Football Outsiders: Ranking the LB's

**singersp** · 07-25-2007, 06:58 AM

[size=13pt]Football Outsiders: Ranking the LBs[/size]

Doug Farrar
FootballOutsiders.com, Updated 10 hours ago

...Here are the top 16 linebacking units in football with last year's rank in parentheses...

[size=13pt]Football Outsiders: Ranking the LBs 17-32[/size]

Doug Farrar
FootballOutsiders.com, Updated 9 hours ago

Here is the bottom half of the linebacking units in football with last year's rank in parentheses:

**Zeus** · 07-25-2007, 08:03 AM

"singersp" wrote:

[size=13pt]Football Outsiders: Ranking the LBs 17-32[/size]

Doug Farrar
FootballOutsiders.com, Updated 9 hours ago

Here is the bottom half of the linebacking units in football with last year's rank in parentheses:

Fair assessment of the Vikings there.
I'd like to believe they are higher, but I don't disagree with anything which was written.
I'm expecting huge things out of EJ that will propel them into the top-16 for next year, however.

=Z=

**V-Unit** · 07-25-2007, 08:30 AM

Hmm, the article said that our defense saw the pass more than any other team in the league. I wonder where we reank in "defensive yards per pass attempt."

Anybody know where to find out?

**Zeus** · 07-25-2007, 08:36 AM

"V" wrote:

Hmm, the article said that our defense saw the pass more than any other team in the league. I wonder where we reank in "defensive yards per pass attempt."

Anybody know where to find out?

Here are the Vikings passing defense stats from last year:

Team

G
Att
Att/G Cmp Pct

Yds
Yds/G
TDs Int
Sck SckYds
Minnesota 16 599 37.4
355
59.3 3818 238.6
15
21
30
197

It's not a ranking of what you're looking for, for sure, but if you want to do the math, NFL.COM has the best stats.

http://www.nfl.com/stats/teamsort/NFL/DEF-PASSING/2006/regular?sort_col_1=8

=Z=

**josdin00** · 07-25-2007, 11:39 AM

[size=18pt]Defensive Yards per pass attempt[/size]

Rank	Team	Yds	Att	Yds/Att
1	Chicago	3116	581	5.36
2	Philadelphia	3067	525	5.84
3	Buffalo	3019	513	5.88
4	Jacksonville	3078	523	5.89
4	Oakland	2413	410	5.89
6	Baltimore	3011	509	5.92
7	San Diego	3212	538	5.97
8	Carolina	3000	500	6
9	New Orleans	2854	474	6.02
10	Miami	3007	497	6.05
11	New York (A)	3222	532	6.06
12	Indianapolis	2548	415	6.14
13	New England	3203	518	6.18
14	Denver	3410	538	6.34
15	Minnesota	3818	599	6.37
16	Pittsburgh	3393	529	6.41
17	Green Bay	3309	515	6.43
18	New York (N)	3649	567	6.44
19	Seattle	3256	504	6.46
20	Cleveland	3242	499	6.5
21	Kansas City	3334	506	6.59
22	St. Louis	3035	451	6.73
23	Tennessee	3602	530	6.8
23	Tampa Bay	3354	493	6.8
25	Houston	3444	504	6.83
26	Dallas	3506	511	6.86
27	Cincinnati	3818	555	6.88
28	Detroit	3520	511	6.89
28	San Francisco	3571	518	6.89
30	Arizona	3694	522	7.08
31	Atlanta	3668	515	7.12
32	Washington	3491	486	7.18

**V-Unit** · 07-25-2007, 11:44 AM

Nice work Josdin!

As I expected, we were middle of the road, but we just got passed on a lot because our run D was so good.

**Zeus** · 07-25-2007, 12:09 PM

"V" wrote:

Nice work Josdin!

As I expected, we were middle of the road, but we just got passed on a lot because our run D was so good.

Or - the Vikes run D was so good because people passed so much.
The Patriots didn't bother to run on the Vikes.
What do you think their mindset was:

A.
We can't run on these guys, so we better pass
B.
They can't stop our passing attack, so why bother running?

As they are winners, I tend to think the Pats are more in the B camp than A.

=Z=

**tastywaves** · 07-25-2007, 12:16 PM

"Zeus" wrote:

"V" wrote:

Nice work Josdin!

As I expected, we were middle of the road, but we just got passed on a lot because our run D was so good.

Or - the Vikes run D was so good because people passed so much.
The Patriots didn't bother to run on the Vikes.
What do you think their mindset was:

A.
We can't run on these guys, so we better pass
B.
They can't stop our passing attack, so why bother running?

As they are winners, I tend to think the Pats are more in the B camp than A.

=Z=

Very possible, the pass defense was no doubt the weakness.
You can look at it either way.
Its just more motivating to think of our run defense as dominant which caused people to pass more and make our pass defense look worse than they they were...

**WinonaVike** · 07-25-2007, 12:30 PM

"Zeus" wrote:

"V" wrote:

Nice work Josdin!

As I expected, we were middle of the road, but we just got passed on a lot because our run D was so good.

Or - the Vikes run D was so good because people passed so much.
The Patriots didn't bother to run on the Vikes.
What do you think their mindset was:

A.
We can't run on these guys, so we better pass
B.
They can't stop our passing attack, so why bother running?

As they are winners, I tend to think the Pats are more in the B camp than A.

=Z=

We gave up somewhere in the area of 2.3 yards per carry. That tells me that it was just because teams didnt run on us. Our pass defense was terrible, but dont take away what we did against the run.

**Billy Boy** · 07-25-2007, 12:43 PM

"WinonaVike" wrote:

"Zeus" wrote:

"V" wrote:

Nice work Josdin!

As I expected, we were middle of the road, but we just got passed on a lot because our run D was so good.

Or - the Vikes run D was so good because people passed so much.
The Patriots didn't bother to run on the Vikes.
What do you think their mindset was:

A.
We can't run on these guys, so we better pass
B.
They can't stop our passing attack, so why bother running?

As they are winners, I tend to think the Pats are more in the B camp than A.

=Z=

We gave up somewhere in the area of 2.3 yards per carry. That tells me that it wasn't just because teams didnt run on us. Our pass defense was terrible, but dont take away what we did against the run.

2.8 YPC with cushion from #2.

The low total rush yards are probably skewed by the easy pass defense but I don't see that having a correlation to YPC.

Teams rushed on Baltimore only about 20 more times yet we had a .5 better YPC.

Stats

*You meant wasn't, right Winona?