Do The Cowboys Have The Best Outside Linebackers In The NFL?

on the cowboys site,theres talk of lee not being a nickel lb.
says hes been playing the mo lb as back up to bradie james…

as Lee is playing much better ball than him right now.

as much as it is he missed over half of camp, and the most important part of camp! Think about it, Lee was back for the California practices but how many times did they suit up in full pads?

I think losing Dez, Lee, and AOA for the majority of the first part of camp was a disaster.

Lee is clearly talented, but he can’t make up all that ground in shorts and baseball caps in Oxnard.

Are we expecting to see inside LB analysis next?

I would wager to say most of us are very comfortable on the outside for now, what about the inside? Is there a dropoff when it comes to the inside guys? How much of a factor are they when it comes to pass-rushing … or is that even worth the time?

But really, thx OCC

Newman is also one of the better CBs in the league. We’re not elite at safety, but seem to improve the position each year.

Mediocre? That implies the poor-side of average. I just can’t agree with this.

I absolutely love Lamar Woodley. That guy never should have dropped in the draft. He was as good at Michigan if not better than Brandon Graham.

I have the Pittsburgh D in my FF for the same reason – I expect them to return to form this year.

Hopefully we’ll be playing you guys at the end of this marathon :)

and we can settle whose best in the Superbowl! :-)

I know exactly what I am talking about. You have chosen to define ‘mean’ as the average pass rusher last year. Then your argument is correct. More power to you.

The question for me was, what is the mean sack total for DeMarcus Ware? That’s why I put in Ware’s sack numbers of the last five years. You will have noticed that the first four years are an almost linear progression of his sack totals. In fact r² for his sack totals from 05-08 is 0.97. Now, I don’t believe his sack total would have continued at a linear rate in any case, but the question then is, what is the mean for Ware?

You correctly point out that a regression to the mean could be a return to uninjured performance levels, and that is exactly what I was trying to show. Many people would argue that the average sack total over the last five years (12.9) is his mean. Some would even argue that the 20 sacks in 2008 were an outlier and should be removed to get an adjusted average or mean (11.1). So most arguments involving regression to the mean and Ware’s sack totals would have him moving closer to around 10 sacks (and thus an ‘expected decline’), if for no other reason than that people use an average to determine the mean.

I think that based on the (uninjured) trajectory of Ware’s sack totals through 08, Ware’s mean should be much closer to 20 than to 10. And that is why I included his injury history to put the 09 numbers in perspective.

Using the same approach as outlined above (cbssports depth chart, Football Outsider data) here are the top four 4-3 DE tandems and their PRPs as well as sacks, hits and hurries for the individual players:

92.0: Vikings – LDE Edwards (8,17,33), RDE Allen (15,12,30)
86.0: Colts – LDE Mathis (9.5,11,30), RDE Freeney (13.5, 9,34)
71.3: Texans – LDE Smith (4.5, 14, 23), RDE Williams (9,13,27)
61.8: Saints – LDE Brown (6,11,14), RDE Smith (13,15,17)

Keep in mind that this may be incomplete data, as not every player will have played the full 16 game schedule. Also just because a team like the Eagles will play rookie Brandon Graham at LDE doesn’t mean they’ll end up low on the list when the season is done.