Wednesday, October 7, 2020

NFL Havoc Rates Through Week 4

Havoc in football is exactly what defenses want to see, and what offenses want to avoid.  Havoc Rate is a metric that has gained a lot of following at the College level (Thanks largely to the work of Bill Connely), it measures tackles for loss, fumbles forced, and passes defensed to let us know just how often defenses are creating bad plays for the offense.

As we see here, the Steelers have been absolutely nuts in Havoc rate so far.  More than one in every five plays against them has been disrupted in some way.  Part of this is of course their matchups to start the year, with the Giants, Broncos and Texans all being teams that have struggled to start.  Most of the other teams above league average are teams people would expect to see there, except for maybe the Colts who have totaled 39 havoc plays, tying for 9th overall but 3rd in the rate that they happen.  


The offenses that have allowed the most havoc rate arent really a surprise when you look at the standings across the NFL.  The Giants have been the worst in the league so far, allowing just under 20% havoc on offense.  The Washingtn team that just benched their starting QB has also struggled to keep things on schedule.  A team that could see this rate drop significantly in the future might be the Broncos.  Faced with some early injuries on offense and matchups against some of the best Havoc creating teams to start, its not surprising they've been one of the worst so far.  But Drew Lock was taking snaps at practice again and might be back soon.  

A game that would have been very telling would have been the Titans-Steelers matchup.  The Steelers are excellent as noted above at generating Havoc, and the Titans are adept at avoiding it. 








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