Who Holds The Ball Too Damn Long?
The linked article includes a table with mean and median sack times for every NFL QB.
As one would expect, Peyton, Eli, and Brees are doing a good job of getting the ball out in a timely fashion. Roethlisberger and Cutler are not.
I'd thought Hasselbeck was holding the ball too damn long. I've been yelling at the TV about the subject during his last couple of starts. And yet, it seems that he's doing a pretty decent job of getting rid of the ball.
Who are you going to believe? My lying eyes, or the data?
over 1 year ago
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Damn, this data does not support my belief either
I guess a 2.5s mean time for Hass with this offensive line is still too long.
He's certainly suffered sacks that happened very quickly
but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t suffered sacks because he’s held the ball too long. I’d much rather the writer listed each sack by time rather than provide the average. Or list the number above the average and below so we can have some idea how many sacks came after 2.7 seconds. When your sample is 22, five quick sacks can drastically change the average.
That's not all, really
Notice how many scrambling quarterbacks are near the top end. Basically, they are punished for their ability to avoid pressure and keep a play alive. That doesn’t make sense. If a quarterback is suffering sacks because he can not avoid pressure in the pocket, this stat treats that as an accomplishment.
Looking at it further, Hasselbeck’s median sack time on 22 sacks is 2.5, which means he’s suffered at least ten “quick sacks”—whoever’s to blame—but that doesn’t tell us how he suffered “quick sacks” or if those “quick sacks” occurred because blocking was particularly poor or because Hasselbeck was not capable of negotiating pressure.
Interesting idea, but it seems very blunt, and looking at the results, it looks much more like the results simply indicate scramblers and pocket passers.
by John Morgan on Nov 11, 2010 11:01 PM PST up reply actions
Medians really help with that problem
If you use the median, rather than the mean, then a few quick sacks aren’t going to queer your numbers. Since Hasselbeck’s mean and median are close, that seems to indicate he doesn’t have any outliers that are dragging the data around. In fact, the median is below the mean. That would indicate that there are a few long sacks that are dragging his mean sack time up.
I agree that I’d like to see the raw data, but there’s value in what’s shown here. You can read off of the tendencies of different QBs and find some conclusions. There’d be even more value if we could look at historical trends for each QB.
I agree with you that mobile quarterbacks tend to be “punished” by this result. Actually, I wouldn’t phrase it that way particularly. I’d say that you have to understand the mobility of a QB when you look at the data.
Most interesting to me is the high numbers for his Favre-ness. He’s been uninspiring this year, and I wonder if he is holding the ball too long.
It's not that he holds the ball too long; he doesn't.
But except when he can step into a throw away, or one side of the pocket is open (particularly the left), when someone gets through an initial block he’s basically sacked. He holds onto the ball, preventing fumbles or stupid picks, and takes the sack.
It’s frustrating, but it’s what it is.
This data…eh. 3, 5, 7 step & shotgun distinction? I think Rivers’ of all the data, went against what I might have expected. That offense lets deep routes develop, and you’d think if this data were indicative of holding the ball too long, his sack time numbers would be late relative to the league, but they’re not.
It’s not really about how long the QB holds the ball. It’s about how quickly a sacker gets there. When the QB tucks and scrambles, however much time is added before he’s brought down, does that mean he’s holding on to the ball too long? What about Play Action?
The most remarkable and usable implications of this data is on the macro. I wouldn’t have expected the meat of the league’s bell curve here to be in the 2 second range. I would have expected mid to high 3 seconds.
That might be because our fan’s internal clock is that 4 seconds is too long, and the ball should be out within the 3rd second. And maybe that’s true. Maybe most sacks are not a result of the QB holding on to the ball too long, but pressure getting there before the QB has a reason to throw. Maybe it’s indicative of the effectiveness of the entire offense’s protection. The line, the QB, the threat of the run game, the system and the playcaller.
It’s interesting data that we can learn from just by reading the data but it’s poor data for making conclusions on implications.
Taking a third look at the data,
we’ve got two conflicting effects that obscure “hold time” here. It’s not the media sack time that would indicate if a QB is holding the ball too long. Too many sacks would indicate he’s holding the ball too long. The question then becomes blame, of course, which is ultimately the reason anyone looked into these kind of numbers. But low sack numbers, no matter how long the median time is, would really vindicate the QB of holding too long. High sack numbers would suggest there may be a problem but not assign blame.
With Hasselbeck’s relatively low sack time, yet high sack numbers relative to the other low sack time QBs, I’d say this does suggest both protection problems and poor ability on Hasselbeck’s part to escape sacks that come through as a result of poor blocking.
That matches up well with my eyes. He doesn’t hold too long. In fact with great protection it sometimes looks like he could have an additional 2 seconds if not 4, yet his internal clock, coached up and banged up, compels him to throw it, dump it off, or throw it away. Yet when a failed block brings a rusher through, he freezes and goes down.
Poor protection. Poor pressure escaping. No holding the ball too long. That’s what my eyes tell me, and these numbers would jibe with that. The numbers don’t confirm it, though, just are compatible with it.
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