The pass rush and the mobile quarterback

Colts LB Mike Curtis (#32) doing something legal to Rams QB Roman Gabriel (#18). Hey, it was the 60's, a time of peace and harmony ... and uppercuts and missing teeth and poopy pants.

In the 1969 NFL season, Roman Ildonzo Gabriel Jr., 8^th year quarterback for the Los Angeles Rams, was the league MVP. Consider Ben Roethlisberger and you have a good idea of who Roman Gabriel was as a pro quarterback. I could argue that Eli Manning showed flashes of Gabriel during the Double Miracle play in Super Bowl 42 against the then undefeated Patriots. Any time you see a quarterback dart a shovel pass off to an eligible receiver in the midst of being sacked, you see a bit of Gabriel. Of course, he wasn’t perfect. No quarterback back then was nearly the passer and game manager as today’s quarterbacks. This is especially true since quarterbacks often used to call their own plays and offenses typically featured an every-down stud of a running back carrying the load. This was an era of Jim Brown, Paul Hornung, Leroy Kelly, Jim Taylor, and Gale Sayers. In any case, he was really the first quarterback who was big and hard to take down. Therefore, he could buy time in the pocket with his size and, consequently, his mobility. All this is to say if he was fast as well, this type of resourcefulness would have driven defensive linemen to even greater fits of frustration. 

What prompts this introduction to mobile QBs and effective pass rushes is related as usual to my NY Giants and something ESPN’s Dan Graziano pointed out about the lack of success the Giants vaunted defensive front is having the first quarter of this 2012 season; they’re chasing after “mobile” QBs (Romo, Freeman, Newton, and Vick). I think this is a larger issue, but I’ll focus on just the Giants defensive line. What is it about mobile QBs that are so enticing? Clearly, few mobile QBs have had the ultimate success of winning a Super Bowl (Elway, Roethlisberger, and Young are exceptions) or being the winningest QBs. Is it that teams like the Panthers and Redskins know their personnel are not adequate to support a pocket passer? Will a mobile QB fare better on a team with a shoddy O-line and they know this already before the season starts?

To test this I crunched some numbers and I found it is not that mobile QBs are prone to significantly fewer sacks (they actually have more but it’s insignificant), but that they more frequently run and are more likely to score points for their team themselves. Furthermore, many of those that the Giants defensive front faces this year are in that category. Combined with game-planning intended to get the ball out of the QB’s hands quicker, the Giants’ pass rushers just aren’t able to make plays.

What did you do, Ryan? More number crunching bull@$#%?

What I did exactly was I gathered data on the percentage of sacks the QBs take (Sk%), rushing attempts per game (A/G), and touchdowns per game (TD/G). I did this for career and the 2012 season so far. I initially figured these parameters would bear out as fewer sacks, more rushes, and more TDs for mobile QBs. Additionally, these were the stats I could find that seemed closest to illustrating what is measurable about mobility.

Doing a statistical test of two sample's medians called a single sample sign test I tested for any differences between samples. Samples that demonstrated a significant difference between each other belong to 2012 QB rushing attempts per game in 2012 (A/G 2012) and 2012 QB rushing touchdowns per game (TD/G 2012). I also tested (for what it's worth) the 2011 and 2012 opposing QBs the Giants faced. Only the A/G and TD/G data proved significantly different.  Significant numbers are in bold and underlined in the shoddy looking table below. I didn't test means because the data are not normally distributed.

Table 1. Means and medians of data gathered for career, 2011, and 2012 seasons on sack %, QB rushing attempts per game (A/G) and QB rushing TDs per game (TD/G).

	Sk % (Career)	Sk % (2012)	A/G (Career)	A/G (2012)	TD/G (Career)	TD/G (2012)
Mean 2012 NFL Strtg QB	6.081	6.272	2.984	2.897	0.136	0.134
Median 2012 NFL Strtg QB	5.700	5.850	2.550	2.400	0.070	0.000
Mean 2012 NYG Opp QB	6.381	6.681	4.250	4.306	0.269	0.266
Median 2012 NYG Opp QB	6.550	6.700	2.650	3.250	0.094	0.250
Median 2011 NYG Opp QB		6.600		2.300		0.067

In a nutshell

The Giants pass rush is not getting after the QB this year so far because the QBs they face can move. And given any information about getting passes off quicker and inspired offensive line play opposing QBs can neutralize the threat. Unfortunately, this is likely to persist for the foreseeable future unless they find another way to get after the QB. Many of the QBs the Giants face this year are mobile. Last year, not so much. In 2011, the QBs the GMen faced were significantly less likely to run and, consequently, to score with their feet. This year, it's much more likely. This is not a good sign if it's true since the pass rush is the Giants only real counter to the passing league as their secondary is the the thinnest area in their roster.

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