Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

26554 wrote:I don't have a problem with either. I think Greene's career was a bit more impressive (160 sacks is 160 sacks and, while maybe not as good all around as someone like Ricky Jackson, he wasn't as one dimensional as someone like Derrick Thomas) but, while his career total (100.5) pales in comparison to Greene's and a number of others, no doubt Haley could get after the QB, too. I understand "he has 5 rings!" being a tiresome argument to some, but the fact is Haley was a key part of those teams and seems to score high in the testimonials category.

I wouldn't be overly surprised if Greene jumped him, but Haley's made the final 10 the last three years. The only one to make the final 10 three straight times and not get in on the fourth try is Andre Reed, who was a 10 to 5 cut four times before getting the necessary votes for induction last year.

I think you are on target, Haley has strong backers from two cities. Greene has split support from Steelers (their voter prefers Bettis) and good support from Carolina but it's a younger voter with less gravitas, if you will, with the committee. Greene has no support from the StL voter, he's all in on Warner and Pace and realizes Ike will have to wait. Greene gets nothing from SF voter.

So, in terms of individual achievments it's Greene, but with the 5 ring thing (again, it's not that uncommon if you include pre-Super Bowl championships) give Haley an edge.

But the key thing is support and commitment from your presenter. If I were to guess it will be Haley over Greene.

JohnTurney wrote:

26554 wrote:I don't have a problem with either. I think Greene's career was a bit more impressive (160 sacks is 160 sacks and, while maybe not as good all around as someone like Ricky Jackson, he wasn't as one dimensional as someone like Derrick Thomas) but, while his career total (100.5) pales in comparison to Greene's and a number of others, no doubt Haley could get after the QB, too. I understand "he has 5 rings!" being a tiresome argument to some, but the fact is Haley was a key part of those teams and seems to score high in the testimonials category.

I wouldn't be overly surprised if Greene jumped him, but Haley's made the final 10 the last three years. The only one to make the final 10 three straight times and not get in on the fourth try is Andre Reed, who was a 10 to 5 cut four times before getting the necessary votes for induction last year.

I think you are on target, Haley has strong backers from two cities. Greene has split support from Steelers (their voter prefers Bettis) and good support from Carolina but it's a younger voter with less gravitas, if you will, with the committee. Greene has no support from the StL voter, he's all in on Warner and Pace and realizes Ike will have to wait. Greene gets nothing from SF voter.

So, in terms of individual achievments it's Greene, but with the 5 ring thing (again, it's not that uncommon if you include pre-Super Bowl championships) give Haley an edge.

But the key thing is support and commitment from your presenter. If I were to guess it will be Haley over Greene.

That's maybe been Greene's biggest issue, though I don't think it keeps him out much longer. Understandable that Bouchette would be focused on Bettis, Greene played for the Rams when they were in L.A. and he was with the 49ers for, what, two years? Granted, he was only with the Steelers a year longer, but he seemed to have much more of a lasting impression there. Seems like his best bet would be if the Panthers' rep was more experienced. Again, though, I don't think it'll keep him out much longer.

Reaser wrote:Well we've devolved and entered the hostile and nonsensical portion of the thread. That should be enough. John and I had what I think was a respectful discussion which of course even if we don't see it the same I could talk football with him all day. Bob Gill found it interesting. V_ya made a non-numbers argument. Some people got it, that's good enough for me.

Sorry for the hostility and nonsense. I'll ask my questions again...

1) How much do you "knock" Greene for his pass coverage skills? Do you think of him as a liability in pass coverage? Should we compare Greene's pass coverage to guys like Lawrence Taylor and Derrick Thomas, because Greene was a similar style player, or should we compare Greene to other HOF OLBs like Jack Ham?

2) In a general sense, if sacks themselves aren't meaningful, could you still conclude that a guy who gets 10+ sacks for 15 years is able to produce a 'good pass rush'?

3) If sacks themselves aren't meaningful, then should we question the HOF enshrinement of Taylor, Thomas, Dent, Dean, etc.? If not, then why is this line of thinking only being applied to Greene?

4) In Greene's specific case, if his sacks weren't meaningful to winning football, what evidence are you citing? Greene had an immediate positive impact on every team he played for. He was part of some of the top defenses in the NFL. I would understand your point more if Greene routinely played for terrible teams and simply racked up sacks, and no other winning NFL teams wanted him. If we look at Greene's career, we see the opposite is true.

5) In Greene's specific case, does his high sack total over-represent his pass-rush ability? If so, what evidence are you citing?

6) There is obviously a difference between the "sack" statistic and the actual in-game pass rush. I would guess that if Belichick said that "sacks are overrated", he was talking specifically about the statistic and not about the general concept of a pass rush (or, most likely, was in the middle of contract negotiations with Richard Seymour). I view sacks kind of like interceptions...perhaps not all that enlightening if taken on a game-by-game or even a seasonal basis...but if you look at a player's career INT total, you can draw somewhat of a conclusion that the player was "around the ball" for the most part. If a guy has 160 sacks, then he was probably generating a pretty good pass rush in general. Maybe that's wrong. But I also think in some sense its contradictory to say the "sack" statistic is overvalued when its the only concrete statistic available in most cases.

Bryan wrote:

Reaser wrote:I'll ask my questions again...

if his sacks weren't meaningful to winning football, what evidence are you citing?

There is obviously a difference between the "sack" statistic and the actual in-game pass rush. I would guess that if Belichick said that "sacks are overrated", he was talking specifically about the statistic

I view sacks kind of like interceptions...

I don't know but I think you're focusing on one post or haven't read all the posts in this thread? Most questions have been answered or don't have the focus on Greene that you're making my comments out to be (the conversation switched and was more about sacks "in general")

I'm assuming you just don't want to read so I'll just copy/paste some things I've already said and see if that helps.

Everything I've said re: Greene:

"I liked Greene but never thought of his as a HOF'er while watching him." - That's just my opinion, no one needs to share it but I watched - and have re-watched - numerous games of his. Good player, doesn't scream HOF'er to me while watching football.

"I meant in general I'd like to see an argument for Greene without using sacks." - Because of my opinion of the sack statistic (and explained my view of sacks and explained it fairly well)

"For Greene, I didn't find him to be particular good against the run, or is pass coverage for that matter. Though I respect others opinions so if others think he was "good enough" in that area, then great. I just don't like an entire resume or HOF case to be solely based on what I consider not all that meaningful of a statistic." - Again my opinion, which naturally if I don't think the sack statistic is a good stat then "x amount of sacks" doesn't do much for me. Others thinking he is/was a HOF player does not bother me, at all. Using ONLY sacks to make the case, is the issue, for me.

That's it, that's all I said re: Greene. So - take a look at the large amount of words I typed in this thread - the posts were less about Greene and more about the sack statistic.

Re: "sacks kind of like interceptions" - No. Turnovers (interceptions) are infinitely more important in football. So while ints shouldn't be someone's entire resume it's a much more meaningful statistic because TO's matter in football. Common football philosophy.

Re: "Belichick meant" - I posted what he meant, and it's not just him, I just thought it was funny after your ridiculous post that I only needed to respond with arguably one of the greatest coaches ever saying essentially the same thing i've been saying throughout the thread. Numerous coaches, HC, DC, DL coach, etc have said "sacks are overrated" ... Ask coaches what the most overrated stat is, more than one will come back with "sacks". You can guess that Belichick was talking about the statistic but you can't read my previous posts saying "sacks as a statistic"? Large amounts of my posts in this thread were spent on sacks as a statistic. I don't get the questioning, everyone else managed to comprehend it so I'm not sure how to make it more clear that a majority of what I said was in direct regards to "sacks" as a statistic? Maybe that I expanded to it's value in winning was confusing? Perhaps ...

re: "Sacks importance to winning and citing examples" - Again, literally have posted a number of examples in this thread already. To repeat a few: 2000 Ravens, would be around the top of the list for everyone for greatest defense ever, were in the bottom half of the league in sacks ... This seasons conference championship games, winning teams had less sacks than the losing teams ... 2012 Ravens, negative sack differential ... To show that if sacks are important to winning then not giving up sacks would be equally as important, the 2008 Steelers. Russell Wilson getting sacked 44 times last season. In other words, sacks (as a statistic) is not a "winning statistic", it's (sack statistic if I need to keep repeating so it's clear) impact on the result of a game, a season, a championship, whether or not a defense is one of the greatest of all-time, all is negligible, at best. An example of that (negligible) is the 2013 Seahawks sack differential, they had 44 sacks, they gave up 44 sacks. Super Bowl sack stat, Broncos sacked 1 time for 1 yard, take that stat away and what happens to the result of the game? Nothing. Last years NFC Championship, Seahawks got sacked 4 times, 49ers got sacked 2 times, winner? Seahawks.

I hope that helps but honestly I think if you went back to the beginning and went post by post it would make more sense to you (not saying that like you're an idiot who can't read) but I believe/complete guess that you're focusing too much on one single post I made along the way and/or thinking that every post and my opinion of sacks is for some reason only and directly related to Greene, which I have already said is not the case. I just saw that his full resume was boiled down to "sacks" and that isn't enough for me (can be for others, I have no choice in who makes the HOF so it's just an opinion) and then I moved on to explaining why I find sacks to be overrated as a statistic, not a winning statistic, and ultimately a miniscule number of plays compared to a large number of plays within a game/season/career/etc ...

Reaser wrote:I just saw that his full resume was boiled down to "sacks"...

By whom?

Reaser wrote:Re: "sacks kind of like interceptions" - No. Turnovers (interceptions) are infinitely more important in football. So while ints shouldn't be someone's entire resume it's a much more meaningful statistic because TO's matter in football. Common football philosophy....

OK, you obviously have some other agenda going on here. I was trying to agree with you. I never said that sacks are more important than turnovers in football. If Bruce Taylor has a season where he has more interceptions than Jimmy Johnson, should we automatically conclude that Taylor is a better pass defender than Johnson? Or perhaps he was thrown at more often than his Johnson?

You didn't really answer any of my questions...not being accusatory, just stating it as fact. Please continue "debating" with yourself, though. You are doing a good job at "winning" on this forum.

Bryan wrote:By whom?

Pretty much anytime someone makes a case for him (media, internet, TV, etc) it boils down to the number of sacks he has.

Your questioning tactics are asinine and don't contribute towards the conversation. I take my time to respectfully respond to your post and you take one small thing out of it to question, because ... I don't know? I don't get the end game?

If you want to have an actual discussion about football,I enjoy talking football with anyone, though usually prefer they have at least a minimal level of understanding of the sport (e.g. don't act hostile like they know what NFL coaches think then are completely surprised to see that a number of NFL coaches believe sacks are an or the most overrated stat - which is not a new or uncommon thing.)

Don't think we're going anywhere re: sacks as a statistic (evidently you don't get it) or re: Greene (differing opinions) so I'll leave you to it. Like I said, everyone else was able to comprehend the conversation, that's good enough for me. Shows I made sense, people got it, some agree, some don't, differing opinions makes things interesting but at least they understood a relatively simple football conversation, which of course they did, all smart guys when it comes to football knowledge.

Reaser wrote:Pretty much anytime someone makes a case for him (media, internet, TV, etc) it boils down to the number of sacks he has.

Oh good. You had accused me of not reading all the posts in this thread, so I was afraid I had missed these numerous arguments of PFRA members posting "Greene has 160 sacks...lock for Canton". I thought I was having those old dreaded "server issues" with this forum. Thanks for the clarification that no one actually posted such a thing.

Reaser wrote:
If you want to have an actual discussion about football,I enjoy talking football with anyone, though usually prefer they have at least a minimal level of understanding of the sport (e.g. don't act hostile like they know what NFL coaches think then are completely surprised to see that a number of NFL coaches believe sacks are an or the most overrated stat - which is not a new or uncommon thing.)

I'll take the bait and ignore you "hostility" claims. My football point was pretty simple...if NFL coaches think sacks aren't meaningful, then why do NFL teams constantly spend a ton of money on pass-rushers year after year? Should the actions taken by NFL teams be overruled because of some vague quote you attributed to Bill Belichick or because your high school football coach didn't think highly of sacks? If sacks aren't meaningful, then why do guys like Fred Dean, Richard Dent, Derrick Thomas, etc. get enshrined in Canton?

Please list which NFL coaches believe that sacks are the most overrated stat. Thanks.

Reaser wrote:If you want to have an actual discussion about football...

He doesn't. Not ever. He's not alone, and it's one of the things that makes posting on these boards get very old, very quickly.

Bryan wrote:Please list which NFL coaches believe that sacks are the most overrated stat. Thanks.

2014 Head Coach example: Mike Smith has said it for years, seemingly every other press conference of his that I've watched. "Sacks are overrated" - exact quote.

2014 Defensive Coordinator example: Mike Nolan has also said sacks are overrated, for years, back to the time that he was a head coach.

"Vague quote" by Bill Belichick: Follow football, you'll see he's said it more than once. He literally voted for sacks as the most overrated statistic on an NFL survey (use the search engine of your choice to look that up, or believe what you want.)

Coincidentally, during my morning football article reading this morning, Marvin Lewis quoted as saying "Sacks don't win games. You can have 50 sacks every year, it has never equated to championship teams. Not once."

That's 3 that immediately came to mind and one I read this morning, that's probably enough. Though I'm shocked! NFL coaches saying sacks are an overrated statistic? An NFL coach saying "sacks don't win games" ... Wonder what I've been posting, that the sack statistic is overrated and that sacks aren't a winning stat? Four defensive minded coaches evidently see it the way I do. Good enough for me. You're welcome.