Julius Peppers- 2009 exit analysis
by James The Aussie on Jan 11, 2010 10:36 AM EST
11 comments
In July of 2009 Southtunnel put up an excellent fanpost examining Julius Peppers and his comparison to other top DEs in the NFL. You can find that original fanpost here.
While I agreed with ST at the time that Peppers was a superior talent there were some trending statistics to his performance which I found worrisome, namely his performance against bad teams vs. his performance against good teams.
For this analysis I compared Peppers with players who at the time were considered the best collection of DEs in the NFL. This list was: Julius Peppers, Jared Allen, Dwight Freeney, Mario Williams, Justin Tuck and John Abraham. These defensive ends represented the highest sack totals in the NFL for the preceeding 3 years in total.
Boiling the argument down it was my theory that Julius' raw sack numbers were extremely skewed in his favor by having moster games against sub .500 teams, while often being absent in games against good competition, represented in this analysis by any team who went over .500.
I'm going to revist this theory now showing the numbers from then, to now as well as comparing Peppers to the top performers in sacks in 2009 to help us understand where he should truly fit among the top DEs in the NFL.
When the last analysis was done the following was found out about Julius Peppers:
In the 2006, 2007 and 2008 seasons 83.3% of Julius Peppers' total sacks came against teams who finished their corresponding season under .500
Here are the equal statistics for the other examined DEs:
- Jared Allen: 65%
- Dwight Freeney: 64.1%
- Mario Williams: 40.9%
- Justin Tuck: 57.7%
- John Abraham: 49.1%
From this comparative analysis it appears that Peppers indeed has a situation where the vast majority of his sacks come against poorer teams, compared with other top defensive ends. Please understand that this is solely an analysis of sack totals, not QB pressures, blocked kicks, distrupted passes etc. We all know how many extra things Peppers brings to the field, but this is more an attempt to see why Peppers is often charged with being inconsistent and finding a trend through looking at the primary indicator for DE success, sack totals.
Let us now examine the top five DEs in the NFL for sacks in 2009 and see how this trends. I am looking only at defensive ends, not 3-4 OLBs for obvious reasons. For the sake of clarity an 8-8 team will be considered 'sub .500 for this analysis'.
Jared Allen: 14.5 sacks (9.5 vs. over .500 teams - 4 vs. sub .500 teams) 27.5% of sacks vs. sub .500 teams in 2009
Dwight Freeney: 13.5 sacks (4.5 vs. over .500 teams - 9 vs. sub .500 teams) 66.6% of sacks vs. sub .500 teams in 2009
Will Smith: 13 sacks (7 vs. over .500 teams - 6 vs. sub .500 teams) 46.1% of sacks vs. sub .500 teams in 2009
Trent Cole: 12.5 sacks (2 vs. over .500 teams - 10.5 vs. sub .500 teams) 84% of sacks vs. sub .500 teams in 2009
Andre Carter: 11 sacks (4.5 vs. over .500 teams - 6.5 vs. sub .500 teams) 59% of sacks vs. sub .500 teams
The 2009 numbers show us a similar trend to the previous three seasons with those corresponding DEs. With the exception of Trent Cole the top DEs in the league do not have a skewed sack total where over 70% of their sacks come against the bottom half of the league. For years 06, 07 and 08 Peppers average 83.3% of his sacks against these worse teams. So, how did 2009 compare to his previous seasons?
Julius Peppers: 10.5 sacks (4.5 vs. over .500 teams - 6 vs. sub .500 teams) 57.1% of sacks vs. sub .500 teams
What does this tell us? Essentially this shows that there was a distinct shift in Peppers' quality of production in 2009 from the previous three seasons. Though his numbers are still slightly skewed towards the poorer teams, it's definitely not enough to assert that his stats for 2010 were 'padded' in the same way they were for 2006 and 2008.
Of course, there are numerous reasons for this seachange in Peppers. It could be Ron Meeks' system, it could be his desire to perform for a new contract- whatever this reason could possibly be, which I wont postulate on at this time. Provided Julius Peppers can maintain a high level of production and remain in the upper echelon of sack production (6th in 2009) then he definitely is worth a giant contract extension.
0 recs |
11 comments
|
Email
Print
Comments
"For the sake of clarity an 8-8 team will be considered 'sub .500 "
When I read your analysis, I thought that might be somewhat arbitrary, so I decided to see how these guys did aginst teams that DID finish at 8-8, thinking that maybe they failed to finish over .500 BECAUSE of a DE’s play against them.
It’s inconclusive, I guess, but I’ll throw out the figures, for 2009 only — too much trouble to go back in previous years:
Pep had 1 sack in the only game we played vs an 8-8 team, the NYG.
Jared Allen had 2 (SF and Car)
Freeney had a whopping 4 (Tenn, SF, Tenn,.Denver)
Will Smith had 2 (both vs Car, wk 9)
That would’ve changed Freeney’s % drastically. 8-8 teams are hardly pushovers.
Jared Allen's are a bit skewed also.
7.5 sacks this year came against Green Bay.
Beat me to it :-)
Allen owned the Pack but wasn’t terribly productive sack-wise against the rest of the league.
by GuyIncognito on Jan 11, 2010 11:47 AM EST up reply actions
If I recall correctly, the majority of Jared Allen’s 9.5 sack total against over .500 teams came against Green Bay, whose offensive line was terrible in both games he played against them.
This whole statistic is skewed for rating worth/value...
Interesting numbers, but it really don’t mean a hill a beans to me. I have seen Pep dominate entire games with consistent pressure and hits on the QB and end with a stat line like 4 tackles/1 pass def. Or games where Pep has been consistently double teamed allowing the other ends and LB’s to get the pressure on the passers and Pep’s stats don’t show his impact. Sack #’s are important, but not the whole story. That game against the Vikes a couple weekends ago was ruled by Julius. He dominated almost every snap he was in for. He ended the game with what…one sack? 1.0 in the stat column? He was worth alot more than that in real life.
This is true...
It’s a good thing that the people who actually make the decisions usually see this too.
McKinnie is still talking baout that one
and saying he should fare better this weekend against Ware.
I blog the Carolina Panthers at www.catscratchreader.com
hahaha
Oh man. How about some hurt on your manhood?? Poor guy. He’s great too, which was the biggest shocker. And good luck to him against D-Ware this weekend. He’s a freak, as well. All those crazy fun games these last couple days has my tummy hurting. We should have been in there! Dang! Can’t you just see the “Matt Moore” headlines?! sad
That's true..
But James makes specific mention of that, noting that it’s only comparing sacks despite the ton of other factors.
My personal opinion is this: If Pep resigns, it means he likes Meeks and the system and I think we’re going to get a ton of productivity out of him next year. If he doesn’t, it’s of no great loss to us because forcing him here again would just cause him “get by” and thus, he wouldn’t have been much of a factor anyways. Of course we’re going to be better with him but I’d rather be without him if he doesn’t want to be here.
I think James’ post essentially did what he set out to do; determine where Peppers belongs among top DE’s on a (slightly) level playing field (given we Panther fans already know the force he is on the field, there was no need to outline everything).
Helpful reminder for James at seasons end: 2nd Rnd CSR Fan Draft Pick.
Maybe it just tells us we had a tough schedule
He would have gotten 80% of his sacks in like 3 games to continue the trend.
on behalf of tha dirty south: soul food, carolina blue, southern hospitality, and tha queen city
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
User Tools
Related FanPosts on Cat Scratch Reader
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
Certain photos copyright © 2010 by Associated Press or Getty Images. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of Associated Press and Getty Images is strictly prohibited.
