DB Shuffle - 10/6/19 Edition

[HardRightEdge]

Based on what we saw in the Dallas game, I'll first provide the short answer depth chart and you can read on if you care to see how I came to these conclusions:

slot CB starter: Williams
#1 backup at perimeter CB: Williams
#1 backup at slot CB: Sullivan
#5 CB and #4 safety: Jackson

By all appearances Sullivan has passed Jackson at least as the slot corner backup, with Jackson taking some dime corner/safety snaps with King and Savage out for chunks of this game. If King and Alexander were both out I'm not sure at this point who the #4 perimeter corner might be.

The all-22 replay is not yet available on Game Pass, so I'll share what I see from the broadcast replay which is pretty d*mn time consuming to get all the player numbers and positionings.

Sullivan's INT out of slot coverage was his first snap of the game (and of the season). King had gone out, Williams took his spot on the perimeter with Sullivan taking Williams spot.

Savage went out 1/3 of the way into the game after 19 snaps. (His ankle is reported as "not serious", whatever that means for his availabilty against Detroit.) Amos/Redmond went the rest of the way at safety with Amos not taking any of those hybrid ILB snaps. He did take a couple of off-the-ball OLB type snaps in a couple of 4-3 hybrid looks. Burks got a handful of snaps at ILB that were going to Amos since Greene went down.

King was back in on the series following Sullivan's pick with Williams back in the slot and Sullivan out. That pattern continued until 7:39 of the 3rd. quarter. At that point, King was out again, Sullivan was back in the slot with Williams on the perimeter, and Cobb beat Sullivan for 25 yards on his first play back.

A couple plays later Prescott was sacked setting up 3rd. and goal from the 18. They went dime with Sullivan and Jackson in, King out. Interestingly enough, Jackson was set at safety behind Amos, with Amos positioning him pre-snap. I'm near certain that was Jackson's first snap of the game.

Dallas kicks the FG, the Packers answer with a TD, it's now 31-3 with 3:30 left in the 3rd. Then its King out, Sullivan in again and Jackson in at dime CB, then on the next play it was Jackson at dime safety with Amos up and Redmond checking on Jackson's positioning.

Dallas scores, 31-10, flash forward to 0:19 left in the 3rd and...NFL Game Pass shuts down on me and I have other things to do than wait for it to come back. But you get the idea.

If I think of it later, I'll post the defensive snap counts when available. I'm only seeing total counts including ST at the moment.

 

[Pokerbrat2000]

NFL Leaders - Passes Defended

1. Jaire Alexander GB (9)
2. Jonathan Joseph HOU (7)
3. Kevin King GB (6)
3. Harrison Smith MIN (6)
3. Janoris Jenkins NYG (6)
3. Logan Ryan TEN (6)
3. James Bradberry CAR (6)
3. Justin Coleman DET (6)
3. Cory Littleton LAR (6)

 

[greengold]

Based on what we saw in the Dallas game, I'll first provide the short answer depth chart and you can read on if you care to see how I came to these conclusions:

slot CB starter: Williams
#1 backup at perimeter CB: Williams
#1 backup at slot CB: Sullivan
#5 CB and #4 safety: Jackson

By all appearances Sullivan has passed Jackson at least as the slot corner backup, with Jackson taking some dime safety snaps. If King and Alexander were both out I'm not sure at this point who the #4 perimeter corner might be.

The all-22 replay is not yet available on Game Pass, so I'll share what I see from the broadcast replay which is pretty d*mn time consuming to get all the player numbers and positionings.

Sullivan's INT out of slot coverage was his first snap of the game (and of the season). King had gone out, Williams took his spot on the perimeter with Sullivan taking Williams spot.

Savage went out 1/3 of the way into the game after 19 snaps. (His ankle is reported as "not serious", whatever that means for his availabilty against Detroit.) Amos/Redmond went the rest of the way at safety with Amos not taking any of those hybrid ILB snaps. He did take a couple of off-the-ball OLB type snaps in a couple of 4-3 hybrid looks. Burks got a handful of snaps at ILB that were going to Amos since Greene went down.

King was back in on the series following Sullivan's pick with Williams back in the slot and Sullivan out. That pattern continued until 7:39 of the 3rd. quarter. At that point, King was out again, Sullivan was back in the slot with Williams on the perimeter, and Cobb beat Sullivan for 25 yards on his first play back.

A couple plays later Prescott was sacked setting up 3rd. and goal from the 18. They went dime with Sullivan and Jackson in, King out. Interestingly enough, Jackson was set at safety behind Amos, with Amos positioning him pre-snap. I'm near certain that was Jackson's first snap of the game.

Dallas kicks the FG, the Packers answer with a TD, it's now 31-3 with 3:30 left in the 3rd. Then its King out, Sullivan in again and Jackson in at dime CB, then on the next play it was Jackson at dime safety with Amos up and Redmond checking on Jackson's positioning.

Dallas scores, 31-10, flash forward to 0:19 left in the 3rd and...NFL Game Pass shuts down on me and I have other things to do than wait for it to come back. But you get the idea.

If I think of it later, I'll post the defensive snap counts when available. I'm only seeing total counts including ST at the moment.

Here you go bud! They post relatively quickly post games...

https://www.foxsports.com/wisconsin...nts-week-5-dallas-cowboys-jake-kumerow-100719

Amos 72
Alexander 70
Williams 65
Redmond 55
Sullivan 38
King 37
Jackson 35
Savage 19

BTW, thanks for the info, HardRightEdge. I was so pissed at myself spacing recording of the game as my wife and I had a house full. Oh, well, makes me appreciate insights from my friends here that much more! Cheers.

I do like Josh Jackson getting Safety reps, as I think he could really excel there, but, not at the expense of Amos nor Savage. He's going to be a fine CB IMO no matter what, just needs technique work in man coverage. Interestingly, we have incredible depth in our DB room, and I dig they made it all one room. So many of our players can play any position in the secondary. We are truly blessed with talent back there.

 

[Pokerbrat2000]

Here you go bud! They post relatively quickly post games...

https://www.foxsports.com/wisconsin...nts-week-5-dallas-cowboys-jake-kumerow-100719

Amos 72
Alexander 70
Williams 65
Redmond 55
Sullivan 38
King 37
Jackson 35
Savage 19

Thanks man, I actually like the one below better. Gives you each game, percentages and groups the players by position.

https://subscribers.footballguys.com/teams/teampage-gnb-6.php

This one isn't too bad either, especially for scrolling back to other seasons.

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/gnb/2019-snap-counts.htm

 

[HardRightEdge]

Here you go bud! They post relatively quickly post games...

https://www.foxsports.com/wisconsin...nts-week-5-dallas-cowboys-jake-kumerow-100719

Amos 72
Alexander 70
Williams 65
Redmond 55
Sullivan 38
King 37
Jackson 35
Savage 19

Well, bud, I already saw those exact numbers at lineups.com. I'm not as stoopid as some might think.

Are you positive they didn't lump ST snaps into those numbers?

I'll don't think they did, but I prefer to see footballoutsiders.com defense vs. ST snap breakdowns first to confirm.

 

[greengold]

Ha! Never looked in on those at FO. After checking, those are defensive snaps. Exact match.

ST
Amos 8, Redmond 20, Williams 9, Alexander 1. Jackson 19, Sullivan 13, King 1, Savage 1, Smith 16.

 

[El Guapo]

NFL Leaders - Passes Defended

1. Jaire Alexander GB (9)
2. Jonathan Joseph HOU (7)
3. Kevin King GB (6)
3. Harrison Smith MIN (6)
3. Janoris Jenkins NYG (6)
3. Logan Ryan TEN (6)
3. James Bradberry CAR (6)
3. Justin Coleman DET (6)
3. Cory Littleton LAR (6)

It would be interesting if they put 'Passes Given Up' next to 'Passes Defended' and gave that ratio a cute name like the QB rating. I'm sure that they could mix in defensive snaps as well so you can gauge how often the guy is on the field and the opposing quarterback chooses not to throw the CB's direction. That would help measure the Revis Island effect.

 

[HardRightEdge]

Here you go bud! They post relatively quickly post games...

https://www.foxsports.com/wisconsin...nts-week-5-dallas-cowboys-jake-kumerow-100719

Amos 72
Alexander 70
Williams 65
Redmond 55
Sullivan 38
King 37
Jackson 35
Savage 19

footballoutsiders.com with the defense/ST breakdowns confirms those are in fact defensive snaps.

Ha! Never looked in on those at FO. After checking, those are defensive snaps. Exact match.

ST
Amos 8, Redmond 20, Williams 9, Alexander 1. Jackson 19, Sullivan 13, King 1, Savage 1, Smith 16.

You beat me too it.

 

[HardRightEdge]

It would be interesting if they put 'Passes Given Up' next to 'Passes Defended' and gave that ratio a cute name like the QB rating.

pro-football-reference.com started posting advanced stats starting with last year's numbers. For example, here is Kevin King's page with no subscription required (as far as I can tell, everything at this site is free):

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/K/KingKe01.htm

Scroll down to "Advanced Defense and Fumbles".

You'll see all the data that goes into passer-rating-against: competion percentage, attempts, yards, INTs and TDs and the actual passer-rating-against: 63.0 for this season to date.

Note the pass rush stats: hurries, knockdowns and sacks. Add 'em up and you get pressures, which is handy for looking at DLs and edges who also have tackles-for-loss counts posted. For CBs such as King you also see missed tackles. The pressure totals may be stricter than other data sources that use "hits" instead of "knockdowns". Dunno if p-f-r.com counts a hit that is not a knockdown as a hurry.

There's a caveat. I have no idea where p-f-r.com gets their data. They're not licensing it from PFF, because the data if often different. For example, p-f-r.com has King down for 14 completions on 27 throws. PFF has him down for 16 of 29:

https://www.pff.com/nfl/players/kevin-king/11788

Discrepancies are understandable given the assignment of responsibility is often subjective. In the case of DB coverage numbers the responsible party in a double team or zone coverage is not always clear. Also, some balls might be borderline uncatchable. If they are deemed such, you throw them out of the data. If you deem it catchable it goes into the defender's stats. That can be a matter of disagreement in some cases.

Sack credits are subjective as well, but they are an official stat so everybody uses the same number. I find myself disagreeing with the official assignment of 1/2 sack credits with some regularity. For instance, it's kinda f'ed up that a pass rusher who beats his blocker and forces a QB off his spot and into the waiting arms of a teammate who's blocker loses leverage because the QB is on the move gets squat credit for a 1/2 sack unless he is actually in on the tackle. The guy who actually made the play gets a puny "hurry" to his credit.

But I digress. I ain't Elias Sports Bureau, the official source of NFL stats including subjective ones like sacks, so nobody gives a sh*t what I think about how sacks are counted. It should give you pause, however, when a guy like Fackrell ended up with 10 sacks last season.

By the way, at the top of of p-f-r.com page you'll see a tab for "Football (college)". That's handy for quick checks around draft time, though the data is pretty basic. Small college players are not included.

 

[HardRightEdge]

I do like Josh Jackson getting Safety reps, as I think he could really excel there, but, not at the expense of Amos nor Savage. He's going to be a fine CB IMO no matter what, just needs technique work in man coverage. Interestingly, we have incredible depth in our DB room, and I dig they made it all one room. So many of our players can play any position in the secondary. We are truly blessed with talent back there.

I liked the Jackson pick at the time. Unfortunately, barring multiple backfield injuries, I don't think he's going to see much of the field this season which is the crux of the OP.

He's buried 5 deep at CB with Sullivan getting the call last week, and 4 deep at safety behind Redmond. And frankly, if King wasn't missing snaps Williams might be the #4 safety. If he's learning the safety position in scout team work then he's got a long way to go. He'll need a camp and preseason to earn a shot there. Even then he's not getting past Amos and Savage. He could get Redmond's snaps when Amos moves to ILB if he earns them, but with Burks back and maybe Campbell and/or Greene at some point, there isn't much of a spot for him.

I'd like to be wrong, but sorry to say he's starting to look like Josh Jones, a guy who kept sliding down the depth chart at multiple positions.

 

[HardRightEdge]

I've now reviewed the 4th. quarter without much further to add on the depth chart.

The Packers continued to play mostly true dime until Dallas's first possession after they got it to 34-24 when it started to look like a ball game, mixing base and nickel in various looks at that point.

By "true dime" I mean 6 DBs in coverage, not nickel with a "dime linebacker", i.e., a safety playing in the ILB role. Amos was in the tackle box once on a blitz, another time bailing immediatley into coverage until they reverted back to SOP.

If you want to know how Dallas got back in this game I would offer the following: injuries or not, a true dime with Martinez dropping into coverage with a 7 man prevent zone shouldn't be giving up yardage in big chunks like these guys were doing. You might expect under throws with some off coverage but Dallas was hitting throws downfield without a safety in the picture.

Now, the Packers haven't had a late game situation with a big lead to play that defense, so they haven't had a lot of money game experience with it. Not much of that last season either. In any case, I'll take a 31-3 lead with 3:30 left in the 3rd. quarter and a sub-standard dime zone defense any day and twice on Sunday.

 

[greengold]

I liked the Jackson pick at the time. Unfortunately, barring multiple backfield injuries, I don't think he's going to see much of the field this season which is the crux of the OP.

He's buried 5 deep at CB with Sullivan getting the call last week, and 4 deep at safety behind Redmond. And frankly, if King wasn't missing snaps Williams might be the #4 safety. If he's learning the safety position in scout team work then he's got a long way to go. He'll need a camp and preseason to earn a shot there. Even then he's not getting past Amos and Savage. He could get Redmond's snaps when Amos moves to ILB if he earns them, but with Burks back and maybe Campbell and/or Greene at some point, there isn't much of a spot for him.

I'd like to be wrong, but sorry to say he's starting to look like Josh Jones, a guy who kept sliding down the depth chart at multiple positions.

I don’t like how absent he’s appeared to be. I’ve just been hopeful he makes a good turn. He was on Witten 3 receptions on 4 targets for 29 yds.

 

[Pokerbrat2000]

I'd like to be wrong, but sorry to say he's starting to look like Josh Jones, a guy who kept sliding down the depth chart at multiple positions.

Potentially, a very good comparison and also I would say that Jackson is a "cautionary tale" when it comes to College Stats. I think he lead the nation with 8 picks his Junior year at Iowa, with 2 of them being returned for TD's. This had a lot of people clamoring over Josh and how high of a pick he just might be. Meanwhile, some scouts were saying that he was a good ball hawking DB, but questioned his skills in man coverage. There was also talk that he was potentially just a one year wonder (14 games started). Then his poor combine numbers pretty much pushed him out of the conversation of going in the first round.

So far, sadly it looks like those who questioned how Jackson's 1 year as a starter in college would translate to the NFL, were spot on.

 

[greengold]

Potentially, a very good comparison and also I would say that Jackson is a "cautionary tale" when it comes to College Stats. I think he lead the nation with 8 picks his Junior year at Iowa, with 2 of them being returned for TD's. This had a lot of people clamoring over Josh and how high of a pick he just might be. Meanwhile, some scouts were saying that he was a good ball hawking DB, but questioned his skills in man coverage. There was also talk that he was potentially just a one year wonder (14 games started). Then his poor combine numbers pretty much pushed him out of the conversation of going in the first round.

So far, sadly it looks like those who questioned how Jackson's 1 year as a starter in college would translate to the NFL, were spot on.

Yeah, Jackson had limited experience and zero man coverage use throughout his short time at Iowa. I’m thinking he’s had more to learn than might have been expected. A lot to think about, and still seeing a rookie like Savage telling him where to line up.

I still hope the light comes on for him, and see him react instinctively within system.

 

[HardRightEdge]

Pro-football-reference.com has the following targets-against /competion-percentage-against/passer-rating-against through 5 games. Tiny sample size of little relevance for a few of the guys:

Alexander: 38 / 50.0% / 75.9
King: 27 / 51.9% / 63.0 (also 9 missed tackles)
Williams: 14 / 50.0% / 91.1
Brown: 4 / 75.0% / 116.7
Jackson: 3 / 66.7% / 85.4 (passer-rating-against in 2018 was 106.1 on 64 targets.)
Sullivan: Only one target for 25 yards to Cobb. Pretty sure that was his first career NFL snap as noted above.
Amos: 13 / 84.6% / 67.0 (low yardage surrendered, no TDs, 1 INT account for the seeming discrepancy)
Savage: 12 / 58.3% / 59.4
Redmond: 3 / 100.0% / 115.3
Martinez: 19 / 84.2%/113.6

 

[Pokerbrat2000]

I'll take a 31-3 lead with 3:30 left in the 3rd. quarter and a sub-standard dime zone defense any day and twice on Sunday.

Can you add "Monday Night" to that, then I can give you an agree!

 

[HardRightEdge]

Can you add "Monday Night" to that, then I can give you an agree!

Maybe I should have just said "twice on Monday". Before long the 4:30 PM Eastern games in my neck of the woods may end up finishing after midnight. But then the Monday night games already can end on Tuesday in my time zone.

I'm so confused.

 

[Pokerbrat2000]

Alexander: 38 / 50.0% / 75.9
King: 27 / 51.9% / 63.0 (also 9 missed tackles)
Williams: 14 / 50.0% / 91.1
Jackson: 3 / 66.7% / 85.4 (passer-rating-against in 2018 was 106.1 on 64 targets.)
Sullivan: Only one target for 25 yards to Cobb. Pretty sure that was his first career NFL snap as noted above.
Amos: 13 / 84.6% / 67.0 (low yardage surrendered, no TDs, 1 INT account for the seeming discrepancy)
Savage: 12 / 58.3% / 59.4
Redmond: 3 / 100.0% / 115.3
Martinez: 19 / 84.2%/113.6

I highlighted what I think is the biggest issue. Martinez is a guy that I rarely want to see in coverage, 4 times (targets)/game with a 84.2% completion rate is a killer.

i don't see it happening this season (adding a quality ILB), so unless Burks really proves he is a solid Will ILB, this has to be one of the biggest priorities in the off season.

 

[greengold]

Pro-football-reference.com has the following targets-against /competion-percentage-against/passer-rating-against through 5 games. Tiny sample size of little relevance for a few of the guys:

Alexander: 38 / 50.0% / 75.9
King: 27 / 51.9% / 63.0 (also 9 missed tackles)
Williams: 14 / 50.0% / 91.1
Jackson: 3 / 66.7% / 85.4 (passer-rating-against in 2018 was 106.1 on 64 targets.)
Sullivan: Only one target for 25 yards to Cobb. Pretty sure that was his first career NFL snap as noted above.
Amos: 13 / 84.6% / 67.0 (low yardage surrendered, no TDs, 1 INT account for the seeming discrepancy)
Savage: 12 / 58.3% / 59.4
Redmond: 3 / 100.0% / 115.3
Martinez: 19 / 84.2%/113.6

Whoah. Some good stuff there. I’m thinking we are really missing Tony Brown’s contributions. He looked on point for a good amount of time prior to his hammy.

 

[greengold]

pro-football-reference.com started posting advanced stats starting with last year's numbers. For example, here is Kevin King's page with no subscription required (as far as I can tell, everything at this site is free):

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/K/KingKe01.htm

Scroll down to "Advanced Defense and Fumbles".

You'll see all the data that goes into passer-rating-against: competion percentage, attempts, yards, INTs and TDs and the actual passer-rating-against: 63.0 for this season to date.

Note the pass rush stats: hurries, knockdowns and sacks. Add 'em up and you get pressures, which is handy for looking at DLs and edges who also have tackles-for-loss counts posted. For CBs such as King you also see missed tackles. The pressure totals may be stricter than other data sources that use "hits" instead of "knockdowns". Dunno if p-f-r.com counts a hit that is not a knockdown as a hurry.

There's a caveat. I have no idea where p-f-r.com gets their data. They're not licensing it from PFF, because the data if often different. For example, p-f-r.com has King down for 14 completions on 27 throws. PFF has him down for 16 of 29:

https://www.pff.com/nfl/players/kevin-king/11788

Discrepancies are understandable given the assignment of responsibility is often subjective. In the case of DB coverage numbers the responsible party in a double team or zone coverage is not always clear. Also, some balls might be borderline uncatchable. If they are deemed such, you throw them out of the data. If you deem it catchable it goes into the defender's stats. That can be a matter of disagreement in some cases.

Sack credits are subjective as well, but they are an official stat so everybody uses the same number. I find myself disagreeing with the official assignment of 1/2 sack credits with some regularity. For instance, it's kinda f'ed up that a pass rusher who beats his blocker and forces a QB off his spot and into the waiting arms of a teammate who's blocker loses leverage because the QB is on the move gets squat credit for a 1/2 sack unless he is actually in on the tackle. The guy who actually made the play gets a puny "hurry" to his credit.

But I digress. I ain't Elias Sports Bureau, the official source of NFL stats including subjective ones like sacks, so nobody gives a sh*t what I think about how sacks are counted. It should give you pause, however, when a guy like Fackrell ended up with 10 sacks last season.

By the way, at the top of of p-f-r.com page you'll see a tab for "Football (college)". That's handy for quick checks around draft time, though the data is pretty basic. Small college players are not included.

Thank you. Love PFR. Learned of their expansion of offerings a month or so ago, but have had other priorities. Good to know how much more is available.

 

[HardRightEdge]

I don’t like how absent he’s appeared to be. I’ve just been hopeful he makes a good turn. He was on Witten 3 receptions on 4 targets for 29 yds.

Source? pro-football-reference.com has Jackson down for only 3 targets all season. You quoted Witten's stat line for the entire game. I don't think all those targets were against Jackson.

If by absent you mean invisible when on the field, that can be a very good thing when it comes to CBs. It could mean the opposition isn't throwing at him. Jackson doesn't have enough snaps, especially in in base/nickel if the Dallas game is any indication, to even get into that. Regardless, the coaches have an opinion and it evidently isn't a very good one.

 

[HardRightEdge]

Whoah. Some good stuff there. I’m thinking we are really missing Tony Brown’s contributions. He looked on point for a good amount of time prior to his hammy.

I forgot about Brown. Thanks for reminding me. He was the #1 backup at perimeter corner when King missed snaps. Now it's Williams moving over. Jackson might be one more spot deeper on the CB depth chart than I presented before.

I'll add Brown to the data in post #15.

 

[HardRightEdge]

Thank you. Love PFR. Learned of their expansion of offerings a month or so ago, but have had other priorities. Good to know how much more is available.

I'm fortunate. In retirement, I have few obligations, a lot of time, and only a handful of interests to take it up.

68th. golf round of the year tomorrow at 12:30 PM! So when I say that Trump logging over 200 rounds during his presidency to date, according to reliable sources, is unconscionable, I know of what I speak, some 9 hole speed golf rounds on a closed course notwithstanding. I hear he takes gimmes on long puts and will even claim somebody else's ball on the green after he shanks his own in a hazard.

But I digress, except to say I'm throwing a PI flag on all that.

 

[XPack]

I'd like to be wrong, but sorry to say he's starting to look like Josh Jones, a guy who kept sliding down the depth chart at multiple positions.

That's two consecutive #2 picks!

 

[Dantés]

They need Tony Brown back so they can keep Jackson off the field.