Rams and the value of sacks

In discussion around the net, it came up that every year since 2012 the Rams pass rush feasts on Seattle, and that that inflates the Rams sack numbers for the year. So it’s fair to ask, what was the average sack production last year outside of playing Seattle? And then that also fits another issue–what is the real value of a sack? Since the real strength of a defense is points allowed, how does sack production fit in with that?

Okay first to do sack production, I will subtract the final SF game, since they rested all their starters. And then if you also subtract the 10 sacks from the 2 Seattle games, you come up with 38 regular season sacks in 13 games.

That comes out to 2.92 sacks per game on avg.

If you put the Atlanta game in, it’s then 41 sacks divided by 14 games, which comes out to be the same…2.92.

According to Team.Rankings.com only 3 teams last year did better than 2.9. That was 4th best in the league. https://www.teamrankings.com/nfl/stat/sacks-per-game (The first 3 are Pitt, Jax, and Caro. Pitt and Jax both have 3.3, Caro has 3.0.)

Okay so if you subtract the Seattle games the Rams are still 4th best in sack production (and that was without a single dominant outside rusher…the outside rush was by committee).

Well okay so what. What do sacks do for you. They obviously aren’t as dramatic as turnovers. In what way do they help? I read around on this and came up with some things that are good though they are a year or 2 dated.

Sacks do contribute to points allowed, though indirectly. What sacks can do when it comes to that is kill drives. That’s been analyzed so this is based on what I read.

1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fancy-stats/wp/2017/08/01/the-value-of-a-sack-and-why-pass-rusher-is-the-nfls-second-most-important-position/?utm_term=.0387febc8fc4

…more than 70 percent of four-down series converted for a first down or a touchdown in 2016. However, just one out of every six offensive drives (16 percent) in which the quarterback was sacked eventually got another set of downs, making it easy to see how much of a momentum killer a quarterback sack can be.

2. http://settingedge.com/sackskilldrives

939 out of 1,118 sacks (83.99%) last year resulted in a drive being killed. Conversely, just 179 out of 1,118 sacks (16.01%) resulted in the offense being able to bounce back and sustain their drive, even if just for one more set of downs. The difference is staggering. Defenses are almost 70% more likely to kill a drive after getting a sack than they are to surrender another set of downs.