Thread: Pressure Reveals - culter pressured 41.42%

Pressure Reveals

I’ve recently being looking into some of the elements that factor in to making a good or bad quarterback. I broke down some numbers looking at the deep ball, and recently followed it by looking at how quarterbacks cope when blitzed.

That leads in quite nicely to the next piece. Pressure.
You give most quarterbacks a lot of time and they’ll punish you. You put them in an uncomfortable situation with a 280-pound monster coming at them, and suddenly mistakes come about a lot more freely.

Pressure was something we saw plenty of last year. Whether it was something in their Gatorade or just one of those years, the pass rushers really seemed to get the better of their offensive line counterparts. The end result being a heck of a lot of quarterbacks put under pressure.

That generates the question for this study. Who performed the best under pressure? So let’s examine that. (Note: for this piece we looked at all quarterbacks who dropped back from center at least 200 times.)

Who Is Getting Pressured
Before getting into the performance aspects, let’s look at which quarterbacks spent most of their time under pressure. It shouldn’t be looked at as the teams allowing the most pressure necessarily had the worst pass blocking offensive line, there are other things to consider. Such as: which teams keep the most men in to help, how well those extra blockers performed, the quarterback’s ability to get rid of the ball in a timely fashion, and his willingness to let pressure mount confident in his ability to dodge it.

That said, the Chicago line was brutal this year, so it’s no surprise Jay Cutler is at the top of the charts. More interesting is that below him we have four of the more mobile quarterbacks in the league. Players like Josh Freeman, Michael Vick, David Garrard and Ben Roethlisberger are players who, because of physical attributes that allow them to often shake off rushers, can afford to let a little more pressure get their way in the hopes of making a play.


Percentage of Drop Backs Under Pressure

Rank Playe rTeam Drop backs% Pressured

1Jay Cutler CHI 565 41.42%
2 Josh Freeman TB 544 40.99%
3Michael Vick PHI 510 40.78%
4Donovan McNabb WAS 525 40.38%
5Jason Campbell OAK 388 39.69%
6Derek Anderson ARZ 355 38.87%
7David Garrard JAX 421 37.77%
8Alex D. SmithSF 375 36.00%
9Matt Cassel KC 519 35.65%
10Ben Roethlisberger PIT 546 35.53%
11Philip Rivers SD 5913 4.86%
12Jimmy Clausen CAR 344 34.59%
13Sam Bradford SL 640 34.06%
14Brett Favre MIN 383 33.68%
15Kerry Collins TEN 292 33.56%
16Ryan Fitzpatrick BUF 494 33.20%
17Joe Flacco BLT 618 33.01%
18Kevin Kolb PHI 211 32.70%
19Kyle Orton DEN 545 31.56%
20Matt Ryan AT L650 31.23%
21Eli Manning NYG 5653 0.62%
22Matt Schaub HST 611 30.28%
23Tom Brady NE572 29.90%
24Chad Henne MIA 540 29.63%
25Tony Romo DAL2232 9.60%
26Colt McCoy CLV261 29.50%
27Shaun Hill DET 448 29.02%
28Aaron Rodgers GB 695 28.49%
29Drew Brees NO 747 28.11%
30Carson Palmer CIN 620 28.06%
31Mark Sanchez NYJ 640 27.66%
32Peyton Manning IND724 25.55%
33 Matt Hasselbeck SEA 566 24.91%
34Jon Kitna DAL357 24.65%

Meanwhile, down at the bottom you’ve got a mixture of guys who benefit from good protection (like Mark Sanchez) to guys who know if they don’t get rid of it quick then their protection is going to get them hit (Peyton Manning). For every player, the type of quarterback they are and situation they’re in has more to do with the percentage of plays they’re pressured on than just attributing it to a fault of the offensive line.

Completion Percentage
Moving into the realm of analyzing how players dealt with pressure, we’ll start with the most obvious tool: completion percentage. It may surprise you who the top dog is, with Kevin Kolb narrowly beating out Jon Kitna. Before people get too worked up about this, some things need to be taken into consideration. Firstly, both Kitna and Kolb faced a relatively low amount of pressure which makes their sample size small, but more importantly, while their completion percentage when pressured was impressive, the amount of pressure they let turn into sacks wasn’t. Nearly a quarter of the pressure they faced brought them to the ground. You can see the more elite quarterbacks (Drew Brees, Peyton Manning, and Matt Ryan) took considerably fewer.

You can also see in the last column which players’ completion percentages are affected most in pressure situations. It’s not pretty in the AFC East where Mark Sanchez has the largest drop when pressured, followed by Chad Henne, and Ryan Fitzpatrick finishing fifth. Once again, Tom Brady saves some respectability for the division, with only 14 players having less of a fall (not bad when you consider Brady completes 70.1% of passes when not pressured (eighth in the league).


Completion and Sack Percentages When Pressured

RankPlayer TeamSack % w / Pressure Comp.% w / Pressure Change in Comp. % w / Pressure

1Kevin Kolb PHI 23.19% 59.18%-2.24%
2Jon Kitna DAL 23.86%5 9.02%-8.30%
3Drew Brees NO 12.38% 55.74%-16.22%
4Peyton Manning IND9.19% 54.49%-15.45%
5Tony Romo DAL10.61% 54.39%-20.61%
6Matt Hasselbeck SEA 22.70% 53.70%-7.69%
7Tom Brady NE1 7.54% 53.24%-16.86%
8Carson Palmer CIN 14.94% 52.78%-11.85%
9Philip Rivers SD 18.45% 52.76%-18.93%
10Matt Ryan ATL13.79% 52.66%-14.16%
11Jay Cutler CHI 23.93% 52.20%-10.97%
12 Ben Roethlisberger PIT 21.13% 51.75%-13.53%
13Jason CampbellOAK21.43%50.91%-12.10%
14Josh FreemanTB12.56%50.90%-16.20%
15David GarrardJAX20.13%50.43%-20.48%16Aaron RodgersGB19.19%49.30%-22.10%17Kyle OrtonDEN19.77%49.22%-12.94%18Shaun HillDET13.08%47.62%-18.94%19Brett FavreMIN16.28%47.17%-19.10%20Joe FlaccoBLT24.02%46.94%-21.53%21Derek AndersonARZ18.12%46.85%-7.32%22Kerry CollinsTEN13.27%45.88%-16.81%23Matt SchaubHST17.30%45.10%-25.21%24Eli ManningNYG9.25%44.74%-25.29%25Michael VickPHI17.79%44.36%-26.18%26Matt CasselKC15.14%43.36%-20.95%27Sam BradfordSL15.14%43.35%-23.55%28Donovan McNabbWAS17.45%41.76%-25.78%29Colt McCoyCLV29.87%41.67%-24.43%30Chad HenneMIA18.75%41.53%-26.30%31Alex D. SmithSF18.52%41.51%-26.29%32Ryan FitzpatrickBUF14.02%39.20%-25.99%33Jimmy ClausenCAR27.73%39.02%-18.32%34Mark SanchezNYJ16.95%35.46%-26.52%


Mark Sanchez is a particular worry. He’s afforded some of the best protection in the NFL, but when that protection is pierced, he crumbles. His 35.46% just isn’t good enough, though he does do a good job of staving off sacks.

Turning It Over
Avoiding sacks isn’t the only thing Sanchez does well when he’s faced with pressure. The 2.82% of his pressured throws that ended up as interceptions is the 18th lowest figure, so, respectable enough. It’s not as good as Matt Ryan (0.49%) or Tom Brady (0.58%) but then their numbers are verging on the miraculous. Ryan in particular has an amazing touchdown-to-interception ratio when he is pressured.

Ryan isn’t at the top in percentage of pressured passes that go for touchdowns; both Kevin Kolb and Eli Manning finished with a higher percentage. But, you have to take into account that Kolb was working with a smaller sample size, and Eli also had the second highest percentage of throws under pressure ending up in interceptions (he can thank Brett Favre for not finishing with the highest). So good was Ryan under pressure when it came to throwing touchdowns and not picks, that his ratio of touchdowns to interceptions (10:1) was superior to all others by a large distance, with only really Tom Brady getting close.

Special credit as well to Josh Freeman. He managed to finish with the third best TD:INT ratio as well as the fifth lowest percentage of interceptions and fourth highest percentage of touchdowns when throwing under pressure.


Touchdown to Interception Ratio When Pressured

Rank Playe r TeamTD % w / PressureINT % w / PressureTD:INT w / Pressure

1Matt RyanATL4.93%0.49%10.00
2Tom BradyNE3.51%0.58%6.00
3Josh FreemanTB4.48%1.35%3.33
4Kevin KolbPHI7.25%2.90%2.50
5Tony RomoDAL3.03%1.52%2.00
6Jon KitnaDAL2.27%1.14%2.00
7Ben RoethlisbergerPIT3.61%2.06%1.75
8Alex D. SmithSF3.70%2.22%1.67
9Matt CasselKC3.78%2.70%1.40
10Joe FlaccoBLT2.45%1.96%1.25
11Mark SanchezNYJ3.39%2.82%1.20
12Michael VickPHI2.88%2.40%1.20
13Philip RiversSD2.91%2.43%1.2014David GarrardJAX3.77%3.14%1.2015Eli ManningNYG5.78%5.20%1.1116Kerry CollinsTEN2.04%2.04%1.0017Matt SchaubHST2.70%2.70%1.0018Jimmy ClausenCAR0.84%0.84%1.0019Colt McCoyCLV3.90%3.90%1.0020Carson PalmerCIN2.87%3.45%0.8321Chad HenneMIA2.50%3.13%0.8022Peyton ManningIND3.24%4.32%0.7523Matt HasselbeckSEA2.13%2.84%0.7524Aaron RodgersGB2.53%3.54%0.7125Jay CutlerCHI2.14%2.99%0.7126Drew BreesNO2.86%4.29%0.6727Sam BradfordSL1.83%2.75%0.6728Kyle OrtonDEN2.33%3.49%0.6729Jason CampbellOAK1.95%3.90%0.5030Brett FavreMIN3.10%6.98%0.4431Ryan FitzpatrickBUF1.22%3.05%0.4032Shaun HillDET0.77%2.31%0.3333Derek AndersonARZ0.72%2.17%0.3334Donovan McNabbWAS0.94%3.30%0.29


Down at the bottom we’ve got Donovan McNabb, and you probably have a better idea why the Redskins haven’t exactly bought into the long time Eagle. When put behind a shaky offensive line, the mistakes kept coming, he threw just two touchdowns compared to seven interceptions when pressured.

Grading
So now we come to our final breakdown. Grading. We pride ourselves on our ability to apply our set of standards to every play and grade objectively and we’ve got some grades here for when QB’s were pressured. This won’t just look into their ability to throw since we grade on a number of facets of each play (when they hold onto the ball too long, etc.). It encompasses quite a lot and explains why we’re so high on certain players.


PFF Grades When Pressured

RankPlayerTeamQB Rating w / PressureGrade w / Pressure

1Aaron RodgersGB60.919.0
2Peyton ManningIND67.416.0
3Matt RyanATL86.513.5
4Ben RoethlisbergerPIT81.111.5
5Josh FreemanTB79.411.0
6Philip RiversSD74.311.0
7Michael VickPHI65.38.5
8Shaun HillDET52.08.0
9Tom BradyNE84.57.5
10Carson PalmerCIN63.97.51
11Colt McCoyCLV53.87.0
12Tony RomoDAL80.67.0
13Jay CutlerCHI68.97.0
14Eli ManningNYG61.04.5
15David GarrardJAX67.24.5
16Drew BreesNO64.33.0
17Jason CampbellOAK60.61.518Matt CasselKC63.20.519Matt SchaubHST58.70.520Kyle OrtonDEN62.40.521Alex D. SmithSF66.10.022Jon KitnaDAL78.70.023Jimmy ClausenCAR50.3-1.024Kevin KolbPHI91.4-1.525Kerry CollinsTEN61.8-1.526Sam BradfordSL51.0-1.527Derek AndersonARZ56.1-1.528Joe FlaccoBLT64.0-2.529Matt HasselbeckSEA67.7-4.030Ryan FitzpatrickBUF44.0-4.531Chad HenneMIA48.8-5.532Mark SanchezNYJ51.9-6.533Brett FavreMIN43.2-7.534Donovan McNabbWAS46.7-10.0


It also explains a little bit about why I was dumbfounded to see Donovan McNabb make any top 100 list based on his 2010 performance. Perhaps the most telling aspect of it all, though, is how pressure highlights flaws. Mark Sanchez may have plenty of playoff wins, but it should concern Jets fans that the reason he needs to win them on the road largely boils down to his play (the rest of the team is as talented as any in the NFL). If there’s one area he needs to improve in, it’s how he handles pressure. If he can do this, you’d be more inclined to agree with Rex Ryan’s assessment that a Super Bowl is going to be heading to the green & white half of New York.

When I look at how quarterbacks deal with being pressured, it tells me a lot about their value in the league. It’s turning a potentially negative play into something positive; some guys can do it, and some guys can’t.

When it’s all said and done, I’m a lot happier having the former guy, than the latter playing quarterback for me.

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