Tag: Sports Analytics

No NFL player has ever lead the league in Combined Tackles and won a Super Bowl in the same year (since 1979)

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When you go to the ESPN NFL stats page, your greeted by Defensive Leaders and a list of the players with the most total tackles.

Image taken from https://www.espn.com/nfl/stats

Generally, when a player has a lot of tackles, that means the Defense is on the field a lot. Its like pitch count in baseball, Ideally, you want your pitcher to throw 3 pitches and get 3 outs. Ideally, for an NFL defense you would want to make 3 tackles and force a punt. Its a weird stat where you would think, lower the number, the better. But instead, Defensive leaders are often related to the Total Tackle leader. Which may not be a good thing …..

This may surprise you, but: No player has ever lead the league in Combined Tackles and won a Super Bowl in the same year (At least until 1979).

Going back to 1979, if you look at the number of games the leading tackler for each year won, it may be suprising to some.

The fewest regular season wins to win a Super Bowl is 9. As you can in the chart above, quite a lot of the league leading tacklers were parts of terrible teams.

I find it quite remarkable that you have a number of teams that won 10, 11, 12, and even 14 games and still none won a Super Bowl. If I told you that your team was guaranteed to win at least 10 games in the regular season for 12 straight years and you didn’t win one Super Bowl, you would probably be disappointed.

In reality, if you have the league leading tackler than your probably not on a very good team because your defense is stuck on the field. However, what this stat does tell you is that there is a really good player on a bad defense and that should still be celebrated.

How the hell do you win 14 games and not win the Super Bowl?

What if I told you that the New England Patriots won 14 games in the regular season and were defeated by ….. wait for it ….. the New York Jets in the Divisional Round. And that team was lead by …. wait for it …. Mark Sanchez

In case you didn’t know what Sanchez has been up to. Not good.

My personal Tackling DAWG

Jessie Tuggle lead the league 4 years in tackles. 3 of those were in a row from 1990-1992. The man amassed 1805 tackles in a 14 year carrier. Holy crap! That is a lot, a lot of contact. What makes him even more of a dog is that he went undrafted.

Recommend a watch if your like me and weren’t born yet.

Next ….

I compilled the Top 25 Tacklers for every season dating back to 2000. The data may be surprising ….

MLB Season Win Total Betting Model: Pick #1 Detroit Tigers Over 83.5 Wins

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At the time of writing this blog, FanDuel has the Detroit Tigers Regular Season Win Total Over/Under set at 83.5. A slight increase from last year (81.5). In 2024, the Detroit Tigers won a whopping 86 games, falling in the Divisional Series to the Cleveland Guardians. A major accomplishment for a team who was expected to win about 81 games. 

This year, I don’t think it’s any different. Clearly, the Tigers themselves are committed to winning, as they were in the running for free agent 3rd baseman Alex Bregman. Part of this dramatic increase resides in their pitching. My model has the Tigers projected to be Top 5 in pitching this year.

taken from @MLBNetwork on x.com (https://x.com/MLBNetwork/status/1891159354029531257/photo/1)

I shouldn’t have to, but if you’ve never heard about this guy, you need to. Tarik Skull. He’s coming off an AL Cy Young and Triple Crown season. For those who don’t know, the Triple Crown is when a pitcher leads the league in batting average, home runs, and RBIs. He’s a little bit of a nut, which is exactly what you want from a pitcher. Last year, they leaned on him heavily, and I am betting they will again this year. But this year with some extra support. 

If we look at free agency, they lost pretty much no body. Jack Flaherty returns, who went 7-5 with Detroit last season posting a 2.95 ERA (a slight improvement from his 3.58 ERA when he was on the Dodgers). Now, I don’t think we will get those numbers again, but I do think he will be a solid piece in the rotation. Another guy they added is Alex Cobb. He just got hurt and he’s stated to miss the beginning of the season with a hip injury. When he gets healthy, he should be another arm they can use on an already solid pitching crew. Reese Olson is another guy that I think is poised for a great season. Despite going 4-8 (22 appearances) last year, he had an ERA of 3.53, which isn’t too shabby for a 25-year-old. 

In terms of bats, this offseason they went out and got ex-Yankees 2nd baseman Gleyber Torres. He signed a prove-it deal after not hearing back from the Yankees. I like to think he’s a chip-on-the-shoulder type of guy. Last year, I thought he had a pretty decent season. Yankees fans may be a little upset that he never took the next “big step”. Torres really thrived when he was moved to lead off. As of now, he’s projected to be 2nd in the lineup. 

The batting is what worries me about the Tigers. They are below average and I do not see them making a major jump this year. However, I do think it’s more realistic that they can achieve a league average here. If they can bat at a league average, I think they pose for another post-season run. That’s why I am going with: Over 83.5 Wins for the Detroit Tigers