Freeney, Mathis and the strip-sack

by shake n bake on Oct 18, 2008 11:02 PM EDT

A sack isn't enough for Dwight Freeney or Robert Mathis. They want the ball. Both DEs have forced a fumble on over half of their sacks. Freeney has 32 fumbles forced on 63 sacks, while Robert Mathis has 28 FF on 47 sacks. That's a lot of fumbles, but how unusual are those kind of ratios? After the jump are the sack to FF ratios for the top 25 players on the active sacks list.

(Fun facts, Dwight Freeney is the youngest player in the top 20 of the active sacks list at 14th. Robert Mathis is the second youngest player in the top 25).

Player	Sacks	FF	FF%	Rank
Jason Taylor	118	39	33.0%	7
Kevin Carter	102.5	17	16.6%	23
Willie McGinest	85	16	18.8%	21
La'Roi Glover	83	16	19.3%	20
Trevor Price	81	11	13.8%	24
Leonard Little	78	30	38.5%	4
Patrick Kerney	76.5	15	19.6%	19
John Abraham	74.5	29	38.9%	3
Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila	74.5	17	22.8%	17
Joey Porter	72	19	26.4%	13
Greg Ellis	71	20	28.2%	11
Jevon Kearse	71	26	36.6%	5
Aaron Schobel	68	18	26.5%	12
Dwight Freeney	63	32	50.8%	2
Julius Peppers	59	21	35.6%	6
Bertrand Berry	58	14	24.1%	15
Greg Ellis	57.5	10	17.4%	22
Adewale Ogunleye	56.5	14	24.8%	14
Darren Howard	54	13	24.1%	16
Mike Vrabel	53	15	28.3%	10
Vonnie Holliday	52	7	13.5%	25
Andre Carter	49.5	11	22.2%	18
Terrell Suggs	48	14	29.2%	9
Adalius Thomas	48	15	32.3%	8
Robert Mathis	47	28	59.6%	1

No one is even close to Freeney or Mathis among the league top 25 active pass rushers.

Only Freeney, Mathis and Bears DE Alex Brown (34.5 sacks 15 FF) have more than a 40% forced fumble rate among the league's top 50 sackers.

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Comments

that is nuts

As a sports fan you see all sorts of stats all the time. Oftentimes you’ll see a “best since [2 years ago]” stat that really doesn’t mean much. This however, is pretty incredible. No one else is even over 40%. What a useful skill too; a sack is definitely helpful but a potential turnover often swings the momentum for an entire game. If I had to guess, it has to be due to speed, as QB’s often just don’t see or expect them coming so quickly. Great work, great stats, great DE’s.

On a related note, remember when we all got excited to have Chad Bratzke? ha.

by psvirsky on Oct 19, 2008 1:50 AM EDT reply actions

Doesn't mean much?

I understand the thought of there being so many stats, out there and too many of them are pushed down our throats. But I think if your the best at something over a two year period, it says something. Not as much as maybe the broadcaster is insinuating, but something. At the very least that they’re on a streak of some kind, especially if the stat has like a wide gap, between them and the second place person over that time. Anything under a year, means nothing, and if second is too close for that given stat, then it too is nothing, but take them into context, and see what the stat is, for instance, I bet Mathis over the passed couple of seasons has been our leader in sacks, whether it was cause of injury to Freeney, or attention towards him. It says a little something since it still takes alot to be successful at rushing the QB.

by Scooty4422 on Oct 19, 2008 4:21 AM EDT up reply actions