NFLytics: Interior pressure is causing havoc

Henry Thomas and Warren Sapp would be proud of today’s interior pass rushers. The crop of big fellas who can successfully rush up the middle is growing and growing — and making life more challenging on centers, guards and quarterbacks.

Ten years ago there were only 11 starting defensive tackles to receive a pass rushing grade above a 70 by Pro Football Focus and only four cleared the 80-grade mark. Think of being between 70-80 as having a significant impact and anything over 80 as being a superstar. Geno Atkins, JJ Watt and Ndamukong Suh were over 85 in 2012. This year the group of impact players is much deeper than a decade ago with 25 DTs scoring over 70. The elites are still the elites with just six over 85 but there’s clearly a rise in the number of large dudes who can wreak havoc.

That shows up on the other side of the ball, too. In 2012 there were 31 guards who graded above 70 in pass blocking. This year there are only 21 and just 12 are above 75. Even as recently as 2017 there were 33 guards playing at least above average ball. But in recent years there’s been an influx of beats on the D-line, including fairly recent draft picks like Dexter Lawrence, Quinnen Williams, Jeffery Simmons, Derrick Brown, Jonathan Allen, Daron Payne, Justin Madubuike and Christian Wilkins, who all rank in the top 25 in pass rush grade.

In general most quarterbacks fall of the face of a cliff when pressured. The only QB in the NFL who averages more than 7.2 yards per pass attempt under pressure is Josh Allen. He’s also one of only three quarterbacks (Joe Burrow, Geno Smith) with a traditional QB rating over 90 when under duress. There are 23 starting QBs with ratings over 90 when kept clean.

But how does interior rush specifically play into the mix?

Before we get into the numbers, the anecdotal evidence:

Minnesota Vikings quarterback Nick Mullens knows what it’s like to see the rush coming up the middle. He faced off against Aaron Donald twice in his career when he was a member of the San Francisco 49ers.

“The interior rush is a little underrated,” Mullens said. “People value edge rushers because they can wreck the game but I’d say interior rush is more annoying. It’s not totally aggressive but it’s always pushing and if you do that consistently it gets very annoying.”

“It’s harder to throw in tight spaces,” Mullens continued. “So if you have interior push you are going to have a smaller space to throw the football and that makes it tough. Edge rushers, there’s an opportunity to step up and make more space for yourself.”

The Vikings’ veteran QB said that offensive tackles still have a chance when their man gets beat whereas a guard/center losing the battle results in instant problems unless the quarterback has the speed to run laterally.

“There’s no changing [the interior rush] other than the lineman anchoring down, tackles use it to their advantage to run guys by and it creates running and throwing lanes,” Mullens said.

He said that playing against Donald forces the offense to do something unusual: Build its gameplan around a defensive tackle.

“The whole week is, ‘How do you protect against Aaron Donald?’” Mullens said. “It’s not a typical week.”

We can see on paper that Donald still gets different treatment than anyone else in the league but there is a growing list of players who are getting double teams on a weekly basis. ESPN’s Seth Walder shared on Twitter the group of players getting the most attention.