Week 6 at Jax - Stats and Stuff
 

Samson Ebukam currently leads the #Colts with 4 sacks through 6 games.

Ebukam is on pace for:
• 54 tackles
• 14 TFL
• 23 QB hits
• 11.5 sacks

https://x.com/cpfelger55/status/1713...L8ardaxv32vrGQ

QBs with a QBR above 60.0 in 2023

Week 1 - 11
Week 2 - 19
Week 3 - 11
Week 4 - 16
Week 5 - 13
Week 6 - 4*

*minus MNF

Talk about an awful week for QB play.

Apparently Ballard is way better at scouting DEs in Free Agency (Autry, Houston, Ekubam) than he is at scouting DEs in the draft.

He might be. Although it’s pretty hard to draft a franchise DE out side of the top ten. Max Crosby is the best low round DE I can think of playing right now and they drafted Clelin Ferrel with their first pick that draft.

Ballard's missed with a lot of Round 2 picks on DEs. I know finding edge rush talent on Day 3 is a crap shoot, but most GMs are better than 0 for 4 (jury still out on Odeyingbo) at finding at least average edge rush talent in Round 2. I'm not one of these crazy people who thinks the Colts need a new GM, but I feel it's fair to point out his weaknesses as a talent evaluator, especially when they have such an easy fix.

Are they better than 0-4 though? I don’t think the hit rate is very high.

“Having already been in the select 0.01% of the top 1.6% of the top 7.3% of the nation, the chosen players might be dismayed to learn that only 30% of those drafted will ever make it onto an NFL roster.

Of course, this number is skewed and isn’t a straight line across the board. The players taken in the first and second rounds will definitely be on the opening day roster, barring some unforeseen injury or something. But the players taken in the sixth and seventh rounds may have only a 10% or 15% chance, at least in the first year or two.“

“And so only about 8% of draft picks are players that really make much of a difference beyond replacement value, and only about 30% see much playing time or make a significant contribution to the team.

That means among the 260 or so drafted players each year, only about 2-3 will have Hall of Fame caliber careers, and only about 21 will be undisputedly good picks- and very good but not HoF caliber players.”

Looking at the numbers I think he has been average, in-line with the rest of the league. Tyquan and Dayo are contributing.


https://en.as.com/nfl/what-percentag...outputType=amp

https://www.dailynorseman.com/platfo...ains-very-high

Ballard's Edge rushers definitely stand out because of the 2nd-rounders. But I think Chrome is right in that there just aren't a lot that hit. At least not in the way most fans would consider to be "consistent, impactful" rushers.

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/draft/

If you just pick any recent year ^^ and sort by position, then look at the 2nd-3rd rounders, you see a whole bunch of guys (particularly DE's) that make you say, "Who?" or "Oh yeah, he was supposed to be good."

Just taking a quick glance, it really seems there are very few players doing anything we'd be satisfied with. Feels like you need a premium pick to get a blue chip guy who will then make the rest of your guys better.

I think Ballard realizes this and why he throws numbers at it and tries to find high ras guys or guys that dominate in a specific analytics area and hoping one hits. It’s a low hit position. Paye had a super high 3 cone, which is what Polian swears by as an indicator. Some of the other guys were high ras but raw. Tyquan had an abnormally high win rate in college and was buried behind top five picks. Dayo had good measurables and a non stop motor. It just one of those positions that you keep taking till you hit. I think WR is kinda the same way, high bust rate position.

Could be worse, could of had a top five pick and then picked the wrong guy like the Jags passing on Aidan Hutchinson for Walker.

Kid was 5th in hurries, 20th in pressures while being the most double-teamed guy in the league as a rookie.

Currently leading the league in pressures this season. Yeah, I still can't believe JAX passed on him.

When you look at this, you have to include OLBs that are edge rushers. When you do that, I see the following since 2018:

2023: 1 of 4 (Also way too early, Tuipulotu is starting and performing well for LAC though)
2022: 3-5 of 8 (You be the judge on Ebeketie and Hall, Mafe, Jackson, and Bonitto are hits)
2021: 0-1 of 3 (Ojulari is good when healthy, jury still out on Dayo)
2020: 2-4 of 5 (Yetur Gross-Matos, Darrell Taylor, and Josh Uche have all had stretches of high production)
2019: 0 of 1 (Just our bust Ben Banogu here)
2018: 2 of 4 (Harold Landry and Uchenna Nwosu are good starters, Turay and Lewis were busts comparatively)

If you take the low end numbers, that's 8 of 25 quality players (32% hit rate). At the high end, it's 13 of 25 quality players (52% hit rate). Either way, Ballard is performing way worse than average over that stretch. For reference, here are the players I included for each of the 6 years:

2023: Derick Hall, Isaiah Foskey, BJ Ojulari, Tuli Tuipulotu
2022: Logan Hall, Arnold Ebeketie, Boye Mafe, David Ojabo, Josh Paschal, Sam Williams, Drake Jackson, Nick Bonitto
2021: Azeez Ojulari, Dayo Odeyingbo, Carlos "Boogie" Basham
2020: Yetur Gross-Matos, Marlon Davidson, Darrell Taylor, A.J. Epenesa, Josh Uche
2019: Ben Banogu
2018: Harold Landry III, Uchenna Nwosu, Kemoko Turay, Tyquan Lewis