Football Science: Giants' CB Metrics

[Mr. P]

Since we have reached the one-quarter mark of the Giants' season, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at some of Big Blue's passing metrics up to this point.

 

These metrics are derived from game tape breakdowns I do using a system that has been developed over the past seven years. The specifics of this system are too detailed to review in a forum of this nature, but the general overview is that it's designed to segment individual player performance in a wide variety of areas.

 

For today's review we will be looking at cornerbacks. Each player is listed below along with the number of times he has been targeted (i.e. the number of passes thrown at the cornerback), how many incompletions/interceptions/offensive pass interference (OPI) penalties occurred, the success rate (defined as incompletions/interceptions/OPI penalties divided by targets), yards allowed and yards per pass attempt (YPA).

 

Corey Webster -- 12 targets, 7 I/I/OPI, 58.3% success rate, 71 yards, 5.9 YPA

 

Terrell Thomas -- 22 targets, 10 I/I/OPI, 45.5% success rate, 143 yards, 6.5 YPA

 

Aaron Ross -- 6 targets, 0 I/I/OPI, 0.0% success rate, 102 yards, 17.0 YPA

 

Bruce Johnson -- 4 targets, 3 I/I/OPI, 75.0% success rate, 25 yards, 6.3 YPA

 

To put some of these totals into perspective, consider the following rules of thumb for the success rate and YPA categories:

 

Success rate -- A season-ending mark of 50% is very good, 40% is solid and anything below that is considered subpar

 

YPA -- A season-ending YPA below the 7.0 mark would normally rank a cornerback in the top 1/3 of the league. A YPA mark of 7-9 yards would rank in the middle 1/3 of the league. Anything higher than 9 YPA will typically rank in the bottom 1/3 of the league.

 

What all of this says is that, just as he did in Buffalo, Perry Fewell is putting together a secondary that can cover receivers as well as just about any group in the league. The only weak link thus far is Ross and his target total is so low that his bad metrics might very well be an anomaly. Add this group to the type of pass rush the Giants have been able to get of late and it means they have two of the three facets necessary to put together a dominant defense.

 

http://espn.go.com/blog/new-york/giants/post/_/id/1892/football-scientist-giants-cornerback-metrics

[hlb37]

2 thoughts.

 

The first is how he determines who is targeted? If a Corner is playing press with an inside technique and is supposed to have deep help over the top from a safety who blows the assignment is he screwed? It is really the safety who blew the coverage.

 

The reason the secondary numbers look good is connected to the fact that the pass rush has been good and vice versa. He talks about them being "2 of the 3" components of the defense but the synergies between the two groups are pretty major.

[Treehugger]

Interesting that Webster has only been targeted 3 times/game and only has 1.25 completions/game against him. That's pretty damn impressive.

[RandolphScott]

Interesting that Webster has only been targeted 3 times/game and only has 1.25 completions/game against him. That's pretty damn impressive.

 

Webster Island baby.

[JackStroud]

I can remember all the grief Corey took his 1st 2 years.......then late in the SB season he came on like gangbusters

 

that was an odd progression from Zero to Hero in one season

[MakeMeSomeFoodHo]

Webster is underrated