Continuing the series, I wanted to move to the interior defensive line position (IDL), where Pittsburgh selected Logan Lee in the sixth round. Today’s goal is to look at and provide stat context for the position using Sports Info Solutions (SIS).
The data in this study looks at their final college season in 2023 as pass rushers, focusing on the players who heard their names called in the draft, and two players were excluded due to SIS not tracking smaller schools. The goal is to see how Lee stacked up among his peers.
First, let’s look at pass snaps along with their total snaps to get a gauge of the players opportunities, and how often they were able to stay on the field for their squads last season:
The visual points out that Lee was able to stay on the field quite often for Iowa last season, with the second most total (625) and pass snaps (333) of the 23 qualifying draft picks at the position. That is a similarly encouraging takeaway to my run defense stat study on Lee in 2023, showing encouraging durability after dealing with injury earlier in his career.
Next, let’s look at the percentages that the players rushed the passer (pass plays only), with most at the position were in the 99th percentile, and Sports Info Solutions positive play %: the rate of pass plays with the player on the field resulted in a positive EPA (lower percentages are best):
More encouraging news for Lee, landing well above average in both data points. On pass plays, he rushed the quarterback 100-percent of the time, and had one of the best positive rates of 34.0 which ranked fourth-best. So, Lee was strictly a rusher on passing downs, and good things happened from a team perspective. The Hawkeyes were a strong defensive unit, ranking a FBS fourth-best, which Lee played a ton in.
Here are essential numbers for the topic, pressure and sack percentages:
When diving deeper into the individual aspects of play, we see that Lee was unfortunately below average in each of these important stats. In terms of pressure, he provided it on 7.2-percent of pass plays, tying for a below average 13th ranking. This included 25 pressures, 17 hurries, and 11 QB hits per SIS.
We also see that he was even lower in terms of sacks, at a 0.6 rate that tied with three other players for 18th. More specifically, he had two solo and two combined sacks. So, while he was a cog in Iowa’s strong defense last season, he wasn’t as impactful individually as many of his other peers in the 2024 draft as a pass rusher. Hopefully it’s an area he can improve with Pittsburgh.
To close, here is a more total view of the players as pass rushers:
- Points Saved Per Rush – The total of a player’s EPA responsibility on pass plays using the Total Points system that distributes credit among all players on the field for a given play (with positive numbers being good). Totals are scaled up to map to the average points scored or allowed on a team level, with the player’s snap count determining how much to adjust. For pass rushers, this includes accounting for sacks, blown blocks forced, turnovers, turnover returns, and other disruptions at the line of scrimmage. Values are modulated using a quality-of-competition multiplier based on each opponent’s previous year of performance).
- Points Above Average Per Play – using the same Total Points system and putting a number to their value above an average level player:
Once again, we unfortunately see Lee was well below average among draft picks last season as a pass rusher. He ranked 22nd in points saved per rush which was next to last, and his points above average per play was 20th (fourth-worst).
Effective pass rushing from the IDL position can be very impactful, aligning closest to the quarterback pre-snap. Unfortunately, Lee was among one of the worst at the position doing so in the 2024 draft.
Mind you, he was a sixth-round pick, so it wasn’t expected for him to top the individual metrics similar to Pittsburgh’s Keeanu Benton did in my 2022 pass rush stat study as a second round selection.
The good news for Lee included durability, with a second rank in total and pass snaps, and rushed the quarterback on 100-percent of his pass down opportunities. He was also part of a strong defensive unit at Iowa, ranking fourth in positive percentage while on the field.
The rest of the stats paint a much different story on Lee’s 2023 campaign. The most common, and arguably important stats for pass rushers are pressures and sacks, tying for 13th and 18th out of the 23 qualifiers. He also posted very low in the “points” metrics, 20th in points above average per play, and 22nd in points saved per rush which was next to last.
With several other team needs this offseason, IDL was pushed down the draft board. Pittsburgh found a player in Lee that fits what they look for in terms of body type, and are looking to mold him into something more, ideally starting out as a depth piece which is needed behind seasoned veteran Cam Heyward. Here’s to hoping that’s the case, and can’t wait to see how it pans out for Lee.
Thanks for reading and let me know your thoughts in the comments.
