on Aaron Donald

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(via Ram43)
Junkman

Before I get started, this is a Pro Football Focus thread. If you don’t like PFF stats, don’t trust them, don’t believe their acumen, believe they are fundamentally flawed for whatever reason, I’ve heard the arguments, I don’t want to hear it again. Just move along now, please, nothing to see here.

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So, our frenemies over at PFF are heaping their statistical praise on one of our own. This week, for the first time, Rams Nation’s prize rookie Aaron Donald has crept to the top of the leaderboard for NFL DT/NTs.

** OPTIONAL READING. As a reminder of how PFF stats work, it works like golf scoring but upside down – that the higher the score, the better. A “par” for a play or a game is an even zero. Every snap you play, your score can go higher or lower. A good game might give you anywhere from +1 to a +2 where an incredible game could give you +8. I’ve seen as high as +14 for Quinn’s game against Chicago last year. Same thing happens for bad games, where the worse your game, the lower your score. If you play consistently from snap to snap, the more snaps you have, the more positive (or negative) your score will be. PFF scores are also broken down into general categories like Pass Rush and Run Defense and Pass Coverage. Just like in a golf tournament, the numbers are accumulated from game to game.

Aaron Donald’s aggregate overall PFF score of 16.5 leads all NFL DTs/NTs by a slight margin. Second best is Kawaan Short at 16.0, followed by Gerald McCoy at 15.8. I honestly don’t care what the statistical measure is, that’s some great company to be in.

Donald’s run defense score of +9.6 is second in the NFL, while his pass rushing score of 5.1 is 10th best. This is out of 72 total DTs/NTs.

Donald’s top ranking is even more impressive when you consider the relatively few snaps that Donald has had. If you normalize the rankings on a per snap basis, then Donald’s lead widens among the full time DT/NTs, even though he falls 2nd overall to PFF score per snap to Ryan Davis who only comes in to rush the passer and has had 1/3 the snaps.

As one might expect for a rookie, Donald is improving. He hasn’t had a single negative game the entire year. He’s only had one negative category all year, which was pass rushing against Minnesota the first game. The general trend is up, where the Seattle game was his best game at +4.9

There is one more stat that jumps out at you when looking at Donald, a proprietary PFF stat called “Stops”, which is a solo tackle or sack that constitutes an offensive failure. Not only does Donald have 14 stops, a very high number, but this is the same as his tackles and sacks (as tallied by PFF). That is, every time Donald has made a tackle or a sack, PFF considered it an offensive failure. Donald’s 14 stops is tied for 5th among DT/NTs, and 3rd best on a per snap basis (behind a couple of run stuffing guys).

Is there room for improvement in Donald’s game? Certainly. Donald has had 132 pass rush snaps and 90 run D snaps, so it’s a little surprising that his PFF run D score is better than his pass rush score. Coming into the season, my belief was that Donald would have had more impact with his pass rush skills. But the fact that Donald is already having an impact with his run D is a testament to how high of a quality player Donald is.

A note for the DROY race, Donald is neck and neck on PFF grades with Khalil Mack and his 20 stops. But Mack has 170 more snaps that Donald. So if Donald keeps up his current pace (and increased snaps per game), it stands to reason that he should shoot past Mack. No other rookie is even close at the moment.

DPOY, by contrast, already seems like a runaway win for JJ Watt, whose +37.7 beats any player at any position by a wide margin. 2nd best (any position) is Von Miller at +23.7.

Back to Donald, let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. We’re only talking about PFF stats, and only after 6 games for a rookie, so we shouldn’t be calling the engravers in Canton just yet. But love ’em or hate ’em, PFF stats have a remarkable ability to catch people’s attention. If people were not aware of Donald before, you can be pretty sure they are noticing if him now.