Today, I wrote a story on Redskins cornerback Carlos Rogers' second season. I included a couple stats from the Pro Football Prospectus.
A few minutes ago, I got off the phone with the PFP's editor, Aaron Schatz, who at my request explained some of Rogers' stats from 2006.
The bottom line: Rogers wasn't as bad as some might think.
"It was a fine, reasonable season by a second-year corner," Schatz said. "Not everybody can be Pacman Jones and turn into Superman in two seasons ... The problems for Washington was the amount of injuries, the lack of a pass rush, Shawn Springs' injury and that the third cornerback (Kenny Wright) was terrible and the fourth cornerback (Mike Rumph) made you want to slit your wrists."
Rogers ranked 25th among cornerbacks with 36 "stops," which come from the play-by-play books distributed by each team. A stop is any play that prevents the offense from a successful play - 45 percent of the yards on first down, 60 percent of the yards on second down and 100 percent of the yards on third/fourth down. It refers to tackles, interceptions, passes defended and sacks. It does not include a play, for example, on which Rogers had good coverage on a receiver, forcing the quarterback to intentionally overthrow or throw away.
Rogers' breakdown was 10 running "stops" and 26 passing "stops."
Schatz said Denver cornerback Champ Bailey was first in stops with 53.
Rogers was targeted (thrown at) 103 times, or 25 percent of all opponent's passing plays. That ranked fourth in the league, behind only Fred Thomas, Charles Tillman and Anthony Henry.
"I don't know if that was people picking on him or that on the entire pass defense, he was the only one to stay healthy most of the time and play most of the time," Schatz said.
Schatz added, "He was middle-of-the-road in terms of our success rate stat and a little better on yards per completion (6.9). But Washington had so many problems on defense, particularly on third down, teams didn't need to throw as long downfield."
Compared to the two cornerbacks drafted ahead of him in 2005 - Arizona's Antrel Rolle and Tennessee's Jones, Schatz said Rogers trails slightly. Rolle had 39 stops and was targeted 100 times, allowed 6.3 yards per reception and had one interception; Jones had 36 stops, was targeted 69 times, allowed 5.4 yards per reception and had four interceptions.
Comments (5)
I dont mean to nit-pick, and this article is full of good useful information. However why this simple yet tremendous event is constantly overlooked. Pierson Prielou tore his ACL the first play of the regular season. He didnt play another down the whole season. This disrupted the whole secondary. This is just my opinion, i think thats why the defense spun out of control the way it did. I understand there were other issues, believe me. But this one to me was by far the biggest.
Posted by Adam Russel | July 30, 2007 5:33 PM
Adam: You make a good point about Prioleau going down on the opening kickoff of the opening game. He was scheduled to start for Adam Archuleta. But you might be giving Prioleau more credit than he warrants. Even with a healthy Prioleau, the secondary would have been in trouble because of Springs' injury, Wright's ineffectivenss and Rumph's ineffectiveness.
Posted by Ryan O'Halloran | July 30, 2007 7:27 PM
I think the fact that Springs was banged up was the single biggest issue for the secondary. Rogers became the guy who had to cover the #1 WR and, obviously, he is not at Shawn's level yet. In any event, It is nice to see people breaking down the defensive woes of the Skins last year as being mostly due to injuries. For some reason the football press, including The Post, seem to pin it all on the coaches or the players on the field. D line was banged up all year. Marcus went down, Shawn, on top of Pierson... So long dominant NFL D.
Posted by chris in LA | July 30, 2007 7:50 PM
I'm being serious here when i say that Prielou was a solid safety who would have really helped sean taylor and in turn that would have helped out carlos...however carlos rogers has to have the WORST hands in the nfl as every ball that hits his hands just bounces off. Case and point the playoff game vrs the seahawks in their first drive carlos had the ball thrown directly at him...more to him than anyone else and he had a wide open field and would have scored changing the entire game, instead he dropped it and the skins lost... the kid has a ton of potential but he needs to learn how to catch
Posted by Benjamin Fox | July 30, 2007 9:26 PM
The absence of Shawn Springs was, far and away, THE biggest reason for the Redskins defensive woes last season. Springs can single-cover opponents top receivers, allowing the team to blitz often. Or, Springs can blitz himself; something he really excels at. The bottom line is that without Springs, the Redskins didn't blitz nearly as often as in previous seasons, and blitzing is something that is absolutely necessary for them because their defensive line is unable to get pressure on the quarterback with any kind of consistency.
Posted by Todd | July 31, 2007 9:52 AM