The Eagles 2022 pass rush was relentless. And historic.
Their defensive line finished with the 2nd most sacks ever and the top sack rate since 2010 at 2.35%. Only 4 other times since 2010 – Buffalo in 2013 and 2014, Pittsburgh in 2019, and Chicago in 2021 – have teams even gone above a 2% sack rate.
If you have followed me for any time, you know I focus on pressures a lot more than sacks, which is why I was so high on Nolan Smith this draft. He had an elite pressure rate at UGA despite “not having a lot of sacks”.
Pressures are a more stable stat that is more predictive of future performance. And it is a higher volume stat (pressures occur on 6 times as many snaps as sacks) that still impacts offensive performance to a high degree. But hey, if Nolan Smith says they brought him here not to get close but to finish plays, well then I’m on board with sacks today.
Defenses rarely repeat great sack performances
Teams rarely can repeat this performance, however. Only 3% of the time have teams repeated as a top 5 sack-producing team and only one-in-eight have been able to even finish in the top 10 in back to back seasons.
The top sack-producing teams average a decrease of almost 10 sacks the following season while the worst sack-producing teams average adding 7 sacks. Basically, teams move back towards the average sack rate (right around 35 sacks per year) year-over-year, meaning there is little carryover from one year to the next.
This makes sense. Players change teams and injuries often are the cause. Of course great pass rushers will generate more sacks, but sacks are a bit opportunistic and are controlled by the quarterback way more than most people realize.
A look at the defensive lines that did repeat…
The teams that do repeat stand out. The 2013-14 Bills in a 16-game season totaled 111 regular season sacks over two seasons. The 2020-21 Steelers also totaled 111 regular season sacks which capped a five-year run of over 50 sacks. From 2019-21, the Aaron Donald-led Rams had three consecutive years over 50 sacks.
There are a few things these lines all have in common:
- Multiple pass rush threats (and likely at least one elite pass rusher)
- Below average double-team rates as offenses can’t focus on just one rusher
Bills 2013-2014 (111 sacks, 516 pressures):
They had a very good trio of Jerry Hughes, Mario Williams, and Marcell Dareus. No individual had a particularly great win rate but all hit double-digit sacks in back-to-back seasons. In 2015, the line aged, Williams left, and their coverage dropped off, quickly ending their dominance.
Steelers 2017-2021 (averaged 54 sacks and 267 pressures):
High draft picks like T.J. Watt, Cam Heyward, Javon Hargrave, Stephon Tuitt, and Alex Highsmith filled this line for years and gave us the most recent – and longest – dominance of a defensive line. As good as T.J. Watt is, he was doubled at a below-average rate.
While most teams can’t repeat, the Steelers had an incredible 5-year run. It took losing Watt for half the season to even bring them back to league average.
Rams 2019-2021 (averaged 53 sacks and 340 pressures):
Of course an Aaron Donald-led defensive line is going to be on the list. They had a 3-season span of 50 sacks in 2019, 58 in 2020, and 50 in 2021 when they added another elite pass rusher in Von Miller.
Donald has been ridiculously double-teamed throughout his career on nearly 70% of his pass rush snaps but still had a 30% win rate. And this made the rest of the line better – unsurprisingly, a player like Leonard Floyd had his best career seasons with back-to-back 13+ sack seasons. And Von Miller, who was doubled heavily in Denver, dropped to well below average rates of double-teaming in LA.
…and some that didn’t
But the vast majority of lines were single-season hits and saw drop offs the following season for various reasons.
Losing players – the 2021 Bears
The 2021 Bears had the 2nd best sack rate (2.19%) since 2010 but when you lose Khalil Mack, Robert Quinn, and Akiem Hicks (Mack and Hicks both with win rates over 20%), the following season isn’t going to be great… Trevis Gipson reached double-digit sacks playing with Mack, Quinn, and Hicks but, once they left, he was doubled at one of the highest rates in the league in 2022, leading to a 3-sack and 13% win rate season.
Injuries – the 2021 Titans
A Jeffrey Simmons, Denico Autry, and Harold Landry front put up 60 sacks and 273 pressures in 2021, but the line was crushed in 2022 – Landry was out all season with a knee and both Autry and Simmons missed time. Add in a secondary that could be picked on as the Eagles game showed and they had no shot to repeat.
QB time to throw? – our own 2021 Eagles
There are countless other examples but I pulled our Eagles to show some of the complexity with sacks.
In 2021, the Eagles took a ton of heat for totaling only 29 sacks, lowest in the league that year and one of the lowest since 2010. I wrote after that season in “A Look at the Eagles Pass Rush and Offseason Priorities” why the pass rush wasn’t as bad as most thought.
That line had the 7th best pass rush win rate, had a top-10 pass rusher in Javon Hargrave with a 27% win rate, and Josh Sweat with a 20% win rate. One thing most overlook, though, is how quickly opposing QBs threw against that defense.
In a league where QBs average 2.7 seconds to throw, that Eagles defense faced one of the quickest average releases in years with 13 QBs throwing quicker than league average. Four were in the 2.2s. In the three games that the Eagles faced an average release time, they generated 9 of their sacks.
I’m not saying that line would have been an all-time great – they did lose BG at the start of the season, Cox was aging, and the lack of a second interior threat meant Hargrave was doubled a ton. But when success is defined as getting to the QB in 2.5 seconds or less, QBs throwing quicker than that makes it nearly impossible to log sacks.
Why I’m more bullish on the 2023 Eagles line
Can this line repeat its near-record sack attack from last year? Few expect them to and anybody betting would be smart to take the under.
As mentioned above, the best two-season sack total is 111 which this team should easily pass and will likely eclipse it somewhere around the bye week. The question is can they have another all-time great season?
After last year’s 70 sacks, the next best year in the last five seasons is 58 sacks by the 2020 Rams. You have to go back to the 2013 Bills to have a 60 sack season. The Eagles themselves have only hit 50 sacks once, back in 2011.
But I’m bullish on this Eagles line repeating their monster year. 70? No, but they could threaten the 2020 Rams 58.
5 points on the Eagles defensive line in 2023:
1. They have multiple dangerous pass rushers
Who on this line gets doubled? The top teams above all had multiple pass rush threats and it resulted in below-average double rates as teams could not lock on one guy. Do teams double Jordan Davis? Carter? Sweat? Reddick? Last year, only Josh Sweat was doubled at close to a league average rate and that should continue this season.
2. What can Jalen Carter produce?
It will be hard to replace Hargrave’s 11 sacks and no matter how excited we are about Carter, you have to go back a ways for a rookie DT to hit 10+ sacks. Ndamukong Suh did it but if you look at recent examples of players that had Carter’s college pressure and sack production like Quinnen Williams, Dexter Lawrence, and Christian Wilkins, they all had 2-3 sacks their rookie year. Carter is in a much better situation than any of those guys, however.
3. They don’t have Wentz on their schedule
Unless somebody signs him out of need, the Eagles don’t get to feast on the one-man, sack-stat-padding wonder this season. In a league where the sack rate averages under 1.3% of dropbacks, the Eagles sacked Wentz 9 times on 55 dropbacks last season, or 16%. They don’t get anywhere near 70 without Wentz.
4. Do they stay healthy?
Past teams that failed to repeat usually lost players to injury or free agency or had players suddenly age. Sure, Cox is up there, but the Eagles are young across the line and players like Milton Williams, Josh Sweat, and Jordan Davis should all be better. The one thing that could hurt? Injuries, as we have already seen in the pre-season.
5. Do QBs choose to throw fast against the Eagles?
This is the one I am most interested in – quarterbacks should throw quickly against the Eagles pass rush, similar to 2021, and I think they will. Last season, the teams that did throw quickly generally fared better – in the 7 games the QBs got rid of the ball quickly (2.5 seconds or quicker), the Eagles only had 15 sacks, or just above 2 sacks per game. And these were some of the games the pass defense struggled – the Lions, Cardinals, and Colts. But in the 6 games where they faced an average time to throw of 2.8 seconds or higher, they had 37 sacks (Titans, Giants twice, Cowboys, Bears, and Saints) or over 6 sacks per game.
I hate predictions because football is just way too complicated, but what the heck – I’ll take 54 sacks on the season, below last season but well above the best two-season mark over the past decade.
While they have a tougher schedule overall, they get several of the weaker offensive lines this year including Washington and the Giants twice, Seattle, LA, Arizona, and the Jets.
Fly Eagles fly!
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