Sources: Pressuring the Quarterback is Good, Actually.
Vikings defenders Dallas Turner leads the NFL with 20 pressures. So why are his Pro Football Focus grades so low? And who can you really trust for film-based statistics these days?
Minnesota Vikings edge rusher Dallas Turner leads the NFL with 20 pressures through two games. Turner has notched three sacks and forced a Jordan Love fumble for a Vikings defense currently ranked fourth in DVOA.
Turner recorded 11 pressures and two sacks in Week 2, spearheading a 9-3 road victory against a playoff-caliber division rival.
Turner’s Pro Football Focus grade for Week 2 against the Bears was 52.2: an “average” afternoon, represented by a drab little orange dot.
That’s like giving The Godfather two-and-a-half stars out of five. Maybe PFF’s game charters thought Turner’s performance insisted upon itself.
Thor Nystrom, the appropriately-named Vikings reporter and expert, spotted PFF’s incongruous Turner’s grade and blasted it on social media. The grade was 48.8 when Nystrom posted about it on Monday; PFF sometimes adjusts grades early in the week. Turner’s season grade of 72.5 is more respectable, but still inexcusably low. Aidan Hutchinson and Greg Rousseau, with 16 pressures each, have grades of 90.9 and 90.6, respectively. Maxx Crosby’s grade is 90.0 on 11 pressures and two sacks.
Pressure rates are not the issue: Turner has rushed the passer 72 times, Hutchinson 92, Rousseau 69, Crosby 65. We can quibble about the degree to which Brian Flores’ scheme makes pressures easier to come by, but that would be chasing an ostrich with a fly swatter.
I am not sure who has to hear this, but ...
TWENTY PRESSURES BY AN EDGE RUSHER IN TWO GAMES IS EXCELLENT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.
This feature is not meant to be a long Pro Football Focus diatribe. I didn’t trust PFF back when most of the NFL Internet did. I sure as hell don’t trust them now that they’re the Facebook of football analytics: a legacy site for bots and boomers, still broadly useful for certain tasks and too established/familiar to really fail.
Instead, I want to discuss Turner, some teammates, Flores, the Vikings defense and the current state of film-based NFL statistics.
If Turner’s PFF grades leave you scratching your head, wait until you see Andrew Van Ginkel’s grades. Van Ginkel has 2.5 sacks, nine pressures and a critical forced fumble against the Packers through two games. He recorded five pressures against the Bears in Week 2, plus a sack that netted a 17-yard loss. His PFF grade for the Bears game was 47.3. His grade for the year to date: 58.9.
