Simpleton
DCC 4Life
- Joined
- Apr 8, 2013
- Messages
- 17,488
I'm not a fan of PFF in terms of their subjective analysis, "grades" and such, but I do think there's some value in the pure hard stats that they compile which serves as sort of a baseline for comparison. Unlike the NFL college doesn't really keep track of "QB hits" and the like, so the closest thing is PFF.
In watching Mazi's games (TCU, Ohio St., Iowa and Penn St. so far) I really felt like the stats weren't indicative of the pressure he was getting since at least a few times a game he was either beating his man for a clear runway to the QB or pushing them back into the QB's laps in right around 2 seconds, but the ball was always coming out so quick that he'd be left a step short of laying out the QB.
I thought this may be due to being biased since he's now a Cowboy but I checked out PFF's hits/pressures stats for a bunch of recent highly drafted DT's and it's a pretty interesting comparison. It's laid out as QB hits/pressures/pass rush snaps played, so for example, for Jeffrey Simmons you have: 7/23 - 339 snaps, which equates to 7 QB hits and 23 pressures in 339 pass rush snaps.
What's interesting to me here is that I think you can see the trend that you'd expect to see where guys who were clear known quantities coming out of college as pass-rushers (i.e. Kancey, Quinnen Williams, Wilkins) consistently generated more hits/hurries, while guys who were looked at as run-stuffers first who could do some pass-rushing on the side (Payne, Lawrence, Kinlaw) trended a bit lower.
There are some outliers like Vea but for the most part I think you're seeing the run-stuffers in the 25-30 range while the guys who were known as being ready to go as pass-rushers are in the 35-40 range. Also keep in mind that the vast majority of these guys were nowhere near as good coming out against the run as Mazi and were often 20-30+ pounds lighter.
The only guys who were even comparable in size were Vea, Lawrence, Brown and Davis. As I mentioned, Vea is the clear outlier but aside from him Mazi isn't far off from Lawrence/Brown or even guys like Payne and Kinlaw, was more productive than Davis, and of course these were all guys taken much higher than him in the first. This tells me that what I'm seeing in the games is accurate and that his pass rush isn't as far off as some think, especially in a 2-gapping defense like Michigan's where he wasn't allowed to just fly upfield often.
He isn't even that far off from someone like Carter, at least relative to the way Carter has been billed as some sort of generational interior pass rusher.
The most interesting thing of it all is that he far outpaced Jordan Davis who lagged far behind every single one of the guys I looked up, and of course we all would've been ecstatic to get him last year.
In watching Mazi's games (TCU, Ohio St., Iowa and Penn St. so far) I really felt like the stats weren't indicative of the pressure he was getting since at least a few times a game he was either beating his man for a clear runway to the QB or pushing them back into the QB's laps in right around 2 seconds, but the ball was always coming out so quick that he'd be left a step short of laying out the QB.
I thought this may be due to being biased since he's now a Cowboy but I checked out PFF's hits/pressures stats for a bunch of recent highly drafted DT's and it's a pretty interesting comparison. It's laid out as QB hits/pressures/pass rush snaps played, so for example, for Jeffrey Simmons you have: 7/23 - 339 snaps, which equates to 7 QB hits and 23 pressures in 339 pass rush snaps.
| Player | Final Year in College | Previous Year |
| Jeffrey Simmons | 7/23 - 339 snaps | 3/30 - 303 snaps |
| Jalen Carter | 5/24 - 273 snaps | 6/24 - 264 snaps |
| Derrick Brown | 10/20 - 382 snaps | 7/17 - 333 snaps |
| Quinnen Williams | 16/30 - 344 snaps | 0/3 - 151 snaps |
| Vita Vea | 9/29 - 313 snaps | 3/22 - 232 snaps |
| Calijah Kancey | 9/30 - 275 snaps | 10/19 - 367 snaps |
| Da'ron Payne | 8/24 - 406 snaps | 3/12 - 319 snaps |
| Javon Kinlaw | 7/26 - 352 snaps | 3/14 - 296 snaps |
| Christian Wilkins | 11/28 - 361 snaps | 5/12 - 363 snaps |
| Travis Jones | 7/14 - 313 snaps | 7/13 - 287 snaps |
| Jordan Davis | 2/9 - 221 snaps | 0/4 - 125 snaps |
| Dexter Lawrence | 10/21 - 254 snaps | 3/11 - 219 snaps |
| Justin Madubuike | 10/25 - 343 snaps | 11/25 - 398 snaps |
| BJ Hill | 4/14 - 420 snaps | 8/21 - 396 snaps |
| Keeanu Benton | 11/11 - 227 snaps | 7/12 - 256 snaps |
| Mazi Smith | 5/19 - 393 snaps | 6/14 - 271 snaps |
What's interesting to me here is that I think you can see the trend that you'd expect to see where guys who were clear known quantities coming out of college as pass-rushers (i.e. Kancey, Quinnen Williams, Wilkins) consistently generated more hits/hurries, while guys who were looked at as run-stuffers first who could do some pass-rushing on the side (Payne, Lawrence, Kinlaw) trended a bit lower.
There are some outliers like Vea but for the most part I think you're seeing the run-stuffers in the 25-30 range while the guys who were known as being ready to go as pass-rushers are in the 35-40 range. Also keep in mind that the vast majority of these guys were nowhere near as good coming out against the run as Mazi and were often 20-30+ pounds lighter.
The only guys who were even comparable in size were Vea, Lawrence, Brown and Davis. As I mentioned, Vea is the clear outlier but aside from him Mazi isn't far off from Lawrence/Brown or even guys like Payne and Kinlaw, was more productive than Davis, and of course these were all guys taken much higher than him in the first. This tells me that what I'm seeing in the games is accurate and that his pass rush isn't as far off as some think, especially in a 2-gapping defense like Michigan's where he wasn't allowed to just fly upfield often.
He isn't even that far off from someone like Carter, at least relative to the way Carter has been billed as some sort of generational interior pass rusher.
The most interesting thing of it all is that he far outpaced Jordan Davis who lagged far behind every single one of the guys I looked up, and of course we all would've been ecstatic to get him last year.
, you posted it, well part of it