Sack statistics don't lie
QBs who eat turf don't taste victory
By Lori Nickel of the Journal Sentinel
Posted: Nov. 10, 2009
Green Bay Packers coaches worry that the sacks are taking a physical toll on quarterback Aaron Rodgers.
They worry because a drive with a sack usually means a drive without a touchdown.
They worry about the next game against the Dallas Cowboys and linebacker DeMarcus Ware.
They worry that what they consider correctable has not yet, in fact, been corrected.
"It's caused a little bit of heartache, certainly," offensive coordinator Joe Philbin said.
Coaches have another reason to worry. The most-sacked NFL teams and quarterbacks in the last decade did not win.
Rodgers has been sacked an NFL-high 37 times through the first half of the season. If that holds up for the second half, he will come close to David Carr's undesirable record of being sacked 76 times in 2002. Not surprisingly, his Houston Texans finished 4-12.
Rodgers doesn't even want the Packers record, much less the NFL one. Don Majkowski was sacked 47 times in 1989, the most in a season in team history. And quarterbacks with mud- and grass-streaked uniforms tend to be on teams that don't win a lot of games.
Last year, San Francisco led the way with 55 sacks and finished 7-9. Detroit was 0-16 with 52 sacks. In 2007, Kansas City (4-12) and San Francisco (5-11) each had 55 sacks.
In 2006 and '07, no quarterback was sacked more than Detroit's Jon Kitna. He was sacked 51 times in 2007 and 63 in 2006. Now Tony Romo's backup in Dallas, the 13-year pro was as tough as they come for Detroit, getting up after every one of those sacks.
Despite them, he set Lions records for completions (372) and attempts (596) and was only the second Lions passer to throw for 4,000 yards in a season in 2006. He threw for 4,000 yards again in 2007.
But those numbers don't matter as much as these: the Lions finished 7-9 in 2007 and 3-13 in '06.
Then there's Carr. As if 2002 wasn't bad enough, he was sacked 68 more times in 2005, the most in the NFL that year. Houston won two games.
In 2006, Oakland gave up 72 sacks, Andrew Walter got 46 of them and the Raiders also finished 2-14.
In 2004, Chicago led the NFL with 66 sacks; it finished 5-11. Again Houston's Carr was sacked 49 times, more than any other quarterback; Houston finished 7-9. By contrast, the Packers' Brett Favre was sacked a measly 12 times all year.
Go back further and the unsettling correlation remains. In 2003, Drew Bledsoe took 49 of Buffalo's 51 sacks - both led the NFL - and the Bills finished 6-10.
Detroit (2-14), Atlanta (7-9), Jacksonville (6-10), Carolina (7-9) and Cleveland (2-14) are all teams that led the NFL in giving up sacks and all had losing records from 1999-2001. The '99 Lions were sacked 64 times (Charlie Batch 36) and had the best team finish in this analysis at 8-8.
Too many sacks on bad teams that lost.
If there's a bright spot - and this is a stretch - it's Green Bay's scoring clip and that the sacks haven't completely killed the offense.
"You want to minimize the sacks for certain reasons," quarterbacks coach Tom Clements said. "No. 1, for the health of the quarterback, but I heard a stat once: If you have a drive with a sack in it, it's almost 90% certain you're not going to score. It's hard to make up for the lost yardage."
The Packers went into the game against Tampa Bay on Sunday having scored no touchdowns on drives in which they allowed a sack. Rodgers finally broke that drought in the fourth quarter against the Buccaneers, scoring on a 12-yard run after being sacked moments earlier.
Despite that futility, Green Bay is scoring an average of 26.9 points per game, tied for eighth in the NFL. It has gotten help from its defense to create turnovers or make impressive stops to give the ball back to the offense. The offense also hasn't turned the ball over too much.
And if a team is talented enough, it can withstand a reasonably high number of sacks.
New England's Matt Cassel provided that anomaly when he led the NFL with 47 sacks last year filling in for the injured Tom Brady. New England missed the playoffs but was 11-5.
Still, the Packers don't want Rodgers to get sacked this much.
On Monday, coach Mike McCarthy insisted the problems with sacks were correctable.
"We don't need wholesale change. We may need to adjust some things and that will be our focus," he said. "I'm not going to sit here and tell you that I have all the answers, but I'm very confident in the issues that we've had in pass protection, that they are correctable."
Philbin explained that the track record was the reason why. In 2006 and 2007, the Packers had 21 and 15 sacks of Brett Favre, respectively. Last year, Rodgers was sacked 34 times.
"So we have confidence in our schemes," Philbin said. "I think we know how to protect the quarterback from a schematic standpoint. I don't think our players are making a lot of mental errors. We believe in the fundamentals we teach, we just have to do it more on a consistent basis and a better basis.
"And you have to give those other guys a little bit of credit; obviously we're playing teams that are well-coached and they have some good players and at different points in time they've gotten the upper hand on our guys. We're not accepting that, but that's the reality when you watch the film."
Clements said with certainty that the sacks have not taken a mental toll on Rodgers, but he is worried about the physical bashing.
"It's something that's obviously a concern," Clements said. "It's not one area. It's not just the line, it's not just the quarterback. It's a unit problem and we're going to work on it and fix it as a unit.
"There's still a long way to go in the season. It's a problem that's been there. And we're aware of it. And we've taken steps to correct it and we will continue to until we get it right."