FanPost

RAMS 2013: Defense, A Snap-Shot in Time

RAMS 2013: Defense Snap-Shot

It’s another great day in Rams land! Yes I am still enjoying the feelings of Sunday’s win, thank you very much.

I’ve been concentrating on offense lately, and I thought it was about time to take a look the defense due to the struggles they’ve been having this year. This year was supposed to be a stellar year for the D, and we figured the O would be playing catch up. So I went stat hunting like I did with the offense. I want to compare current stats with last year, and see what the numbers say, not just my eyes or gut feelings.

The composite of stats is in the next chart, "Team Defense"

"Team defense statistics includes various measures of defensive effectiveness to evaluate an NFL team’s defense. This includes tackles and sacks, the number of passes the team defensed preventing its opponents from completing the pass play, the defensive turnovers in the form of interceptions and fumbles recovered and defensive touchdowns."

Team Defense Statistics 2013

Rank

Team

Tack

Sacks

Pass Def

INT

Fum

TDs

Pts Agst

TDs Agst

1

Buffalo Bills

447

21

36

10

2

1

143

14

2

Baltimore Ravens

377

22

31

4

4

1

122

11

3

New York Giants

375

5

25

4

3

0

175

19

4

Cleveland Browns

369

19

37

5

4

1

125

14

5

New England Patriots

368

14

24

7

5

0

90

9

6

Philadelphia Eagles

362

13

34

6

4

0

151

17

7

Dallas Cowboys

354

17

31

6

6

3

152

17

8

Indianapolis Colts

352

17

30

7

3

1

96

9

9

Cincinnati Bengals

351

18

29

5

5

0

104

11

10

Oakland Raiders

342

16

16

3

6

1

118

14

11

New York Jets

340

20

9

1

2

0

128

13

12

San Diego Chargers

337

14

22

2

1

0

117

12

13

St. Louis Rams

336

16

27

5

7

3

140

17

Team Defense Statistics 2012

15

St. Louis Rams

905

52

58

17

4

5

327

34

We currently are sitting in 13th spot which is surprising because we finished last year at 15.

The Good: Fumble recovery has already exceeded last year, and defensive touchdowns are already at 60% of last year’s total.

The Bad: TD’s against the Rams are already at 50% of last year. Sack rate is a bit low; it should be 19.5 right now in order to match last year’s 52. Also we are slightly behind in INT’s. They should be 6.375 right now to match last year’s total.

Next up is looking at how bad our rush defense is actually doing compared to 2012.

Team Stuff Percentage:

"Team Stuff Percentage statistic measures the rate at which a team stops its opponents rushing attempts before the line of scrimmage. This statistic gives an indication to the strength of a team’s runs defense where the higher the stuff percentage the better the run defense."

Team Stuff Percentage 2013

Team

Stuff Yards

Rushing Att. Against

Stuffs

Stuff %

1

Arizona Cardinals

-76

157

28

17.8

2

Denver Broncos

-52

133

23

17.3

3

New York Jets

-47

153

26

17.0

4

Chicago Bears

-61

160

22

13.8

5

Houston Texans

-40

175

23

13.1

6

Carolina Panthers

-47

116

15

12.9

7

Green Bay Packers

-45

116

15

12.9

8

St. Louis Rams

-40

171

20

11.7

Team Stuff Percentage 2012

3

St. Louis Rams

-148

442

59

13.3

Yes, you guessed it! We’ve managed to drop 5 places in stopping the run at the LOS. If you think back to how bad we were last year in Run D, imagine us being 5 places worse this year. Of course teams are running more on us because they keep having success at it. I don’t see this going away anytime soon, but maybe they will figure it out before the season’s over.

So we put it all together and come up with an overall efficiency rating for the defense:

"Team Efficiency Ratios include pass efficiency, run efficiency, offense efficiency and scoring efficiency which compare the rate of production by the offense compared to the offense of its opponents.

Passing Efficiency Ratio: the number of passing yards for each passing yard given up.
Run Efficiency Ratio: the number of rushing yards for each rushing yard given up.
Offense Efficiency Ratio: the number of offensive yards for each offensive yard given up.
Scoring Efficiency Ratio: the number of points for each point given up."

Team Efficiency Ratios 2013

Rank

Team

Pass Efficiency Ratio

Run Efficiency Ratio

Offense Efficiency Ratio

Scoring Efficiency Ratio

1

Kansas City Chiefs

1.36

1.02

1.07

2.34

2

Denver Broncos

1.21

1.65

1.17

1.68

3

Seattle Seahawks

1.36

1.55

1.28

1.67

4

Carolina Panthers

1.03

1.53

1.13

1.6

5

New Orleans Saints

1.34

0.76

1.18

1.56

6

Indianapolis Colts

1.05

0.99

1.03

1.51

7

New England Patriots

0.91

1.01

1

1.29

8

San Francisco 49ers

1.16

1.26

1.04

1.23

9

Dallas Cowboys

0.99

0.81

0.85

1.2

10

Green Bay Packers

1.06

1.8

1.21

1.2

11

Detroit Lions

1.09

0.75

0.96

1.16

12

Tennessee Titans

0.98

0.97

0.9

1.11

13

Cincinnati Bengals

1.23

1.09

1.12

1.09

14

Chicago Bears

0.88

1.06

0.99

1.07

15

San Diego Chargers

1.07

0.91

1.04

1.04

16

Baltimore Ravens

0.96

0.74

0.95

1.04

17

Miami Dolphins

0.85

0.66

0.81

0.97

18

Cleveland Browns

0.99

0.88

1.06

0.94

19

Philadelphia Eagles

1.12

1.69

1.07

0.93

20

St. Louis Rams

0.75

0.55

0.76

0.92

Team Efficiency Ratios 2012

22

St. Louis Rams

1.02

0.91

0.96

0.86

Team Efficiency Ratios 1999

1

St. Louis Rams

1.52

1.73

1.36

2.17

This is where it gets interesting. Compared to last year we are behind in every category except scoring efficiency. That says to me that the defense is definitely the problem, which in turn if bad enough, prevents the offense from doing its job.

Even so it appears at the moment we are a couple of places ahead at number 20 from last year. This might just mean everyone else is having similar problems, because these ratings can fluctuate quite a bit from game to game. I’ve included the 1999 Rams numbers just to remind us of how much further we need to go.

The next chart while a bit out of date shows the Duds & Studs: NFL Rankings out of 1000 Players

Takeaways:

1. Ogletree has a shot at this year’s DROY. He tackles anything that moves, and is everywhere on the field. He is rated number 16 out of 1000 in the NFL!

2. JL55 has picked up his game.

3. Janoris Jenkins is our 4th best tackler? He likes to hit people a lot!

4. Chris Long is sinking on the chart but last game he looked to be making progress.

5. Quinn is a beast even though he’s at the bottom…42 sack yards!

NFL

Rank

Player

Pos

SOLO

AST

TOT

SACK

SACK

Yards

Passes

Defended

INT

INT

Yards

TD

Forced

Fumbles

16

Alec Ogletree

LB

40

7

47

0

0

4

1

98

1

2

26

James Laurinaitis

LB

34

10

44

0

0

4

1

0

0

0

78

Rodney McLeod

S

26

6

32

0

0

1

0

0

0

1

128

Janoris Jenkins

CB

23

3

26

1

0

6

1

5

0

0

165

Trumaine Johnson

CB

17

5

22

0

0

4

1

29

0

0

204

Michael Brockers

DT

18

2

20

4

11

0

0

0

0

1

233

T.J. McDonald

S

15

3

18

0

0

2

0

0

0

0

264

Kendall Langford

DT

12

4

16

1

7

1

0

0

0

0

269

Robert Quinn

DE

15

1

16

6

42

0

0

0

0

4

287

Chris Long

DE

12

3

15

3

10

1

0

0

0

1

308

Cortland Finnegan

CB

14

0

14

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

371

Eugene Sims

DE

10

1

11

1

7

1

0

0

0

0

381

Will Witherspoon

LB

10

1

11

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

399

Darian Stewart

S

7

3

10

0

0

1

0

0

0

1

407

Jo-Lonn Dunbar

LB

6

4

10

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

456

Matt Giordano

S

6

1

7

0

0

1

1

82

1

1

522

William Hayes

DE

5

0

5

1

6

1

0

0

0

0

561

Matt Conrath

DT

3

0

3

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

572

Ray Ray Armstrong

LB

3

0

3

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

645

Gerald Rivers

DE

1

0

1

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

TOTALS

287

60

347

25

123

27

5

214

2

11

So that’s the current snap-shot of our defense. Room for plenty of improvement, and thanks for your time.

GO RAMS!