How pressure on the QB in the NFL does not always correlate with unsuccessful passes

Which teams have been able to overcome pressure and still pass effectively 2018-2023?

For a defense sacks are sexy, but pressures are the real measure of pass rush prowess. The general thought is that if you can pressure the opposing QB, you can at least slow the opposing offense, if not stop them. That being said, there are some offenses that have defied this logic. They have been able to throw the ball effectively DESPITE giving up a great deal of pressure on the QB.

Now some QBs bring pressure on themselves, like Russell Wilson, by holding onto the ball very long. Wilson (Russ not Zach) had the third longest time to throw in the NFL among qualifying passers in 2023. Only Justin Fields and Nick Mullens took longer on average to throw the ball.

In general NFL QBs will dissect a defense if they are given all day to throw the ball since even the best secondary can only cover so long. The elite QBs generally handle pressure well and can still make good throws even when they are being pressured. So lets dive into the data.

Pro-football-reference.com has team pressure allowed data for the last six seasons (2018-2023). Many sites have team by team adjusted net yards per attempt (ANY/A) data. ANYA is one of the better measures of passing proficiency. Better than passer rating, according to most. So I wanted to see which NFL teams over the last six seasons have been good at passing the ball despite allowing a great deal of pressure.

Pressure Allowed

The color chart above (apologies to those who are color-blind) shows how well or poorly each team has avoided QB pressure over the last six seasons. Green is good. Red is bad. The Broncos have not been good. On average the Denver Broncos have allowed 26.4% pressure on the QB, meaning that the Bronco QBs have been pressured on more than one quarter of their dropbacks (minus scrambles) over the last six seasons. I’ll show the table later.

The team who has allowed the most pressure on average is the Seattle Seahawks, while the team allowing the least average pressure is the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

ANY/A

The team that has been the best at ANYA over the last six seasons is, no surprise here, the Chiefs. They are the only team that has an average above seven. Only three teams have an ANYA below five, the two New York teams and the Washington Potatoes Football Team Whatevers.

The average Pressure and ANYA for all teams 2018-2023 is shown below. The Broncos have been better in ANYA than they have been in pressure allowed. Again using the same color coding with green being good and red being bad.

Not surprisingly, there are few teams that are “green” in pressure allowed and “green” in ANYA. The only two “dark green” teams in terms of both are the Bucs and the Saints. The Saints have been at or below 18.0% on average in pressure allowed and only have one season above 17.5%.

The Bucs rank 3rd in average ANYA and the Saints rank 4th.

If you run the correlation for each team over the six seasons you get some interesting results. See below.

It’s hard to choose the color mapping for this, because positive correlation could mean good correlates with good or it could mean bad correlates with bad. For pressure rate lower numbers are better. For ANYA, higher numbers are better. So let’s look at the Broncos.

The Broncos have been consistent, giving up much pressure and being fairly poor at ANYA. This leads to a fairly strong positive correlation of 0.40. The Jaguars are an example of a team on the other extreme if you will.

The Jacksonville Jaguars have consistently been getting better at pressure allowed while they have been getting better at ANYA year over year. So as pressure rate has gone down, ANYA has consistently gone up, hence the strong negative correlation (-0.98). Keep in mind correlation goes from -1.0 to 1.0.

The most interesting teams are those with a strong negative correlation: Jacksonville (-0.98), Chicago (-0.84), Buffalo (-0.74), Philadelphia (-0.72) and Indianapolis (-0.72). Since we already discussed the Jags, let’s discuss the other teams.

The Chicago Bears have only had one good season in the past six by ANYA (2018) while they have been generally getting worse in pressure allowed.

The Buffalo Bills have been generally getting better in ANYA since 2018 (Josh Allen’s rookie season) while they have also been getting better at pass protection going from a high of 29.0% in 2018 to a low of 17.2% in 2022.

The Philadelphia Eagles have been up and down and then back up again in ANYA and their pressure allowed has followed the same trend.

The Indianapolis Colts have been both really good and really bad in pressure allowed and their ANYA has tracked fairly closely with pressure allowed. When pressure allowed went up, ANYA when down hence the strong negative correlation.