A Look at the Jets Pressure PackagesHere is the Hub Post.One storyline from the Raiders-Jets matchup of Week 1 was how difficult it is for rookie QBs to play against Rex Ryan's pressure defense. One thing you know is that he will bring pressure. Another thing you know is that it will be something totally different from what you expect. Even seasoned veterans can get flustered and so the outcome of Derek Carr's day could be called a moral victory of sorts.This is a little bit of a closer look at those pressure packages. I hope to examine the breakdowns later. For now, this is a look at some statistics I gleaned while studying the video. The results are expected but still interesting.GeneralLet's begin by taking all the passing plays and then breaking them into two categories, Standard rush and Blitz. For these purposes, let's strictly define "Blitz" as 5 or more rushers. So Standard Rush will be 3 or 4 man rush (The Jets never had any fewer than 4 rushers).Total Passing Plays counted : 36By Number of Rushers :#Count42051462This is a little bit of an eyebrow-raiser. In just watching the game, it certainly appeared that Ryan and the Jets brought lots of pressure, but this indicates less than 50% were blitzes. Also, there were guys swarming around Carr all day. They really didn't bring 6 or 7 rushers more than twice?The answer is that the pressure packages that the Jets used had lots of potential blitzers and then various (unpredictable) defenders dropping into coverage, leaving generally 5 or fewer rushers. This was effective because the offensive protections were often set opposite to the pressure side.4 Man RushFirst, a closer look at the 4 man Rush. Here are the details.TypeCountPlays20Comp12Yardage104TDs1Penalties1Penalty Yards16Inc6Sacks1Sack yards-7Take completions, penalties (these are defensive penalties like pass interference) as successes while incompletiond and sacks are failures. And if we sum the yardage, the penalty yardage, and subtract the sack yardage, we get the net yards for these plays.Success Rate : 65%NET Yards per play : 5.7Then this can be compared to ...BlitzFor plays with 5 or 6 pass rushers, these are the results :TypeCountPlays16Comp8Yardage43TDs1Penalties0Inc7Sacks1Sack Yards-11Success Rate : 8/16 = 50%Net Yards per play : 2.0Big drop from 65% success rate down to 50%, but the number that really jumps out is the 2.0 net yards per play. That means the Raiders average nearly 1/3 fewer yards per play when the Jets blitz compared to when they don't.With these numbers, perhaps the Raiders should count themselves lucky that the Jets didn't blitz more often. You would think that with this type of success, the Jets would be sending 5 guys around 75% of the time instead of 44% of the time.But there's a reason for this.Breakout the 4 Man RushNot all 4-man rushes are the same and lumping them together does a bit of a disservice to the defense. The way the Jets deploy their pass rushers is rarely predictable and this is also true of their 4 man rush packages.Breaking out the 4 man rush plays into two separate categories, a "Simple" rush where four pass rushers declare and come. Call it "False Front" if the Jets show pressure and back out or when they line up several defenders and then rush 4 but overload one side. These are still pressure packages and have Blitz-like consequences and so here are the results taking that into account :4 Man (Simple)TypeCountPlays10Comp8Yardage79TDs1Penalties0Inc2Sacks0Success Rate : 80%Net Yards per play : 7.9Wow.When the Jets pass rush execute a 4 man, predictable rush, the Raiders were highly successful against it. Not really that surprising is it? (side note : even on 4 man rushes, the Jets were stunting, twisting, and executing various games so it was never really "easy")At the end of the game, with 2:39 left in the 4th quarter, the Raiders got their final possession. The Jets were leading 19-7. On this final drive, Derek Carr led the Raiders on a 5 play, 57-yard TD drive. On this drive, the Jets used a Simple pass rush on 4 of the plays. The results :4 plays3/4, 48 yards12.0 yards per attempt1 TDThe other play on that drive was a 4-man False Front pass rush that surrendered a 9 yard completionOf those 10 simple rushes, the Jets used 4 of them on that final drive and 5 of them in the 4th quarter overall. That leaves...4 Man False FrontTypeCountPlays10Comp4Yardage25TDs0Penalties1Penalty Yards16Inc4Sacks1Sack Yards-11Success Rate : 50%Net Yards per play : 3.0By still bringing 4, but using scheme to free up the rushers, the Jets were able to significantly affect Derek Carr. Here, he goes from 80% success rate down to 50% and then from 7.9 yards per play all the way down to 3.0. The Jets were still able to cause the Raiders problems even without having to bring 5 or 6 rushers; what they did was confuse the blocking.Of these 10 4 man false front pressures, 9 of them were in the 4th quarter, including 5 in the last two drives.And this makes some sense.The Jets brought blitz pressure early and often and had Carr confused and battered several times. Once that got on his mind, later, the Jets could show that pressure and get Carr to get spooked and overreact to it, while backing out.Additionally, since the Jets were playing with a lead, these pressure packs were safer since they were able to put 7 into coverage.Break out the BlitzesNow here's a closer look at the Blitz stats :5 Man PressureTypeCountPlays14Comp7Yardage43TDs1Penalties0Inc7Sacks0Success Rate : 50%Net Yards per play : 3.1Interestingly, the 5 man pressure results are about the same as the 4 man false front pressures.6 Man PressureTypeCountPlays2Comp1Yardage0TDs0Penalties0Inc0Sacks1Sack yards-7Success Rate : 50%Net Yards per play : -3.5Just 2 plays, one was a completion for 0 yards and another one was a sack for 7 yards. They didn't bring it often, but it did some damage when they did.All Pressure PacksCombining the Blitz stats and the 4 man False front stats together and call it "Pressure packages". Here are the results :Pressure PackagesTypeCountPlays26Comp12Yardage68TDs1Penalties1Penalty yards16Inc11Sacks2Sack yards-18Success Rate : 50%Net Yards per play : 2.572% of the time the Jets brought some kind of pressure package and limited what the Raiders were able to do offensively. They scored one TD on a nice, well-timed screen to Rod Streater for 12 yards. (And that was after a key interception by CWood that placed the Raiders deep in Jets territory).The Jets had limited the Raiders to 68 passing yards and 66 net yards on 26 plays. For frame of reference, the Raiders gained 57 yards in the final drive when the Jets backed off of most of their pressure packages.For comparison purposes, here's the 4-man Simple Rush results again from above :SimpleTypeCountPlays10Comp8Yardage79TDs1Penalties0Inc2Sacks0Success Rate : 80%Yards per play : 7.9ChartsSuccess RatesNet Yards per PlayRex Ryan is not kind to rookie QBs and this is an example of how and why. He was bringing pressure on 3/4s of the passing plays. While Carr started off well and looked confident, when the looks started to get more exotic and the defenders were running wild, the results dropped off sharply.It was Trial by Fire for the rookie and while Carr will certainly see lots of blitzes coming after him this year, he will probably not see nearly as complex and confusing a set of blitzes and in such volume as he did on this day. via /r/nfl http://www.reddit.com/r/nfl/comments/2g9fdc/week_1_oak_v_nyj_jets_pressure_packages_statistics/
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