One of the more interesting statistics that has seen light this offseason has been the "sacks allowed" total for left tackles. It's been a hotly contested number which was originally cited here in favor of Tra Thomas who was tabbed for only 2.0 sacks in 2008, and most recently it's become a noted area of concern for Jason Peters who was slapped with a whopping 11.5. That's pretty far from elite.
Spotted over at Firedforwinning.com, a member of the forums on the Buffalo Bills official web site known by DKTurtle, using NFL.com's replay re-cutter (neat feature BTW), went back and dissected what appears to be every sack Peters supposedly allowed last season. Or in this case, the ones he didn't.
Having seen the videos, it seems Peters was victimized just as often by his teammates as he was the pass rushers. He often blocks for a substantial amount of time, but the quarterback is either unable to locate an open receiver or is flushed out of the pocket and runs into a sack. To be fair, there are also plays where he was clearly at fault, but the point was only to disprove the total number of sacks Peters was charged with.
The one caveat is we can't be 100% sure this is a completely accurate listing of all the sacks, at least I don't think we can. Some of these weren't necessarily charged to the left tackle (or anybody for that matter), however the original poster really did his homework and it's probably closer to correct than the statistic. Quite simply, plenty of these do not appear to be Peters' fault, fully or at all, and most aren't nearly as likely to occur with a quality veteran QB and capable offense.
The full list can be found right here. Definitely worth a look if you're interested in breaking down the play of linemen. Who's on the hook for this one?
Original Story:
http://www.the700level.com/2009/04/fo...
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April 19, 2009
