Just how bad is it likely to be, though, and what areas are we most likely to see the drop-off? That, I can answer by comparing to the past. Four years ago, I wrote this post on the value of a good left tackle, a page view goldmine. I found 19 cases of a pro bowl offensive tackle who missed a majority of a season with an injury during what could be considered his prime, a year after playing for the same franchise.
SAN DIEGO, CA – OCTOBER 15: Peyton Manning #18 of the Denver Broncos speaks to Ryan Clady #78 during the game against the San Diego Chargers at Qualcomm Stadium on October 15, 2012 in San Diego, California. (Photo by Harry How/Getty Images)
Here’s a re-print of the meat of that post:
POINTS PER GAME
The teams in question scored, on average, 25.7 fewer points in the injury season for their star offensive tackle. That’s an average of 2.9 points per game. Well, except it really isn’t. The dropout was likely greater than that, because remember, our injured tackles did play 6.3 games on average during that dropoff season; if we want to get a rough estimate of their worth, we need to account for that. Dividing the point dropoff by the games played difference gives us 2.9 points per game dropoff when the star tackle is out. It’s an apples to oranges comparison (my cutoff of requiring a pro bowl was designed to weed out right tackle types that weren’t considered dominant but started for a while), but in looking at the estimate for starting quarterback worth of 2.3 points, I’m at least in the ball park with this method.
RUSHING YARDS PER CARRY
This was an interesting one. Most star tackles are considered the best pass blockers at their position, but I was still surprised to see no effect on the running game as measured by yards per carry. It may be only 19 players, but it is hundreds of games and thousands of carries for each type of season (before injury vs. injured tackle). The results, taking to the thousandth digit: 4.011 yards per carry in the previous year, and 4.016 yards per carry the year the tackle was injured.
NET YARDS PER ATTEMPT
So if there was no impact on rushing efficiency, but the points went down, it’s gotta be the passing, right? Net Yards Per Attempt includes the Passing Yards, and also deduct Sack Yards. The Net Yards per Pass did drop, from 6.33 in the previous year to 5.94 in the injury year. Again, just like we did with wins, we have to adjust for the fact that the linemen did play some during that injury year. The likely effect on a per game basis when playing versus when out with an injury was somewhere between 0.7 to 0.8 Net Yards per Attempt dropoff. That’s fairly large–it would be like going from Chad Henne’s numbers in 2010 to Matt Schaub’s, or from Matt Schaub’s to Aaron Rodgers.
Since I wrote that post four years ago, we’ve seen the following cases that would also qualify:
Jason Peters, Philadelphia, 2012: Peters missed all year. Eagles went from 396 points to 280 points, 8 wins to 4 wins, and Andy Reid got fired. The passing game dropped from 7.01 NYPA to 5.69, though the sack rate remained basically the same. Rushing yards per carry from 5.1 to 4.5.
Ryan Clady, Denver, 2013: If you are looking for hope, then Clady played just 2 games in 2013. The Denver offense in Manning’s second season exploded even more, going from 481 points to 606, with Net Yards per Pass improving from 7.4 to 7.8.
Jake Long, St. Louis, 2014: Long played hurt and managed only 7 games last year. The points scored went from 348 to an even worse 324, while the passing and rushing numbers stayed pretty much the same.
Russell Okung, Seattle, 2013: Okung missed half the season, the Seahawks managed to score 5 more points and the passing and rushing numbers stayed the same, though Russell Wilson moving into year 2 probably offset the games Okung missed.
Adding those four cases in, the average drop off was 21 points of offense over the course of the season. The injured tackles averaged 6 games played, so the average drop off was about 2.3 points a game.
The sack rate actually didn’t rise all that much. Quarterbacks are way more responsible for it than people realize. The impact was still there, though, because a quarterback inclined to get rid of it quickly will still do so, but before he is ready, and in situations that impact the overall yards per attempt.
from The Big Lead http://ift.tt/1Bs7MDi
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