DK’s Daily Shot of Steelers: Sacks vs. pressures? Please



DK’s Daily Shot of Steelers: Sacks vs. pressures? Please

[Music] I have no idea where it started but I really hope that I’m here to finish it good morning to you good Thursday morning I’m Dan kovachich of DK Pittsburgh sports this is daily shot of Steelers it comes your way bright and early every weekday if you’re into hockey Andor baseball I also offer daily shots of penguins and pirates in the same place the you found this let’s make this clear before I even get going TJ watt is a superior football player in every sense over miles Garrett actually over any defensive player in the NFL this unfortunately is not universally accepted and that’s because way too many people pay attention to the nonsense that gets spewed by the Chris Collinsworth owned Ohio operated Pro Football Focus now that said wherever this got started on social media a couple of days ago it really took fire over the past 48 Hours the plain and simple debate of which is more valuable sacks or pressures Bringing Down the quarterback or just getting to the quarterback and to me there are two ways to look at this and hear me out on it because there is is an argument to be made regarding pressures and I’ll get to it but first off sacks are very very obviously more important more impactful over the course of a football game there’s no way that they couldn’t be there’s no counter to that argument one of them is finishing the job and the other one is just kind of getting there now that said the pressure argument is classic statistical analysis more than it is actual Sports analysis and here’s what I mean by that statistical analysis always leans toward the predictive numbers that could theoretically forecast how a player will do over the longer term or if they’re younger and let’s say you know eligible for the draft how they’re skill set will translate notice the future tents once they’re in the NFL in hockey for example where the advanced analytics aren’t even really Advanced they’re pretty crude almost everything is based in some way shape or form off of shots on goal and the same goes for the forwards themselves they’ll say well he gets a lot of shots on goal that means he’s doing a lot of things right and we think that can eventually turn into scoring goals it’s predict icve it’s looking forward in baseball which has the most advanced analytics you can now look at launch angle exit velocity spray charts to show how you can hit the ball all over the field how you handle different pitches it’s an absolute gold mine and yes there are ways that you can take those things and completely separate them from something as rudimentary as batting average and say listen we don’t care what he’s hitting right now we see traits with that bat or apply all this to pitching too that show us that this individual can do this once they get to the majors that’s what this is about when it comes to PFF and making these grades and assigning pass rush win rate what they’re showing or what they’re attempting to show is that a player beats the man in front of him to borrow from James Harrison more often than somebody body else does and I can very much see where that had come into play in a future type setting this will be the second time I’ve mentioned Jarvis Jones in a week but if Jarvis had regularly beaten the man in front of him in college and you had the same kind of data/ film study that you have now in football the Steelers might not have taken Jarvis in the first round or the second or even the third because Jarvis’s issue in the NFL wasn’t that he couldn’t get sacks it’s that he wasn’t even beating the man in front of him it’s a necessary First Step that said I’m also old enough to remember when Bud Dupri was beating the man in front of him only about a 100 times a game and still wouldn’t come up with any sacks why because he was so good at beating the man in front of him that he’d often overp pursue he’d end up 15 or 20 yards down field and I’m only laughing now because I actually remember laughing along with bud at some of this once Bud stopped doing that for all the times that everybody including TJ would rush to Bud’s defense and say oh but he’s making such a difference TJ was the one who would bring that up often and passionately he’s making such a difference he’s getting back there he’s disrupting he’s wreaking havoc he’s taking eyeballs away from me and allowing me to do my job well all of that was accurate but guess what Bud’s career didn’t take off until he started making sharper turns or making moves to the inside rather than to the outside and getting to the quarterback and finishing that’s not because sacks are a sexy stat that’s because Sachs matter the mistake that the PFF people made forever ago was confusing these two things if they had stuck with pass rush win rate as a predictive stat which is all it is is rather than grossly overvaluing it arguably for their own biased interest they’d have really been on to something and might even have helped people understand football better instead of just flagrantly discrediting themselves and everything that they do with this Preposterous notion that pressures are somehow important than saxs it’s Insanity when we come back j1q this segment of daily shot is brought to you by our good friends at Mike’s beer bar they’re located on Federal Street directly across from PNC Park Mike has more than 500 beers on to including from more than 50 local breweries stop in and say hello tell Mike we sent you Mike’s beer [Music] bar today’s j1q comes from BJ who says DK do you think Omar Khan could use Justin Fields as pre-season or inseason trade Capital if Russell Wilson ends up being in full control of running the offense oh you know I I don’t think so and I say that mostly because not a soul Who’s listening to this program today can name the Steelers number three quarterback no seriously tell me who’s the number three quarterback back I know who it is I’m asking you and if you don’t know and I’m sure some of you do and you woke up today and pressed play on something called daily shot of Steelers imagine how prominent this individual must be within the football World my belief is that the Steelers are entering this season with what they believe is a tandem they do have a fail safe in place they also have the possibility in place that Fields could find it himself or that Fields could find or have somebody help him find a safer smarter approach to the game to managing the football because as I’ve been pointing out quite a bit and brought up again on yesterday’s episode he has numbers it’s just that they get offset in a really unsettling Way by all the interceptions by all the fumbles maybe those have been a necessary evil for him to be as dynamic as he’s been but you have to dial it back at some point there’s nobody who gets away with it forever and yes I know jamus Winston existed but there aren’t many jamus examples around the league at some point you’ve just got to put possession up as your top priority so no what I see as having happened here is that between Omar and Mike Tomlin they see a scenario in which they’ve got themselves an established Super Bowl winning quarterback as the start off point as the default if he fares well he doesn’t cost them any money it’s not all that important that you’d keep him after the season even if he does meet reasonable expectations and you also have yourself right there under your own roof what everyone in Pittsburgh actually has been wanting for a very very very long time which is one of those bigname High pedigree Heisman nominee type quarterbacks I’ve been saying this a lot but I’m going to say it again if the Steelers had landed Fields right out of college right from Columbus to Pittsburgh the delirium here would have exceeded anything and everything that we ended up witnessing related to Kenny picket why because in Pittsburgh that’s all we’ve known as far as successful quarterbacks how did they get Terry Bradshaw super crazy high Elite pick in the draft how did they get Ben rothberger same way never mind that there are a lot of different ways to produce quarterbacks that is the one in Pittsburgh we’ve always wanted and if we had gotten Fields just three years ago everybody would have been nuts over it well all he did in those three years was start in the NFL and put up really impressive offensive numbers they’re not going to give up on that that’s my point they’re not going to just say eh we’re done with that we could get a nice high draft pick and by the way eliminate any and all possibilities for a parachute we’d have if something happens to Russ so no my answer is no they’re going to stick with these two quarterbacks I appreciate the question I appreciate every every body listening to daily shot of Steelers we’re going to do another one of these tomorrow

Sacks vs. pressures? Please.

#HereWeGo #Pittsburgh #Steelers

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19 comments
  1. You're using Jarvis Jones as a contrary example again. I have no idea how many pressures he had in college but the man led the SEC in sacks for 2 years ! He had the production ! He was, in fact, beating the man in front of him. This wasn't leading Div III in sacks, this was the SEC at it's (arguably) most dominant !

  2. I had high hopes for Jarvis and Devon, for that matter. You can't make it in the NFL based on college production. There is no Vanderbilt or North Western here.

  3. TJ WATT SHOULD BE A 3 TIME D.P.O.Y the fact that he's not is why people don't listen to the media anymore. P.F.F is overrated and easily skewed

  4. 2018 UDFA QB #3 (or #2)? Kyle Allen has a 7-12 record as a starter & was considered the league's 20th best backup by CBS Sports in 2023
    (How do you measure that)? 🤣

    Happy 4th of July! Don't leave dogs in the backyard tonight

  5. I totally agree with you DK. I would love for you to have the TJ discussion with Matt Williamson on air. He thinks Garrett is better. All the tape I watched says TJ. There are too many times where I wonder, if Garrett is on the field.

  6. Oh DK this is a sore spot for me. I don't understand it? I have watched a lot of touchdowns scored over the years by Steelers opponents where as the qb threw the ball right as he was getting hit by everybody from LC Greenwood to TJ Watt. Not one time ever have not only have a seen an offensive touchdown when the qb was sacked!!! Maybe because sacks actually end the play with a loss of yardage. They are far more fun to watch than pressures. And I think Myles Garrett just got another one. No loss of yardage tho. " a pressure " 🙄 That's almost a sack!! Go Steelers!!

  7. Matt Williamson says the same nonsense as PFF and for the life of me I don't get it!! No one in maybe history affects the game in the forth quarter or late in the game that affects the outcome of the game like TJ Watt Period….

  8. Matt Williamson made this argument on his show a few weeks ago. He openly said Myles Garrett is a better defender than TJ because of that very stat line. It’s garbage and it’s an “almost” type of statistic. “Almost” doesn’t truly disrupt a play every time, but a sack does. I would rather see my team and players get the sack and not cheer for “almost” type of plays. You said it yourself, Chris Collinsworth”less” is the epicenter of PFF and he hates the Steelers. The AFC North (Central) bad blood runs deep and this is just another way to “stick it to the Steelers” by an angry former Bungel. IMO.

  9. So, Dejan, I understand from the comments that you're responding to Matt Williams and his reasoning for placing Pressures over Sacks. My take is that someone from PFF slipped Matt some of their kool-aid without him knowing.

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