stitches

We haven't got to this draft. We've seen him draft for 7 years before. But fair enough... lets see him overhaul the weapons and pass defense with the limited resources we have in the draft.

Precisely because I don't expect AJ Dillon to be one of the cheapest options for a backup RB and precisely because we are already spending 14M a year on Taylor. If he comes at a vet minimum or thereabout, I will change my tune. I just don't expect that. Again - resource allocation... we continue spending more and more resource on the things that are not the most pressing needs for this team. We need to improve the passing game on O and we need to improve the pass defense on D the most right now. And instead we are spending 7m a year for backup nose tackle who in the best case scenario will barely see the field and more money on a backup RB when teams are getting not just backups but starters late in the draft or even as UDFAs... I don't mind us getting depth... I mind us spending more than we need to for backups at non-essential positions.

No it doesn't. It shows blitz rate on the vertical axis and pressure rates in general(not just when we blitz) on the horizontal axis. It shows 2 things: 1. We don't blitz a lot compared to the rest of the league 2. We don't get pressure a lot compared to the rest of the league

Both $ and draft picks are resources. And it's not like his draft resource allocation has been much different than his $ resource allocation. He's spending on what he believes in. We are paying 40+M for DTs... we have one of the most expensive OLs in the league. We have spend a #ton of picks on the DL in addition to the money... This is nothing new. Ballard has told us repeatedly what he believes in and he's been backing it up with everything he does. From FA to trades to the draft.

... again... the resource allocation.

It's not a total bad thing. Our DLs converted pressures well last year, we had good sack production. The bad thing is that this is not sustainable. Teams don't convert over 20% of their pressures to sacks usually. In fact, the Colts were the only team that did it last year. 24% doesn't tell us much of anything unless we compare it to the rest of the league. Here it is compared to the rest of the league... This shows the Colts as one of the worst teams in the league at creating pressure.

We are returning everybody...

Because our pressure numbers are extremely low. They are some of the lowest in the league and they don't correspond to what we got as sack production. Meaning - we were extremely lucky to get that many sacks when you consider how many pressures we got. It also means, in the future you might expect regression to the mean(i.e. much lower sack numbers, if our pass rush(pressures) doesn't improve considerably)

Thanks... yeah. I knew those would be the ballpark figures, but I wasn't 100% certain. For example, I knew that for AR his 9% was one of the lowest ever and Levis was in the high 20s and it was one of the highest ever of highly drafted QBs, so my assumption was that for teams it would be somewhere in the middle...

Yep that tracks... that's very high pressure to sack ratio... over 21%. If I had to guess most other teams are much lower than us - more in the 15% range...

I think they do(not 100% sure). Again... I think it would mean you got 10 pressures with sacks + 10 pressures without sacks. But those are usually not the right proportions. (I know you are using it just as an example, but I wanted to point out what the real proportions usually are) Usually the pressure to sack ratio is about 15-20%) Meaning for every 10 sacks you would be getting about 50-65 pressures(a ton more plays you are impacting)... again my numbers are probably not 100% correct, but this is the ballpark figure.

Yep. Sacks have a luck/happenstance component. Pressures are much more a process stat. Are you good at beating the OL to the QB? In most of the cases you won't sack him, but most pressures will severely impact the QB's ability to execute the offense as it is designed. Of course there is some additional value to actually finishing the play with a sack, but in tons of cases it's not just on the defender beating the OL for it to result in a sack. You need other things to go right for you - the QB to not throw the ball away earlier, or make a quick hit to outlet receiver... or for the QB to not get away from the pressure(even if the defender did a great job beating the OL)... or sometimes a QB will run into pressure and a sack without the defender actually winning against the OL.

Not sure if I saw this posted here earlier: I really don't get Ballard...

That's the sacks thing we were discussing earlier, not pressure rates.

Come on, Jim! Give Ballard the required push to make it happen!

Don't quote me on that but I think someone mentioned Blackmon has scrubbed everything Colts related from his social media. No idea if this means much...

I just completely disagree with that evaluation...

Can you give a source for all those? Because the stats I'm seeing show we were one of the teams with lowest pressure rates in the league. I posted one of the graphs above...

Yeah, no idea... but you have to try if you really love the QB that's sitting there at 3... Same... either that or try to trade for Jefferson or another top tier WR.

We can give you some picks for Jefferson so you can try to move up to 3? Or does it look like your FO has no intention of trading Jefferson?

So @NFLfan are you guys going for a QB in the draft?

They are heavily influenced by luck on a team basis. We had really high sack numbers and really low pressure numbers. In the long run what's more predictive and descriptive of the strength of the pass-rush is the pressure rates, not the sacks.

51 sacks is not representative of the strength of that DL. Sacks are very much luck dependent. A much more representative stat is the number(%) of pressures, hits, hurries and there we've been around the bottom of the league for years. This DL is not good at disrupting the passer. I posted a graph recently that encapsulated well the struggles of this DL... I'm trying to find it, but can't right now. Will come back to you if/when I find it. Edit: Here it is: This defense doesn't blitz and it doesn't pressure the QB. It provides very limited disruption of the opposing QB. We pretty much allow them to drop back, scan the field and execute their offense. IMO this defense will never be great when the fundamentals of it's pass-disruption are this poor.

Yeah... we definitely have bodies now. The DL is taking shape. I'm just not sure it's good enough for the resources we are spending... and I'm not sure the resources we are spending are well directed.

Here's my question - how do you evaluate the season this DL had last year? Where would you put them in the hierarchy of the league? When we call it solidified... what is it solidified into? Elite? Great? Good? Average? Mediocre? To me this DL is somewhere between average and mediocre. I.e. not good enough...