Prime JJ Watt or Aaron Donald?

[ET80]

12 minutes ago, Buckweath said:

I was not born or didn't watch football at that time.

I do not doubt that those players possibly beat JJ Watt overall because of longevity but I have trouble believing that those players played the game of football noticeably better than JJ Watt  if purely talking about their prime.

I've seen White and Smith play, and both were pretty damn dominant. I'd say that their dominance was above Watt, but Watt was really close.

[Kip Smithers]

On 03/12/2018 at 10:53 PM, TXsteeler said:

People were calling Prime Watt a possible contender for the greatest football player of all time, and that was a pretty widespread opinion.

This is nonsense. Greatest defensive player yeah I remember that talk. Greatest player, that was never brought up.

As for the question, I’d say Watt because he was disruptive in more ways than Watt. As a pass rusher though, you could go either way. I’d say Donald because he’s doing it from a consistently tougher position 

[C0LTSFAN4L1F3]

27 minutes ago, Kip Smithers said:

This is nonsense. Greatest defensive player yeah I remember that talk. Greatest player, that was never brought up.

And even if people were talking greatest player, that just means those people were off-base, it doesn't actually mean Watt is that good. 

[TXsteeler]

6 hours ago, Kip Smithers said:

This is nonsense. Greatest defensive player yeah I remember that talk. Greatest player, that was never brought up.

As for the question, I’d say Watt because he was disruptive in more ways than Watt. As a pass rusher though, you could go either way. I’d say Donald because he’s doing it from a consistently tougher position 

People were saying he was on pace to contend in that conversation.

[Art_Vandalay]

JJ and I don't think it's close at all. At 6'5" 290, the things he can do at that size is ridiculous. Size does matter. One stat no one talks about is passes batted down at the line. Aaron Donald had one season where he had more than one batted ball. JJ has averaged 1/2 batted balls per game over his career which is absolutely insane. That's a dimension Aaron Donald will never be able to add.

[El Ramster]

4 hours ago, Art_Vandalay said:

JJ and I don't think it's close at all. At 6'5" 290, the things he can do at that size is ridiculous. Size does matter. One stat no one talks about is passes batted down at the line. Aaron Donald had one season where he had more than one batted ball. JJ has averaged 1/2 batted balls per game over his career which is absolutely insane. That's a dimension Aaron Donald will never be able to add.

that's not part of the job though. That's like a DB getting sacks, While it's nice. It doesn't mean it's his job. 

Or a QB that can run, Again it's nice but not a necessity. 

 

 

[showtime]

They're both on what appears to be pretty good teams for the foreseeable future.  The reason I bring that up is because this type of debate will be heavily influenced by who has more signature games/moments in playoff/Super Bowl games.

[El Ramster]

1 minute ago, showtime said:

They're both on what appears to be pretty good teams for the foreseeable future.  The reason I bring that up is because this type of debate will be heavily influenced by who has more signature games/moments in playoff/Super Bowl games.

Ooooooooooooooooooof if Donald get's that chip.. ET better get a Donald tramp stamp on his back and lower nipple. 

[pwny]

33 minutes ago, El ramster said:

that's not part of the job though. That's like a DB getting sacks, While it's nice. It doesn't mean it's his job. 

Or a QB that can run, Again it's nice but not a necessity. 

Hard disagree. The job of a pass rusher is to disrupt the pass. Batting balls, and thus creating incompletions, is absolutely a part of that.

[El Ramster]

1 minute ago, pwny said:

Hard disagree. The job of a pass rusher is to disrupt the pass. Batting balls, and thus creating incompletions, is absolutely a part of that.

I guess you're right. But hard to punish a guy whose barely 6 feet to a 6'5 freak with a huge wingspan. 

[pwny]

Just now, El ramster said:

I guess you're right. But hard to punish a guy whose barely 6 feet to a 6'5 freak with a huge wingspan. 

I wouldn't really call it punishing Donald. Donald is what he is; a Hall of Fame caliber talent in the prime of his career with more disruptive ability than just about everyone in football right now.

What it instead shows is just how absolutely absurd prime JJ Watt was. In that three year stretch, each year Watt had twice as many disruptions (sacks, stuffs and batted balls) than the next highest player. Not the next highest player that year, the next highest player ever charted - in over 30 years of tracking all three stats. What he did was out of this world and nobody has been able to come close to what he did.

 

You posted this tweet in another thread

Those stats - for a 6 game stretch - are absolutely incredible. If you put those across a 16 game season, he would have 76 disruptive plays on the year. Watt was averaging over 70 per season those three years. He was having the impact that Donald is having for the last 6 games for three straight years. It was unfair just how disruptive he was, in every facet of the game.

[jrry32]

28 minutes ago, pwny said:

Hard disagree. The job of a pass rusher is to disrupt the pass. Batting balls, and thus creating incompletions, is absolutely a part of that.

How do you factor it all in? Let's say that Donald ends up with 15 less PDs and 15 more QB pressures than Watt when comparing their seasons. How do we compare PDs to QB pressures?

[pwny]

3 minutes ago, jrry32 said:

How do you factor it all in? Let's say that Donald ends up with 15 less PDs and 15 more QB pressures than Watt when comparing their seasons. How do we compare PDs to QB pressures?

Do you have a way that you compare pressures vs sacks and tackles for loss?

[jrry32]

2 minutes ago, pwny said:

Do you have a way that you compare pressures vs sacks and tackles for loss?

To some degree. You can obviously compare disruptions. I'm fine with including PDs in that. But I often see PDs brought up in comparisons like this one and haven't seen people talking much about pressures. I don't know what Donald's pressure numbers are this year, but they were out of the world last year.

[El Ramster]

 

5 minutes ago, jrry32 said:

To some degree. You can obviously compare disruptions. I'm fine with including PDs in that. But I often see PDs brought up in comparisons like this one and haven't seen people talking much about pressures. I don't know what Donald's pressure numbers are this year, but they were out of the world last year.

 

Last year. 

 

PFF Elite Stat: Donald led all interior defenders with 91 pressures in the regular season. That figure was so dominant that Geno Atkins, who ranked second with 70 pressures, was closer to eighth-highest Fletcher Cox (50) than he was to Donald.

 

Edited December 8, 2018 by El ramster