Revised Tackle Statistics

So....I mentioned earlier that I wondered about individual tackle statistics.  What made me start to wonder was playing NFL Fantasy Football.  I am in a league with individual defensive players and you get points for tackles.  Its a little messed up because you get four points for a tackle and six for a TD, so tackles are important.  What I discovered is that the big scoring guys are the ones who are the MLB or FS on a lousy defensive team.  They are on the field all the time, and they get tons of opportunities and someone has to make a tackle.  I drafted these guys and it has worked.

So, I applied this bit of insight to the MAC.  Again, the theory is that a player on a killer D might not get as many tackles, so you can look at the tackles as a proportion of the plays the defense saw.

A caveat.  The number of tackles is strictly the total number for that defense for the season.  If a guy missed a game, then he missed all the tackles in that game.

Here's what came out....the number on the left is the player's rank on my new and fantastic measure, and the one to the right next to their name is the one from the MAC's boring and official, old-school, brain dead rank.  As you an see, they are pretty similar.  I have helpfully placed orange arrows next to the 3 that had the most difference.

• Dwayne Woods falls from #1 to #4 based on having 21 more opportunities to tackle.  
• Neal Howey moved from #12 to #8...in this case, he turned the theory on its ear, because he plays for EMU, and they were a lousy defense.  However, they only faced 751 plays.  Why?  Because they were so lousy teams scored on big plays and not on on tackle-creating long drives.  
• Evan Harris of Miami moves from 21 to 15 based on having 81 tackles on a good defense that faced on 750 plays. 
• Finally, Nick Bellore took a hit, falling from 9 to 13...

Anyway, this just seems to me a more logical measure....we'll keep an eye on this and see how it rolls out in the next season.