BHQ Player of Round Fifteen

[Blindside Bronco]

So I am a sadistic prick obviously but I rewatched the first half of the Storm game as the Haas factor of extra meters versus set defense really bothered me.

So:

Method:

Timed players from first effective contact (as in not a missed tackle, but actual contact that sticks) until:

- the defense appears to be heading back.

- the carrier is released

- the ball is played

The total tackle time is all three of these points combined.

I tracked three players, Haas, Patty and Jesse for a storm reference.

	Defense Retreats (avg)	Carrier Released (avg)	Ball Played (avg)	Avg Total Tackle Time
Haas	1.18 sec	4.81 sec	1.56 sec	7.55 sec
Patty	1.2 sec	3.74 sec	1.95 sec	6.89 sec
Jesse	1.28 sec	3.98 sec	1.71 sec	6.97 sec

Observations:

Haas has a faster PTB as he's often standing at the end of the tackle, however at the cost of additional wrestle time. The times he was legs tackled and ended up on the ground, his 'Carrier Released' time was substantially lower and actually skewed his data a bit. He had two legs tackles that were carrier released after 2.23 and 3.39 seconds respectively. Ignoring these two outliers, his average goes up to 5.39 seconds - increasing his average total tackle time to 8.13 seconds.

Jesse finds his front (and most Storm forwards do), they seem to favour hitting with the bumpers then using that small bounce to lower themselves in the tackle and simultaneously push forward and at the ground.

Patty got flipped onto his back a fair few times. His data would be even better if he could control that better, they dominated him in this respect, to his credit, he didn't let it drag him down too much, but his stats could have been better had he avoided 3ish of those in the first half.

Overall, as we suspected, Payne's total tackle time is more than 10% higher than his peers. The extra meters he gains comes at the cost of a better set defence and thus more line speed.

Our best forward in the first half was absolutely without a doubt Jensen, dude was amazing, he deserves way more credit. More hit-ups, good meters and fast play the balls, dude is quietly achieving a lot for us.

Our middles were caught napping in defense several times too, they made huge meters up our guts.

Bottom line, Haas can improve if he just took the tackle and went to ground, when he does that, he shaves seconds off his total tackle time (literally almost 2) and the subsequent carriers were much more effective as there was less line speed to meet them.

Broncos forwards need to bump and find their front. It's literally how their forwards won the battle on Friday.

PTB stat is a bit of a garbage stat on its own - especially if you have a high time from effective tackle contact until the carriers release you. Defense is set, line speed is better and your team pays for it on the next carry.

The amount of "second efforts" on our boys in that game that were not called was utterly sickening. Storm get away with so much crap that would make the panthers blush.

Thanks for the research and effort.
As you wrote it is what most of us suspected.