Cameron Heyward, for some reason, recently embroiled himself in an analytics debate. Responding to the suggestion that pressures are better than sacks, the Pittsburgh Steelers Pro Bowler strongly disagreed. He used his platform to elucidate his thoughts even further.
“If you can get a guy on the ground, you take it. If you have a pressure, yeah, good job, kudos, but he still completed the ball”, Heyward argued. He said that NFL coaches don’t value pressures over sacks. He might, however, want to refresh his memory on Dick LeBeau’s thoughts on pressure. The former Steelers defensive coordinator seemed to value it pretty highly–arguably more than sacks. But perhaps we can revisit that on another day.
“I think sometimes we rely on these made-up stats that nobody cares about. I think we’ve gotten to the baseball era”, Heyward continued. “There’s so many things that we’re trying to add to it, and we’re forgetting the definite thing of, can you swing a bat? Can you get a sack? Those are the most definite things that you’ve got to rely on”.
To be clear, there is no official “pressures” statistic, although many outlets attempt to track them. Even we do, and we put Heyward’s comments under the magnifying glass. Every team presumably also tracks their own pressures stat, but a universal definition is impossible, and the application is even less so. You can have ten people look at the same play and have five people call it a pressure, five not.
We understand, however, the concept of pressure. You create a pressure when you in some way influence the quarterback negatively, either forcing a bad throw or forcing him off his platform. The thought process is that you increase the chances of a negative event with each pressure. And naturally, since sacks are pressures, you create a lot more pressures than sacks.
Yet not all pressures, nor sacks, are created equal. “Sometimes you get pressure just because the offensive line doesn’t set the right way”, Heyward said. “Sometimes we’re just given credit for a bonehead play on the other side. It’s an incomplete thought that pressure is better than sacks”.
ESPN recently posted an article indicating that Garrett’s pressures led to six interceptions last year. Those six interceptions required a quarterback to make a bad decision. He had to choose to throw a pass in which the chances of a bad throw were high. As Heyward points out, it also requires a teammate to make a play on the ball. I don’t think anybody tracks dropped interceptions off of pressures.
And while you can’t record an interception on a sack, you can certainly force fumbles. Heyward’s teammate, Alex Highsmith, forced a fumble in Week 2 last season against the Cleveland Browns on a sack. T.J. Watt recovered the ball and recorded a touchdown.
The bottom line is this: a sack always results in a negative play, while a pressure frequently does not. Only the defense can score on a sack, barring a second fumble. But the offense can just as easily score when pressured as when not. Yet if you’re not consistently pressuring a quarterback, you’re not likely to have a very good game defensively.
