Sig Stats: Tackling Efficiency by Team

We have reached Day 2 of our Signature Stat week, and today is all about missed tackles. We tend to focus on individual players like Steve did today looking at the linebackers and defensive backs, but it’s good to know if it’s just an individual or two on your team racking up the misses or if it is a team issue.

Below are the average number of players to miss a tackle on defense per play, starting with the team that is best at not missing tackles; Cleveland.

Team-by-Team Defenses

The Browns top the list partially thanks to their defensive line. Desmond Bryant played over 700 snaps with just one missed tackle, while nine other players on defense played at least 100 snaps and missed 10 or fewer. If you look at just total missed tackles rather than the rate stat, the 49ers were the best in the league. Only six players on the defense had more than four misses.

Overall, 13 of the top 19 teams are from the AFC while 10 of the bottom 13 come from the NFC. Oddly enough, the eight teams right in the middle of the rankings are eight of the 12 playoff teams from this past year with little differentiation between them. While a team doesn’t need to be great in this category, it is hard to be successful when you’re one of the teams that misses the most tackles.

Special Teams

While the team that missed the most tackles missed about 160% more than the team with the fewest, we see a lot more disparity between the best and worst teams when looking at special teams missed tackles. Below are the number of special teams tackles missed this season:

Incredibly, the Panthers only missed five special teams tackles on the year and those came from five different players. There were multiple individual players who had more misses than the Panthers had as a team. The Vikings and Browns were the only two teams in the Top 10 for both defensive missed tackles and special teams missed tackles.

Follow Nathan on Twitter: @PFF_NateJahnke