Broken Tackles: Sabby Piscitelli, Ronde Barber Lead the Way in the NFL
by tjeabt on May 26, 2010 4:07 PM EDT
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Aaron Schatz of ESPN Insider and David Gardner of ESPN Football Outsiders took a look at players who had the most missed/broken tackles during the 2009 NFL season. The Football Outsiders staff reviewed every game from last season to come up with this alarming stat.
The Insider and Outsiders classified broken tackles as “one of several events: "Plays with Broken Tackle" is the number of plays with at least one broken tackle. Either the ball carrier escapes from the grasp of the defender, or the defender is in good position for a tackle but the ball carrier jukes him out of his shoes. If the ball carrier sped by a slow defender who dived and missed, that did not count as a broken tackle.’’ They also point out that it was also possible for there to be multiple broken tackles on one play.
With a 3-13 record, three members of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were the worst tacklers in the NFL last year. Under the broken tackle definition, Tampa Bay safety Sabby Piscitelli led the league in broken tackles with 19. Teammate Ronde Barber finished second with 16. Tampa Bay safety Tanard Jackson, who missed the first four games of the 2009 NFL season wasn’t too far behind with 10.
The Buccaneer defense, as a whole, finished second in the league with 94 broken tackles finishing ahead of the Detroit Lions who had 105 and behind the Indianapolis Colts who whiffed 91 times. On the offensive side, the Buccaneers only made opponents missed a grand total of 41 times which was worst in the league trailing only the Green Bay Packers with 44 and the Detroit Lions with 48. The Carolina Panthers offense lead the league with 117! ( Deangelo Williams and Jonathon Stewart had something to do with that)
When the Buccaneer secondary weren't too busy missing tackles, the safeties, Piscitelli, Jermaine Phillips and Jackson were trying to trying to cover up the play of cornerbacks Elbert Mack and Barber. With the addition of Sean Jones and third round pick Myron Lewis of Vanderbilt and the return of E.J. Biggers from the IR, Piscitelli will likely lose his job to Jones while the undersized Mack will be fighting for a roster spot.
Barber is heading into the final year of his contract. Piscitelli was a second round pick during the Jon Gruden era. Raheem Morris and staff do not have a vested interest in him just like they did not have an interest in wide receiver Dexter Jackson, who was also a second round pick but was released after one season. I believe the Bucs will hang on to Sabby for at least one more season to see if he has progressed.
If Barber and Piscitelli can rotate and play nickel, that would take some of the pressure off the safeties and also keep Mack off the field. With the addition of Jones, Lewis, Biggers, Jackson and Talib, the pieces are falling in place to have a young, aggressive, ball-hawking, talented, sure tackling secondary for years to come.
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Not really
Cornerback is a really hard position to transition to in the NFL. I don’t expect Lewis to make much of an impact in his first season, and I don’t think he can come close to replacing Ronde.
Depends on what you mean by replacing Ronde.
Hall of Fame calibur beast? Odds don’t favor that, obviously. Effective player at the position? Sure, it’s possible. No one has the first clue what to expect from him right now.
Cannons... fire them.
Buc'Em - SBNation's home for discussion of all things regarding the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
I don't know.
I really don’t. Ronde is solid, but he’s declining and we have no clue what Lewis brings to the table right now. I’ll reserve judgment at least until the training camp battles wrap up and preseason gets in full swing.
Cannons... fire them.
Buc'Em - SBNation's home for discussion of all things regarding the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
I just happened to see this on Yahoo...
http://www.stampedeblue.com/2010/5/26/1488832/why-im-somewhat-meh-to-football?ref=yahoo
It’s a link to an article written by BigBlueShoe on the Colts SB Nation site, Stampede Blue, and the basic message of the post says that the broken tackles stat can be very misleading because faster, under-sized defenses (read Tampa 2) tend to have more missed tackles. The Lions, the Colts and the Bucs all run a variation of the T2 (Bates debacle aside). Also on that same ranking, the Rams are #32 (i.e. #1), so what does that tell you?
I’m not saying I want to be so high on such a dubious ranking, but it may not be worth reading into much…
Thanks and credit go to BigBlueShoe for his post.
If you will it, dude, it is no dream.
There is nothing misleading about seeing your safety slide off the guy who takes the ball 80 yards for a score, 3 times.
That was the difference in the Dallas game.
Stay thirsty my friends.
There's nothing misleading about it
The defense is built like that, but the old Tampa 2 defense was built like that too. Broken tackles are broken tackles – that’s all there is to it.
StampedeBlue’s attack, like so many attacks on Football Outsiders, doesn’t make much sensr. His argument seems to be that broken tackles aren’t a good indicator of quality defense – of course they aren’t, but that stat doesn’t pretend to be. The criticism makes no sense since it attacks something that the stat doesn’t even pretend to do.
Everyone seems to forget
One of Tampas biggest asset on D was how fast and effective they use to swarm to the ball, even if there is an broken tackle there are 3 to 4 defenders to make up for the mistake. I hope we get back to how we use to swarm the ball
by keysersoze19 on May 26, 2010 11:14 PM EDT up reply actions
But they were able to hold on to the ball carrier then too.
When you’re defensive players are just trying to hit and not wrap up or sliding off the ball carrier, those other defensive players can’t get there.
Stay thirsty my friends.
Indy Super Bowl, Tampa in the stands
Yeah but, that’s 19, 16 an 10 missed tackles that were possibly broken for additional yardage. In some instances that could have saved a ballgame. Remember, games are won or lost on a few plays. The differences in Indy and Tampa is the records and that one went to the Super Bowl and one watched it at home.
Earl Bedford
That would be my vote as well...
We need tjeabt to amend his poll to include that scenario
by Cracker Ball on May 27, 2010 10:45 AM EDT up reply actions
The reason I did not vote
was because I could not vote for those guys
by keysersoze19 on May 27, 2010 1:39 PM EDT up reply actions
Haters!
I know Ronde has one more good year in him, but hopefully in a limited role. Perhaps he can tutor Lewis to be his replacement. If Lewis can do it physically, we could have a great cornerback duo for years to come.
He was still a very efficent CB in regards to stop %, which I have to believe is more important than missed tackles.
"I like to believe that my best hits border on felonious assault." ~ Jack Tatum
Jones
S. Jones will give us an outstanding backfield. Jackson,Jones,Talib and Barber. Though i think Lewis will out play Barber. I just think he fits better in coach Morris system.
I also don't know that Lewis is an automatic lock
for Nickel back, let alone for a starting CB job.
"I like to believe that my best hits border on felonious assault." ~ Jack Tatum
Didn't Mack make all of his interceptions in the last quarter of the season?
I know he played much more solidly when Morris took over as Def. coordinator. With him progressing and Biggers a, seemingly so, coach favorite, I would actually be pretty suprised if Lewis took the starting nickel spot game 1.
5 picks out of the first 100 in a draft saturated with talent. Yes, I'm optimistic.
The Nickelback competition will be a good one
Many don’t know how effective Mack and Biggers can be in this defense, who ever wins the job will be ready to make some plays cause it is going to be an tough battle, 1 thing is for sure the better man will play
by keysersoze19 on May 28, 2010 11:50 PM EDT up reply actions
Miss Tackles are missed tackles
You can try to sell it anyway you want. Go for it. Point Blank, missed tackles is not a good thing. I could careless what system you are running. Thats a cop out. Its ok to whiff on tackles because your team runs a Tampa 2? Come on man. The whole defensive unit needs to step it up. Going for the big hit might make the highlight light reel if you make the hit, but more often then not the guy is gonna shake you or run through that hit. Which will also get you on the highlight reel, just the wrong end of it.
We swarmed to the ball last year Key. Swarming to the ball wasn’t our problem. Our problem was getting teams off the field. Our problem was missing easy tackles on first contact. Our problem was guys like Sabby and Geno going for the rip and the big hit instead of the tackle. Fundamentals have to come back.
I don’t care who starts next year. As long as it is the best group of guys who can produce. Besides Talib and Barber, these young guys are all question marks until proven otherwise.
by Joe Grizzly on May 30, 2010 8:04 PM EDT reply actions 1 recs
Swarming to the ball is not just 2 or 3 players
In the good ole days we could contain top notch running backs by having 5 to 6 players around the ball. Add that plus the fact that all 5 to 6 players were wrap up tacklers, it was as effective as the team defense that the Boston Celtics play. Gerald Mccoy ability allows him to swarm to the ball in the short yardage situations, and on runs to the outside, it is going to be a different story when we swarm to the ball this year, watch and see.
I was with you for the most part until you started making predictions that are baseless.
"I like to believe that my best hits border on felonious assault." ~ Jack Tatum
Ronde is still the man
Yes he miss tackles but he his the heart of the defense and maybe the heart of the team all the years. He will kick ass.
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