While the Patriots pass rushers have been slow to pick up sacks this year — they have eight sacks through four games, 10th in the AFC — they still have done plenty to pressure the quarterback.
After hitting Baltimore quarterback Joe Flacco a season-high 10 times on Sunday, the Patriots now are only seven quarterback hits behind a group of teams tied for the top spot in the NFL — the Patriots have 22 quarterback hits on the season, while the Saints, Vikings, Bears and Bills are all tied for first with 29.
The Patriots were not able to force any interceptions as a direct result of their pressure on Sunday — Flacco’s one pick was the result of miscommunication between the quarterback and the receiver. But when you consider Flacco was hit on more than 20 percent of his dropbacks, it was enough to make Patriots coach Bill Belichick happy.
“I thought we had good pressure on him most of the day, to tell you the truth — not all the time, certainly, but we hit him plenty,” Belichick said.
“We got good pressure up the middle from Mike Wright, Terdell Sands on a few plays, Myron [Pryor], Jarvis [Green], when he was in there,” Belichick added. “I thought we were gaining on them. We didn’t always get there, but we were gaining on them, we did hit them a few times.”
“I think we did a good job of getting to [Flacco],” said linebacker Tully Banta-Cain. “He’s a talented quarterback and he wasn’t able to make some of the throws that he would have normally been able to make if it wasn’t for the pressure that was put on him.”
Overall, Wright leads the team with five quarterback hits this season. Ty Warren has four, while Banta-Cain and Gary Guyton have three each. In addition, Brandon McGowan, Adalius Thomas and Green each have two and Derrick Burgess has one. When it comes to sacks, the Patriots have eight: Wright (3) and Banta-Cain (2) lead the way, while Warren, Thomas and Burgess have one each.
However, while sacks are universally accorded as the premier way to measure how much pressure a defense can get on a quarterback, it can be an imperfect stat. Michael Tanier, contributing editor of Footballoutsiders.com, said sack totals can be misleading for several reasons.
“Sacks are largely a matter of opportunity,” Tanier said. “A defense that faces a lot of bad offensive lines will have artificially high sack totals. Conversely, a team that faces the Colts and Titans twice per year may record fewer sacks but still get some pressure.
“[Also], sacks are very situation dependant. They are more common in long-distance situations and obvious passing downs. Some teams stay out of sack trouble just by being very good on first and second downs, avoiding third-and-long.”
Tanier said a better barometer is to look at numbers such as quarterback hits, interceptions, forced fumbles, and the opposing quarterback statistics.
“If opposing QBs are only completing 51 percent of their passes, the defense is probably pressuring some incompletions,” Tanier said.
According to some Patriots defenders, it’s also important to recognize there are some quarterbacks who are more sackable than others. Through four games, the Patriots have faced one very sackable quarterback (Trent Edwards has been sacked 16 times through four games, second-worst in the league), one who is good at avoiding the rush (Mark Sanchez, who has taken nine sacks) and two elusive ones (Flacco, who has been sacked five times, and Matt Ryan, who has only been sacked twice).
“It just depends on the quarterback," Banta-Cain said. “Some quarterbacks will have pressure in their face, but they’re not taking a sack. They’re going to throw the ball out of bounds or they’re going to force a throw that might not necessarily have been the best throw if they weren’t under pressure.”
For the pass-rushers such as Banta-Cain and Burgess, the goal is to build on that strong performance they had against the Ravens going into this week against the Broncos.
“It started in training camp, but I think now we’re a quarter of the way through the season, we’re starting to build off some good defensive performances,” Banta-Cain said. “And hopefully, we can use it this week against Denver.”
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