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2021 Offseason thread


Kiltman

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8 hours ago, Broadway Joe said:

This is exactly his description. Most of his defenders are unable to separate the player with the persona. It’s not slander by any means.

Guess Joe Thomas can't separate them either.

8 hours ago, Broadway Joe said:

He gets pressures but that highlights his inability to sack the QB. 

Nobody said he isn't without this flaw..... 

simon cowell facepalm GIF

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Brandon Graham doesn’t get the recognition he deserves as one of the league’s most consistent and dominant pass-rushers because people get too caught up with measuring pass rush by sacks alone.

Most pass-rushers set out with the goal of sacking the QB on any given play and ending the snap right then and there (though not all at all times – rushing contain, etc., add layers to that goal), but sacks are an incredibly small percentage of all passing plays, and beginning and ending with that one number would be a terrible way to measure performance in that area.

Vic Beasley led the league in sacks this season, bringing a QB down 16 times, but it took him 469 pass-rushing snaps to achieve that, so we’re looking at just 3.4 percent of his pass-rushing snaps if we focus on sacks alone. The difference between that impressive 16-sack season and a moderate eight-sack season would be 1.7 percent of Beasley’s pass-rushes.

(Mitchell Leff/Getty Images)

Add to the fact that sacks can be affected by far more than a player’s individual pass rush, and it looks even shakier as a methodology. A sack is the same statistic whether a player quickly splits a double team to get it or simply as the QB flushed into his lap as he’s being stonewalled by his blocker.

Even if pressure had no beneficial effect on the defense, it would be a very flawed thing to do only to lock in on sacks given the sample size issue and the different ways the same number can come about. Hits and hurries are no less flawed in terms of how they can come about, but there are more of them, so at least we are increasing the sample size we are working from.

But the key point is that pressure has a positive impact for the defense overall. When QBs throw from a clean pocket they can be incredibly productive, and as a league the passer rating of QBs throwing without pressure this season was 96.7, or the equivalent of Derek Carr’s overall passer rating.

When under pressure though that passer rating nosedives, and the league’s average passer rating in 2016 was just 62.5, which is worse than even Jared Goff’s overall passer rating this season. Simply applying pressure on QBs in 2016 was the equivalent of turning an MVP candidate into a rookie in over his head.

Brandon Graham got pressure 83 times in the regular season, more than any other defender outside of Oakland’s Khalil Mack, and much of that pressure had a significant positive impact for the defense, even if it didn’t result in a sack.

Graham got pressure once every 5.8 pass-rushing snaps, which is the second-best figure in the league, and while a sack will end the play right there, pressure can cause worse things to happen for the offense, like turnovers from interceptions.

Coming into the Week 8 meeting with the Eagles, Dak Prescott hadn’t really had a bad game yet. He had been extremely productive and efficient and was riding a wave of five straight games with a passer rating over 100 and had completed more than 66 percent of his passes in all of those games. Graham didn’t manage to sack Prescott, but destroyed the right side of the Cowboys line and had 11 total pressures in 37 pass-rushing snaps (28.9 percent of his rushes). Prescott was under pressure in that game for more snaps (23) than he was kept clean (21) and it resulted in him completing just 48.7 percent of his passes and throwing only the second interception of his season.

Graham has been able to generate pressure consistently in every season he has been on the field for the Eagles, regardless of which side of the line he has played or in what defensive scheme or position. As a pass-rusher, there are few players more guaranteed to apply heat on the opposing quarterbacks, the only question remaining is whether he will ever develop the finishing aspect of his pass rush to finally become that double-digit sack artist everybody looks for.

For his career, Graham has converted just 10.7 percent of all of his pressures into sacks. The average NFL edge rusher this season converted 15.1 percent of his pressures into sacks, with Beasley at an unsustainably high 28.6 percent.

Graham isn’t just a player that doesn’t convert as well as the best players in that regard (Von Miller was at 17.7 percent in 2016), but he consistently converts at a lower rate than average, which is certainly not a good thing. The key to his game, though, is in appreciating that as a flaw that keeps him from the Defensive Player of the Year conversation, but not ignoring the staggering rate of production he has in spite of that flaw.

Graham is one of the league’s most consistently productive edge rushers, well deserving of his place on the PFF All-Pro team this year and at number nine in the Top 101, and he still has a very clear aspect of his game he can work on to get even better. That should concern anybody tasked with blocking him in 2017 and beyond.

 

 

Edited by TheRealMcCoy
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Like I said he should've been a DT. Think he was around 270 coming out of college. I don't see any reason he couldn't have added more weight and been a smaller 3T. He definitely would've got more sacks or at least the same # at worst from the interior where high sack totals aren't really expected. He's always been strong af and his quickness and smaller arms wouldn't have hurt as much as against long armed OTs he had to work harder to beat. Maybe if he came in the league after the success of Aaron Donald that might've happened, but yeah. League was still on the bigger DT wave at that time. Now there is more room for the Milton Williams and smaller DTs of the world.

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Yeah I can't believe all this BG critiquing. He's never been an elite sack artist, which we can all agree on. But he has been a consistently good and solid pressure creator and run defender. I'll say during his tenure when all is said and done, it'd be acceptable to say he's been the 10th best DE over that span. 

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13 hours ago, eagles18 said:

I don't think Brandon Graham is an all time eagle. He'll be forgotten.. Trent Cole was more impactful in my opinion

Ya.... no.

BG literally made one of if not the biggest play in Eagle's history in our SB win. He will go down as one of the all time great Eagles.

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14 hours ago, eagles18 said:

I don't think Brandon Graham is an all time eagle. He'll be forgotten.. Trent Cole was more impactful in my opinion

Yeah I'm not a BG guy but this might be the most disrespectful thing said about BG so far. 

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33 minutes ago, Scalamania said:

Yeah I'm not a BG guy but this might be the most disrespectful thing said about BG so far. 

BG isn't a starter on the all-time Eagles team, but he's on the roster as the #5 DE. He isn't starting over Trent/Clyde/The 3 years we got from Hugh Douglas, but we don't win our only SB without him, and I know I'll never forget him. I have his SB bobblehead to make sure of that.

Edited by Jeezla
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1 hour ago, Jeezla said:

BG isn't a starter on the all-time Eagles team, but he's on the roster as the #5 DE. He isn't starting over Trent/Clyde/The 3 years we got from Hugh Douglas, but we don't win our only SB without him, and I know I'll never forget him. I have his SB bobblehead to make sure of that.

That's a fair take.

Clyde and Reggie obviously both in the HOF.

Cole had 85 sacks with us. BG would be a back-up along with Hugh Douglas.

And, yeah I have that same bobble head sitting next to the Foles SB MVP one on my dresser lol.

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4 hours ago, Jeezla said:

BG isn't a starter on the all-time Eagles team, but he's on the roster as the #5 DE. He isn't starting over Trent/Clyde/The 3 years we got from Hugh Douglas, but we don't win our only SB without him, and I know I'll never forget him. I have his SB bobblehead to make sure of that.

Think that's fair yeah. Reggie and Clyde have those top spots locked down.

That strip in the Super Bowl and BG being as vocal as he is will help his argument for staying in that group for a long time. Especially because I think he has plans to stick around Philly in some capacity. Trent went pretty silent aside some practice visits.

BG has been so steady once he got past those first couple years. Jack of all trades sorta DE and really help forge a personality for that DL along with Fletch. 

Would be cool to see the all time eagles oline go against the dline. Both are some of the strongest spots historically.
 

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22 minutes ago, Kiltman said:

Think that's fair yeah. Reggie and Clyde have those top spots locked down.

That strip in the Super Bowl and BG being as vocal as he is will help his argument for staying in that group for a long time. Especially because I think he has plans to stick around Philly in some capacity. Trent went pretty silent aside some practice visits.

BG has been so steady once he got past those first couple years. Jack of all trades sorta DE and really help forge a personality for that DL along with Fletch. 

Would be cool to see the all time eagles oline go against the dline. Both are some of the strongest spots historically.
 

Clyde---Cox---Brown---Reggie (basically the '91 defense + Cox)
vs
JP----Brooks (Cheating putting him at LG, but I'm taking him over Todd/Mathis/Welbourn)----Kelce-----Prime Shawn Andrews------Lane
Trent Cole is the 5th DL. Tra is the 6th OL.
Guys who played before the 80's are going to be too small.
 

Edited by Jeezla
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