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I agree, Shawn Springs was a great player.  Where did I say otherwise?

So people talk about pressures more because defensive coaches want to pressure the QB?  Okay.  Do me a favor - poll the top 100 DCs in the game and ask them if they'd rather have a pressure or a sack.

I'll hang up and listen.

Exactly. Defensive stats and how a defensive player actually effects a game are two completely different things. And what a defensive player is able to do depends highly on who else is on that unit.

George Karlaftis didn't have a Heisman-worth statistical season by far... Because teams were double- and triple-teaming him on passing downs and were so terrified of him that they did everything they could to scheme and block him out of the game. They were able to do this because Purdue didn't have anyone else on that defense that was so disruptive.

Go back a few years and I think it was the tandem of Ryan Kerrigan who had a great junior season, but his senior season when Kawaan Short really became a dominant force at DT that it opened Kerrigan up and he started recording eye-popping defensive stats because the defense couldn't focus on him as the sole threat.

Michigan was an embarrassment of riches on the DL this year, so teams couldn't just scheme or double+ Hutchison out of the game. Alabama is an embarrassment of riches at every position every year, so they get the same thing. No way you can design your offense around avoiding Anderson because if he's the guy who EA Sports rates a 99, everyone else on that defense is 94-97 so it's not like you can pick that poison.

pressures make QBs hurry throws and make mistakes and they are often also converted into sacks for other players on the defense if the guy making the pressure doesn't get home on the sack.

I remember one year PFF had former Michigan DE Brandon Graham rated as the #1 edge rusher in the NFL and he only had about 6 sacks or something like that- but his pressure rate per snaps played was through the roof- it was by far #1 in the NFL by a ridiculous margin. PFF had him rated as a top 10 player in the league that year, based largely on that and his run defense grade.

Exactly. Defensive stats and how a defensive player actually effects a game are two completely different things. And what a defensive player is able to do depends highly on who else is on that unit.

George Karlaftis didn't have a Heisman-worth statistical season by far... Because teams were double- and triple-teaming him on passing downs and were so terrified of him that they did everything they could to scheme and block him out of the game. They were able to do this because Purdue didn't have anyone else on that defense that was so disruptive.

Go back a few years and I think it was the tandem of Ryan Kerrigan who had a great junior season, but his senior season when Kawaan Short really became a dominant force at DT that it opened Kerrigan up and he started recording eye-popping defensive stats because the defense couldn't focus on him as the sole threat.

Michigan was an embarrassment of riches on the DL this year, so teams couldn't just scheme or double+ Hutchison out of the game. Alabama is an embarrassment of riches at every position every year, so they get the same thing. No way you can design your offense around avoiding Anderson because if he's the guy who EA Sports rates a 99, everyone else on that defense is 94-97 so it's not like you can pick that poison.

Because it's easy to just watch the games. Mainstream defensive stats have always been goofy. It's like pass breakups for defensive backs. Is that supposed to be a good thing?

So, I think this starts at an interesting place, and then kind of wanders us into a jungle of narrative.

The idea that stats don't always tell the story is true. but I think some weight has to be put on doing the thing. It's kind of murky. We can say Karlaftis affected the game by making life easier on teammates (he did!), but in the end, fewer blockers blocked players you're asserting are worse and Purdue had a ho-hum pass rush in terms of getting to the QB. And if you have better stats, you can see that Karlaftis piled up pressures, and Purdue was good at pressuring QBs. And then it gets even more theoretical when you think, if he's a game wrecker (yes) for a defense that's better than it should be (yes), but many of the teammates he's opening up are not producing more in terms of the things missing from his statistical resume (sacks and TFL), where does that leave us? And that's not to detract. Kid is a game-wrecker, and perhaps going forward, we'll get better double/triple/chip numbers.

Then we get into a set of narratives. There's the argument that Hutchinson and Anderson aren't getting schemed or doubled. This might be true, but it feels more like sketching in the lines of what we think. Without watching a ton of Bama and Michigan really closely, it's more just a guess (maybe you're doing that, but you seems to be leading a life interesting enough that you're not, which is better, frankly). Maybe those dudes were just on one this year, and are putting up stats despite a decent amount of doubles, though still less than Karlaftis.

I'm thinking you having the timing wrong on Kerrigan. His junior numbers were highly excellent. Better sack numbers than his senior year, and plenty good TFL numbers. Are you thinking of his sophomore year, where he was also very good, but less statistically excellent? (Also, holy hell, the defensive linemen in the conference those years. I'm unsurprised that anyone got lost those years or had a delay in recognition. Just stacked)

Just to be clear, I wasn't trying to say that Karlaftis should have been anywhere near the Heisman discussion. I was just using him as an example, similar to the Shawn Springs example, of someone who affects a game in a very significant way but it doesn't always show up on the stat sheet.