QB attributes- Sense Rush

[flair1234]

I am looking for opinions on the value of the QB attributes.

I have been ruminating on this for a while. I think I have been undervaluing: Timing, Sense Rush, read defense...etc. While overvaluing the Screen through Deep pass ratings.

I am not good at copying screens. But what made me think of this is my current SP season QB Blake Carper. He is 68/68 overall and a 10 year vet who puts up excellent touchdown to int ratios year after year; completes 62%-64% of his passes year after year. However he takes an average of 4 sacks per game. Pretty much regardless of the quality of Line in front of him. As a result he fumbles more often than I would like and also we end up in many unfavorable situations, and are not able to go long consistently.
Blake Carper has a "0" for "Sense Rush".

When you guys are evaluating QB prospects, what bars do you really want to see?

[Hammer]

I believe sense rush is the most important attribute.

Below is a snip of a post from the GEFL highlighting a quick, crude study I did when looking into sense rush. It came about when the opportunity arose to trade for a very high sense rush QB (Murray), for our very low one (Cunningham)



All variables kept the same bar the QB, 10 seasons ran in each scenario. One QB had 92 sense rush, the other 26.

92 sense rush guy - averaged 20.3 sacks per season

26 sense rush guy - averaged 46.8 sacks per season.


During this testing fumbles on sacks were roughly 20%. I thought that was a lot, maybe 15% would be more accurate on a guy with decent avoid fumbles. Roughly speaking 8 or 9 fumbles for mr. 26 sense rush, 3 or 4 for mr 92 sense rush, all things being equal. We know Murray's avoid fumbles is 80ish. Cunningham's avoid fumbles in unknown, but even if it is as good as Murray's or better, he is going to drop quite a few. If its poor, you could be look at as many as 15 in a season. Bart didn't fumble a single ball this past year...

The Packers QB Warren Moon has similar sense rush - roughly 50 sacks a year 12-14 fumbles. Sure the offensive line plays a big part, but not as big as you might think. The QBs sense rush seems a bigger factor than pass blocking skills on the O Line! Looking at career sack leaders in most leagues, playing time being equal it is the guys with low sense rush - not bad pass blocking lines that seem to be on top.

Take Bill Kenney, a league leading 61 sacks taken last year. Look at the quality of his OL - the man should be ashamed of himself. :)

So apart from the 26 extra sacks, we can expect rough 5 extra fumbles from mr.26 sense rush. Maybe we forget those for this purpose as Cunningham is likely to throw less picks when in his prime. However, I'm not concerned about Murray's avoid ints, Bart is only around 50 and threw 8 in 16 games in our current offense. I believe Murray has the tools to run the current offense on further inspection, all he is missing on Bart is accuracy. Cohesion may have an impact in the short term, but in the long term we can expect improved performance on this past year from the QB position, with Murray as our guy.

So that leaves us with 26 sacks between between our 2 sample QBs. I don't think thats where sense rush ends though. Possibly hurries will cause more incompletions for mr.26, not sure.

So, lets look at the evidence. 1986 hurries. Green Bay, Cincinnati and Minnesota hurried 90+ times. Warren Moon - 13 sense rush in Green bay. The Bert and Boomer in Cincy. Boomer takes 18 sacks in 7 games (30 sense rush), The Bert 11 in 9 (69 sense rush). Can't find the hurries on each guy. Jaws in Minny, 48 sense rush.

So who didn't get hurried much? You have Murray and Bart down there, 90+ sense rush. Then you have the Jets and Oilers who have fairly low sense rush guys. I think we have to conclude hurries may not be related to sense rush.

I am pretty sure that the "dances around" message in solevision is related to sense rush. I think that will have further impact. A tough one to judge, but you could argue where one guy takes a sack, the other guy dances around to find a completion - big swing there.

Not to say a guy with low sense rush can never be successful. Phil Simms posted a league leading 113.3 rating for Atlanta you might point out - he has 26 sense rush. What that doesn't tell you is he took 46 sacks. He probably did well to "only" fumble 8 times.

Bart posted a 105.4 year, but he was sacked 20 times and didn't fumble - who had the better year? I'm not trying to argue Bart is better than Simms, I don't think he is. When you think about that QB rating in isolation though, it doesn't give you a true picture of a QBs impact in the game.

According to the passer rating formula, you’re a better quarterback if you get sacked for a 13-yard loss than if you throw the ball away.

[cuervo72]

With a rating of '0', I'm surprised he took that few. In IHOF, I had a player (http://www.fof-ihof.com/player/player.php?playerid=3202) with a rating better than that (30's mabye?) who was sacked nine times in a game twice, and eight times in a playoff contest. The one year he saw real action he was sacked 38 times in nine games. That was in 2k4 - I don't have any evidence avoid rush was toned down in 2k7, though it may have been. But in the past, it could be crippling to a QB.

[QuikSand]

While it's getting a bit difficult to trace exactly when various things were tweaked... I believe that in one of the various FOF 2007 patches, the effect of the sense rush rating was toned down. I think it may have been in the latest 6,1 patch, but I have honestly just lost track.

In any event... I haven't seen anyone try to really quantify how big a deal it was then and is now, but for certain there was a point where the SR rating was arguably the single most important one for a QB, and a near-zero rating made even a skilled passer basically a liability. We have heard less screeching about it lately, so I'm guessing it's less so now, but it did seem to be far too big a factor at one point, at least.

[Hammer]

The stats I mention were with the latest patch.

[flair1234]

The stats I mention were with the latest patch.

I can kind of unofficially second this. With Carper of the 10 seasons he has played, the last (2) have been under the new patch.

The amount of sacks he has taken has been fairly constant, Although in my last complete season my O-line always had at least 3 of our starters injured (another issue altogether); so the last 64 sack season was behind a "replacement grade" offensive line.

[Hammer]

Its seems to me even with a very good pass blocking line a low sense rush QB still gets sacked a lot. That bar seems to matter as much or more than the whole line! I think its much like real life though, some QBs just hold the ball that bit too long and won't give up on a play.

[BradS]

Sense rush and new QB. Now I know why sacks have doubled this year.

[MIJB#19]

It's probably a long shot, but maybe the # of sacks has a small correlation with the length of passes? I mean, by using common sense, it makes sense that quarterbacks who employ a lot of long passing will have a better than average chance to get sacked. It may also depend on how many players you generally keep in the box to protect your quarterback. Maybe increasing RB/FB/TE pass blocking percentage would help? (This is all pure speculation, no testing has been done to defend what I wrote here.)

[RedKingGold]

It's probably a long shot, but maybe the # of sacks has a small correlation with the length of passes? I mean, by using common sense, it makes sense that quarterbacks who employ a lot of long passing will have a better than average chance to get sacked. It may also depend on how many players you generally keep in the box to protect your quarterback. Maybe increasing RB/FB/TE pass blocking percentage would help? (This is all pure speculation, no testing has been done to defend what I wrote here.)

I do think this does have an effect. Even w/o changing RB/FB/TE pass blocking, short passes have a much higher percentage of success (i.e. completion) than long passes. Thus, when you a attempt a long pass, a lot more bad things are likely to happen than with a short, and a QB with a below-average sense-rush will get the "sack the QB" dice roll more often on a long pass than a short pass.

[Hammer]

Totally agree with that. Short passes are less likely to produce sacks. If you have a guy with decent short passing and YAC receivers low sense rush isn't the end of the world I don't think. With Cunningham (GEFL) his strength was in the longer routes, which was why we didn't know what to do with him.

[michael1123]

My QB has a great sense rush rating, but it just seems to lead to a lot more hurries as opposed to sacks.

Sure, a hurry is a lot better than losing yardage and possibly fumbling the ball, but it doesn't seem like a QB with a high sense rush ability will turn sacks into completed passes.

Plus, a bigger concern in terms of fumbles is the hidden fumble rating. Fumble prone quarterbacks do greatly annoy me.

[miked]

What about a QB that has a low sense rush, but a fairly good pass protecting line? I imagine it wouldn't cure things, but I would hope it would help significantly.

[Izulde]

What about a QB that has a low sense rush, but a fairly good pass protecting line? I imagine it wouldn't cure things, but I would hope it would help significantly.

It does help a lot having a high-quality pass-protection line, but a low sense rush QB, like Ken Stabler in my Dolphins dynasty for example, is still going to get sacked quite a bit.