For Sean Payton, scoring on offense—at least to a greater extent than in his first season as Broncos head coach—begins with avoiding sacks.
“No. 1, we can’t take as many sacks,” Payton said when questioned about it last week at the NFL Annual Meeting in Orlando, Florida.
While Payton mentioned the running game as a problem, sacks played a key impact in pushing the offense off balance and behind schedule. This occurred despite the fact that the offensive line was ranked ninth in pass-block victory rate by ESPN Analytics.
Make no mistake: this is a major reason Russell Wilson is no longer with the Denver Broncos. Wilson was 45th in sack rate among 57 quarterbacks with at least 75 total plays (pass attempts, running attempts, and times sacked combined), with one sack every 10.9 pass plays.
Here’s the problem: Jarrett Stidham is no better. In fact, he may be worse than Wilson. In the two games he played, he was sacked somewhat more frequently than Wilson: once every 10.4 pass plays.
JARRETT STIDHAM AND THE CASES HE TOOK
Denver Sports/104.3. The Fan host Mark Schlereth, who also serves as a game analyst for FOX’s NFL coverage, lauded Stidham’s efforts in this area on the “Schlereth and Evans” morning show last week.
“He stayed within the confines of the pocket even under duress,” Schlereth went on to say. “And when he had to flee, he didn’t try to outrun everyone off the edge and take enormous sacks. “He attempted to escape up the middle.”And then either made a play, scrambled, or, if he did take a sack, it was for minus-2 or -3 yards or something.”
However, the data does not support that statement.
While Stidham has a lower percentage of sacks for losses of 10 or more yards — only one among the 14 he has taken in the last two seasons — he has a greater percentage of sacks of at least 5 yards, with 11 of the 14 times he has been sacked reaching at least 5 yards. 78.6 percent of Stidham’s sacks during the last two years covered that amount, compared to 60.0 percent for Wilson last season.
Thus, Stidham’s average loss per sack over the last two years has been 6.64 yards. Last year, it was 6.57 yards per sack, nearly a full yard lower than Wilson’s figure of 5.7 yards.
The Broncos will add to their quarterback room, maybe with a first-round choice later this month.
But if Jarrett Stidham wants to be the solution, he must begin by taking fewer sacks and minimizing the damage he causes.
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