El Minion
05-30-2008, 09:41 PM
FO Mailbag: Asante Samuel vs. Ellis Hobbs (http://www.footballoutsiders.com/2008/05/30/extra-points/6310/)
Tommy Greenbaum: Asante Samuel seems to have done pretty well by your individual cornerback stats, but when one looks at your overall cornerback stats for the Patriots, they had a tough time with No. 1 receivers. Were other teams lining up their number 2 and number 3 receivers against Asante?
With the book now done, I can actually answer e-mail questions again every so often. This one is kind of fun because I did some similar analysis for a couple of teams in the book.
The answer is that top cornerbacks cover the other team’s top receivers much, much less than people think. In the book, we have a stat called “CB1 on WR1″ that measures the percentage passes listed with the top corner in coverage where the top corner is covering the other team’s number-one wide receiver. The league average is 45 percent. The highest team, San Francisco (Nate Clements) is still only 63 percent and the only other team over 54 percent is the Giants (Sam Madison). So other than those two teams, the top cornerback is basically covering someone other than a number-one wide receiver at least half the time. The Patriots rank 19th at 43 percent. (Denver with Champ Bailey is ranked LAST, which shows you what a completely screwed up defensive strategy they had in Denver last year.)
Anyway, because of this, the top three corners are splitting up all the wide receivers, and Samuel is the best against pretty much each type of receiver, although the numbers against number twos are a little strange, apparently Samuel gave up lots of short first downs and Ellis Hobbs got burnt a few times but was otherwise good. These numbers are the ADJUSTED yards per pass and Success Rate that we’re introducing in the book, adjusted for opponent.
vs. #1 WR (yards per pass, Success Rate)
22-A.Samuel 5.8 51%
27-E.Hobbs 8.6 45%
21-R.Gay 8.1 52%
vs. #2 WR (yards per pass, Success Rate)
22-A.Samuel 5.7 48%
27-E.Hobbs 9.7 61%
21-R.Gay 6.5 57%
vs. Other WR (yards per pass, Success Rate)
22-A.Samuel 7.2 64%
27-E.Hobbs 6.7 52%
21-R.Gay 9.5 48%
Add in that Samuel covered nearly as many passes to “other wide receivers” as he did to number-one wideouts, and you get the situation where the Patriots can rank lower against number ones than they do against number twos and other wide receivers even though one cornerback was far better than the others.
For those curious, this comes up in the book in two places: first, to ask why the individual numbers for Fakhir Brown and Tye Hill are so good when the team pass defense numbers for the Rams are so bad, and second, to ask who is right about Roderick Hood — our numbers (which love him) or the scouts (who think he’s a overpaid nickel back).
PFP 2008 — on sale mid-July!
posted 5-30-2008 at 2:50 PM by Aaron Schatz || Extra Poin
Tommy Greenbaum: Asante Samuel seems to have done pretty well by your individual cornerback stats, but when one looks at your overall cornerback stats for the Patriots, they had a tough time with No. 1 receivers. Were other teams lining up their number 2 and number 3 receivers against Asante?
With the book now done, I can actually answer e-mail questions again every so often. This one is kind of fun because I did some similar analysis for a couple of teams in the book.
The answer is that top cornerbacks cover the other team’s top receivers much, much less than people think. In the book, we have a stat called “CB1 on WR1″ that measures the percentage passes listed with the top corner in coverage where the top corner is covering the other team’s number-one wide receiver. The league average is 45 percent. The highest team, San Francisco (Nate Clements) is still only 63 percent and the only other team over 54 percent is the Giants (Sam Madison). So other than those two teams, the top cornerback is basically covering someone other than a number-one wide receiver at least half the time. The Patriots rank 19th at 43 percent. (Denver with Champ Bailey is ranked LAST, which shows you what a completely screwed up defensive strategy they had in Denver last year.)
Anyway, because of this, the top three corners are splitting up all the wide receivers, and Samuel is the best against pretty much each type of receiver, although the numbers against number twos are a little strange, apparently Samuel gave up lots of short first downs and Ellis Hobbs got burnt a few times but was otherwise good. These numbers are the ADJUSTED yards per pass and Success Rate that we’re introducing in the book, adjusted for opponent.
vs. #1 WR (yards per pass, Success Rate)
22-A.Samuel 5.8 51%
27-E.Hobbs 8.6 45%
21-R.Gay 8.1 52%
vs. #2 WR (yards per pass, Success Rate)
22-A.Samuel 5.7 48%
27-E.Hobbs 9.7 61%
21-R.Gay 6.5 57%
vs. Other WR (yards per pass, Success Rate)
22-A.Samuel 7.2 64%
27-E.Hobbs 6.7 52%
21-R.Gay 9.5 48%
Add in that Samuel covered nearly as many passes to “other wide receivers” as he did to number-one wideouts, and you get the situation where the Patriots can rank lower against number ones than they do against number twos and other wide receivers even though one cornerback was far better than the others.
For those curious, this comes up in the book in two places: first, to ask why the individual numbers for Fakhir Brown and Tye Hill are so good when the team pass defense numbers for the Rams are so bad, and second, to ask who is right about Roderick Hood — our numbers (which love him) or the scouts (who think he’s a overpaid nickel back).
PFP 2008 — on sale mid-July!
posted 5-30-2008 at 2:50 PM by Aaron Schatz || Extra Poin