed well before his injury, and was perfect on his nine attempts before he went down hurt.
Revis’s willingness to play the run, and not just play the run but play it expertly is very important to the Jets ability to shut down teams that use runners outside the tackles, like the Bills did so well at the start of the season until they faced the Jets.
I am surprised that he didn’t rank higher in the overall missed tackles rank, but teams did start to throw at him more, and lacking the help of Jim Leonhard down the stretch, or even a competent and athletic safety unit didn’t help matters for Revis Island much either. I’ll look for Revis to stay at the same level of output, but see his stats come back in 2012.
33 Responses to Link: Tackling Matters
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jameson says:
Revis has always been incredible in run-support, it’s what makes him such a fantastic CB. He stays in your hip pocket, knows how to locate the ball, and always comes up with the big tackle.
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I can’t tell if this article is about Kyle Wilson or Darrelle Revis.
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Bent says: The linked article is about EVERY CB in the NFL.
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ahweiner says:
What about that pitiful attempt at tackling Tebow in the Denver game???
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Peter says:
How many times are people going ot bring up that Tebow run and forget the realize that Revis was lined up on the otherside of the field?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msP2CRdPgXc
There is no #24 within 30 yards, since he lined up on the otherside of the field.
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Brendan says:
Wasn’t that Cro?
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juunit says:
What, no Charles Woodson? So he’s not the best thing since sliced bread? I’ll never get over that DPOY snub, ever.
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Until Revis starts having a love affair with the media, he may never win it.
I don’t understand the Suggs pick atttttttt all.
I didn’t get the Polamalu pick the year before, and the Woodson pick the year before that. And that’s not just because I think Revis is the best defensive player in the league, in each year there were guys that should have won over the players who did. Effin’ popularity contest.
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Jeff says:
Exactly! Woodson is the best “defensive playmaker” not the best defensive player. If they voted for MVP with stats then Drew Brees would have already been a 3x MVP. That 09 snub on Revis was a travesty
I do not dispute Suggs as he is a beast.
Also everyone knows that the Steelers get a ton of media fanfare. To think that Maurkice Pouncey was 1st team All-Pro in the league this year as a center. Yes 1st team All-Pro and he was mediocre is the biggest joke ever!!! The best center in the league was Chris Myers, and he was snubbed by everyone. Mangold was the 2nd best center in the NFL, and he made 2nd team All Pro, but with Pouncey in front it makes this a joke. I guess media members don’t need stats like PFF to tell them who is good. They just put on their “black-yellow” tinted glasses
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SackDance99 says:
People on here always talk about the safeties poor pass coverage skills, but what troubled me most was the poor tackling among the DBs (and LBs). If I were evaluating free agents and draft candidates for the defense, I would but sure tackling right up there. The Leonhard’s miss on Royal in the Broncos game and the miss on Cruz by Wilson and Cro were two critical misses among many this season.
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Bent says:
Here’s the same article but for safeties:
http://www.profootballfocus.com/blog/2012/01/25/2011-tackling-the-safeties/
Pool and Leonhard are in the bottom ten, but Smith is 11th best!
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Olerud_4_LIfe says:
I thought smith was always good DB against the run as he was good at being hard hitting and tackling up front near the line. But he seems to struggle in coverage and anything out in teh open.
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Posing Steven Colbert says:
At the top of the list for Safeties is “Abram Elam” from the Dallas Cowboys
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Bent says:
Who?
Just kidding.
We know that guy can tackle (unless it’s Fred Jackson in the rain). His issue was in coverage, but he’s a little better at that these days too, from what I’ve seen.
Actually, looking back at the article, he’s number one in terms of tackling in coverage, but only 13th overall, two places behind Smith.
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jerk says:
Idc about articles about revis, he had one bad game this year and it was the bills game at home. When he has one bad game the next day the media will questioning if hes still the best or did he lose a step and this is redicolous that the media would ever say something like that. Being jet fans, we watch this hug every week and we know how dominant he is. Revis only struggles with one route and that’s the quick slant as we saw against buffalo and the only route a wr can run to neutralize him. I also think Revis had to be hurt at buffalo and at a big stretch this season. I was talking about this with my boys the other day and I brought this up that if Revis continues to do what hes doing and being this dominant for another 3 or 4 seasons, I think there’s no question that hes the best defensive back ever. I understand there’s a guy named deion and a guy named Lott but if were going to take into account that these quarterbacks great numbers has something to do with the rules of the game and the limitations on the dbacks and d linemen, if were going to acknowledge this we have to acknlowedge that Revis has been dominant with all these rules favoring the Offense.
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J from Jersey says:
Revis is hands down the best in the game … all the debate about Aso vs Revis was put to rest this past season
And Stevie Johnson played a hell of a game against Revis – you can’t discount that, he changed his timing and release from the LOS to throw Revis off … that game was a good battle
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Bent says:
Even the Bills game, though it was DR’s worst by HIS standards wasn’t that bad.
He gave up ONE first down! And Rex indicated in the postgame presser than having Revis drop off him and give up the quick slant on 2nd and 3rd and long but still preventing the first down was a deliberate part of their gameplan. I was dubious about this at first, but then I saw David Harris drop into that passing lane late in the game after the Bills had been using it all day to go from 2nd and 12 to 3rd and 3 (or whatever). He was maybe half a step away from an easy pick six, so it looks like they were setting a trap for the Bills to (a) force them into third and short type situations and (b) hopefully tempt them to throw that route when Harris was there to pick it off.
That being the case, and the extra cushion being given by design, Revis was pretty much as flawless in that one as he was in every other game. Also, when Stevie got open deep twice on the last drive, both times it was Pool’s fault, not Revis’ fault. Overall, Revis gave up 8 catches but there was a high number of targets (similar to the early season game against Marshall).
The other Bills game saw Stevie beat him downfield twice straight up (although in each situation he was in tight coverage and it was a perfect throw). Arguably that was a worse game for him than the one where Stevie had 8 catches on him.
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Revis Christ is simply amazing – the comment was directed toward the 8 catch game – where Stevie played a good game.
That game was prob the best game anyone has had against Revis in arguably 3 seasons.
We hold Revis to such a high standard – gotta love it – not sure if he’ll be better than Prime Time, but when it’s all said and done he’ll be a top 3 CB of all time
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damion says:
There can never be too much praise for the Darrelle Revis but what’s to be said about Kyle Wilson? Bust? Or too soon to call? I will never forgive him and Cro for that 99yrder that ruined Christmas. He has look downright awful at times which causes his good plays to go mainly unnoticed. Who is this guy? What is this guy? Never mind the fact he was supposed to be a factor on special teams and we’ve gotten nothing…. Hey MR.WILLLSSSON we’re waiting!
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mucky moose says:
Where does Cro rate. The Jets over paid for him bigtime.
But with a premier pass rusher all the DBs will look better.-
zep says:
Cromartie didn’t even make the list…
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tish says:
I’m always reading quotes from PFF on this site and they appear to be treated as the gurus of analysis. I was wondering how they achieved such respect,and if NFL teams follow their conclusions with the same reverence that people on here apparently do.
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Bent says:
They watch every snap of every game and chart the outcome in more detail than has ever been done before, then watch each snap again several times to chart who was on the field, what each player did and whether or not each player should be marked down or up. It’s one thing to use my BGA’s to see how well a Jets player did, but this enables us to compare each Jets’ performance to that of every other player in the league in the same detail. (However, I would strongly advise against taking their ratings as gospel because they generally aren’t adjusted for degree of difficulty – as an efficiency rating that can then be investigated further, they are great).
All their analysts do this as a full time job and they are constantly replicating their work and refining their systems to ensure that the approach to grading is accurate and consistent. Their player participation was 99.7% accurate this year.
It’s a huge operation that is almost impossible to replicate. If NFL teams are using their data (including, as a recent WSJ article revealed, the SB champion Giants who have been getting weekly information packs from them), I’d say it has merit. Players, teams and agents are all subscribers too, apparently.
Don’t necessarily take the ratings at face value, but their numbers (pass blocking efficiency, coverage numbers etc) are very accurate and the player grades do tell us plenty. For example, if I was to tell you Matthew Mulligan had a positive run blocking grade you’d probably think I was crazy, but then if I provided you with a list of all the plays where he did a good job and all the plays where he did a bad job (which I can do, because I have access to their database) then if you went back and checked those plays, it would back up the data. Does that make up for his catastrophic mistakes and multiple penalties? No…but their numbers are not plucked out of thin air and these guys watch 250 hours of football a week, so they know what they’re doing.
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mattm says:
It’s nice to watch a HOF CB every week. No one is close to Revis.
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Bent says:
Except whoever he’s covering.
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Thanks Bent. Given the labor intensity of the work, how do they make money?
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Bent says:
Tish – They don’t make a lot of money…their approach is that they are “trying to create something that’s never been done before” rather than trying to make a ton of cash.
Having said that, they make money from subscribers to their premium stats as well as charging for reports that they do for agents and teams, money they get from other sites and stats services for providing data and I think they’re planning a book too.
Until this year, their game charters were essentially unpaid but now they can afford to do so.
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Reprocity says:
“and lacking the help of Jim Leonhard down the stretch” He’s an average safety at best who gets abused by TE’s and ran over by running backs. I like him but not as a starting safety.
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joe willy says:
When all is said and done Revis may be the best that ever played the game.
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Johnny (not so much for a month) Reefer says:
+1
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Kevino says:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlgMvml3v8o
If that isn’t a missed tackle, I don’t know what is.
Or is a QB scramble not considered “run support”?
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Bent says:
I can answer this.
On PFF, if he drops back to pass, then runs, it is treated as a pass play on PFF and Revis would be treated as being in coverage (which is accurate, if you watch the play). All the linemen are pass blocking or pass rushing. Wilkerson would have got credit for a pressure on that play, but was unblocked, so no offensive lineman would have been treated as giving up a pressure. This makes sense because if Tebow dumped it off to someone other than Revis’ man, then Revis would come off his man to try and make that tackle in a similar fashion, so the fact that it turned out to be a run doesn’t change the fact that he was actually in coverage as the play developed.
If it was a designed QB run, like the play on which Tebow scored, that would be treated as a running play on PFF with all the defensive players in run support and all the blockers treated as run blocking. Smith would have had a missed tackle in run support on that play.
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Coming out of college he was a super-athletic player who was an inconsistent tackler.
That’s basically what he is right now on the Jets.
Working with Revis clearly benefit Wilson’s coverage, so maybe working with Revis again in the offseason will help him become a better tackler.