The Tackle
By Matt Shervington on June 23, 2011
The tackle is perhaps the most annoying statistic in football. Not because it isn’t useful but because it is so open to interpretation. For this reason, although the tackle is tracked by the NFL and its various teams, it is not considered an official statistic.
Despite the fact that the tackle isn’t official fans often cite the tackle as a premier method to interpret how good 4-3 linebackers or strong safeties are. If a player has a high tackle total he is usually regarded as a “sideline-to-sideline” player.
Unfortunately, despite the forthcoming rambling, the tackle is probably a good indicator of these player’s abilities. The primary issue, however, is that a tackle as a simple number attributes the same value to every single tackle a player makes. Attributing the same value to a tackle that prevents a first down on third and three to a tackle that comes after a 25-yard run isn’t very fair.
However, our friends at Football Outsiders have long concocted an excellent way to objectively view the tackle to determine which ones are “better” than others.
Football Outsiders have given us the metrics of “Stops”, “Defeats”, “Yards per Play” and “Stop Rate”
The “Stop” is defined as a play in which a defensive player prevents the offense from gaining 45 percent of needed yards on first down, 60 percent on second down and 100 percent of the needed yards on third and fourth down. While passes defensed, interceptions and forced fumbles are included in this metric the overall numbers still remain reminiscent of tackles.
The “Defeat” is defined as a play by a defender that prevents the offense from earning a first down on third or fourth down. Additionally a defeat can be defined as a play behind the line of scrimmage or a forced turnover.
The “Yards per Play” metric is defined as the average distance at which a defender makes a tackle, forced fumble, interception or stuff. Football Outsiders has even done the fans the convenience of separating yards per play against the run and yards per play against the pass as well as when the two are combined.
Finally, the “Stop Rate” metric delivers the percentage of tackles, stuffs, sacks, forced fumbles and interceptions that qualified as a stop out of their total plays.
Using the stop metric alongside the defeat metric is a good way to further elaborate on tackles. Together they can tell you how many of the player’s tackles weren’t simply “garbage” or “cleanup” tackles. This does not mean that all tackles that weren’t stops or defeats were meaningless but these metrics do give a better look into when and where tackles occurred when combined with the yards per play metric.
Who should be seen as the superior player?
A guy who had 100 tackles with an average yards per play of 3.5 with 66 stops and 20 defeats or a guy who had 130 tackles but an average yards per play of 6.0 with 62 stops and 8 defeats?
The tackle totals tell you that the latter player is superior but are his 30 extra tackles really worth the 2.5 extra yards he gives up per play?
Now obviously other factors must be placed into context such as the system that a guy plays in or where on the field the tackles were made despite distance. If you want to further do some research on a player and see if they are truly a “sideline-to-sideline” tackle you can also check out their player splits page on Sports Illustrated.
For all of the aforementioned metrics you can search Football Outsiders with the player’s name to find their respective player page.
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/7...et-them/page/2