Khalil Mack: Creating Production from Disruption

Some may say that Khalil Mack had an elite rookie season. Coming out of small small school in the MAC conference, Mack skipped over the tough transition period that many NFL Draft picks struggle through. From his first game in the league last September the Raiders EDGE rusher produced at a high level. Or did he?

With any position in football there will be theoretical conversations surrounding how players at that position should be valued. EDGE rusher is no different. It is perhaps an even more convoluted topic than with many other positions where mainstream statistics do a better job at illustrating performance.

Sacks are one of the few statistics that are popularly used to quantify edge rusher performance. The problem with sacks is that they don’t show you the whole picture. An EDGE rusher can consistently pressure a quarterback while not coming up with any sacks and vice versa. We have pressure creating metrics that can tell us how good a player is at pressuring the quarterback, but they don’t show us the full picture either.

The key is using these two indicators together and placing the proper weight on how important each is. Finding that proper valuation is the difficult part. There isn’t a set formula that would work for that valuation, either. Depending on an EDGE rusher’s role in their defense and what players surround them, the importance of pressures and sacks could shift one way or the other.

Khalil Mack was one of the few, maybe the only, impact front seven players on the Raiders last year. Because of this, Mack’s inability to sack the quarterback probably hurt his team just as much as his pressures helped them. Rightfully so, Mack was called out for this by many people on football twitter. An elite EDGE rusher can’t be that poor at converting pressures into sacks, especially in a situation like Mack’s where he didn’t have another player who could take advantage of his pressures to create their own sacks.

Like everything, though, I believe converting pressures into sacks is a skill. It’s not just something that fluctuates randomly. So, like any skill, sack conversion is something that a player can improve in as their career goes on.

That seems to be exactly what Khalil Mack has done this year. His pressure numbers are closer to the middle of the pack, which I’m assuming is lower than what they would have been had I charted him last year, but he is converting his pressures into sacks at one of the higher rates of the 21 players charted. Taking a look at his Pressure Production results so far this season will allow us to take an even closer look at how he has seemingly changed, or rather evolved.

Just like he was last year, Mack has been a pressure phenom this season. His numbers might be less impressive than they were last year, although it’s impossible to know since I didn’t chart him, but nonetheless he has been very good. Mack takes most of his reps on the edge, which is also where he does most of his damage. Out of 119 edge attempts, Mack has created pressure 45 times. That equates to 37.8%, which is one of the best edge success rates in the league. Rushing on the interior is far from Mack’s biggest strength, but he has still been able to find success at times. He has taken a rather limited amounts of reps, 14, but has been able to capitalize and create pressure on 28.6% of those attempts.

On attempts against one blocker, of which he has had 124, Mack has created pressure at a slightly above average rate of 36.3%. Most players have a higher One v One Success Rate than Cumulative Success Rate, but Mack diverts from that trend. The Double Team Success Rate is where it gets interesting for Mack. He has created pressure on 44.4% of his 9 attempts against multiple blockers, which is over 10% higher than the next closest player. I think that really speaks to the technical superiority that Mack has already developed at such a young age. That technical ability can be properly displayed with the Reason for Pressure chart.

This chart fully displays how well rounded of a pass rusher Khalil Mack is. It is amazing that Mack is able to win such a variety of ways at such a young age, while also being aware that his athletic ability is where he has the biggest advantage against offensive linemen. Only 12.2% of his pressures have been “unearned pressures” which is one of the lowest rates of the 21 players charted. Mack also has one of the most evenly distributed Reason for Pressure charts.

While being evenly distributed, Mack also has a two areas where he usually looks to blow away opposing offensive tackles. His inexplicable ability to shuffle between running over offensive tackles at will with exceptional leverage and running around them with a super flexible middle half, Mack is near impossible to stop from eventually invading the pocket. His trouble last year came once he was already in the pocket, but Mack has been substantially better at sacking the quarterback this year than last.

Mack’s Pressure Conversion Rate of 10.2% is one of the best out of the 21 players charted this year. It falls 10th out of the group. Yet the 21 player sample is mostly comprised of top tier pass rushers, so you can expect that he wouldn’t fall far at all if the sample was expanded to include the entire NFL.

With Mack showing the ability to continue his elite pressuring ability into this season, as well as improving his ability to convert pressures into sacks, I think we truly say that Mack is one of the best EDGE rushers in the NFL.

Mack’s progression from 2014 to 2015 also teaches us an important lesson about pass rusher development and the nature of sack conversion as a skill rather than a random occurrence.