Does sack production matter for this Rams target at edge rusher?

Should sack production matter for Penn State’s Chop Robinson?

One of the biggest needs for the Los Angeles Rams on the defensive side of the ball is at edge rusher. After not addressing the position in free agency, it is very possible that it is a position addressed in the draft, specifically with the first round pick at 19th overall. At some point, the Rams need to add a player that can get to the quarterback.

A popular choice for the Rams at 19 when it comes to the edge position has been Penn State’s Chop Robinson. However, there’s no question that Robinson is a bit of a polarizing prospect and somewhat a projection. As ESPN’s Field Yates recently put it,

“Penn State’s Chop Robinson feels like a wild card in it all. He’s No. 18 on my board, and I believe he has a real chance to be the second edge rusher taken based on conversations with multiple people around the scouting community. He’s an explosive player. Ultimately, the draft-day order will wind up being decided by the style of player that teams taking an edge rusher early want, and these first-rounders get the job done in very different ways.”

Robinson would be a great fit for the Rams if he is available at 19th overall. He has the ceiling to potentially be the best defensive player selected in this draft class. His get-off at the line of scrimmage is inanely quick and he has the overall athleticism and strength to do well in space when it comes to containing the edge in the run game.

However, one of the biggest pushbacks with Robinson is his college production. During his final season at Penn State, Robinson had just four sacks. The year before, he had just 5.5. For a top edge rusher, the production simply isn’t where you would like it to be. The big question here is how much does that really matter. Again, there is no denying Robinson’s ceiling and if he pans out in the NFL, the projection is there as a top-end pass rusher. But is it just that — a projection?

Will McDonald IV was drafted as a projection and high-upside pick last year. Following back-to-back 10 sack seasons at Iowa State, McDonald had just five in 2022. He was limited to three sacks last year with the New York Jets. Travon Walker is a similar who was taken inside the top-5 by the Jacksonville Jaguars. Walker had 9.5 college sacks at Georgia, capped off by six in his final season. As a rookie, Walker had 3.5 sacks, but increased that to 10 last year. To expand further, Chandler Jones had just 10 college sacks and Danielle Hunter, who many were hoping the Rams would sign this offseason in free agency, had 4.5.

The 33rd Team did a study in 2022 looking at how much sack production matters in college. Here’s what they came up with,

“From 2017-2020, there have been exactly 58 edge defenders drafted in rounds 1-3. Using PFF’s charting data, we can compare how productive these players were at the collegiate and professional levels by looking at the percentage of pass rush snaps they recorded a sack…Of this group of 58 edge rushers, exactly eight have recorded a higher sack percentage in the NFL…It’s fairly clear that we can’t expect pass rushers to notably improve in this regard, at least over their first few years, although a handful may surprise.”

At the end of the day, sack production and pressure rates should matter. Robinson was credited with three sacks on 148 pass rush snaps by PFF last season for a sack rate of two percent. The year before wasn’t much better at 1.6 percent. Comparatively, Jared Verse had a 2.7 percent percent sack rate last season.

It’s part of what makes Chop Robinson’s evaluation so difficult. In cases like this, it’s also important to have levels of the evaluation process and trust the tape while also looking at some of the deeper analytics. As The 33rd Team study said,

“What if we’re thinking about this incorrectly? Some of the insights from PFF’s charting data shows that sack counts are relatively inconsistent from year to year, but pressure rate is more stable and will eventually lead to sacks…Returning to our 58-man group of edge defenders, how does this analysis change when we ignore sacks and instead look at pressure rate? The difference is even more distinct. Only three linemen managed to improve on their college pressure rate.”

When looking at things like pressure rate is where Chop Robinson starts to grade out more favorably. He actually had a 17.6 percent pressure rate last season, generating 26 pressures on 148 pass rush snaps. This was much closer to Verse who was at 16.7 percent respectively.

Robinson’s pass-rush win rate is also high at 20.9 percent which goes up to 26.7 percent in true pass sets. Again, this is right there with Verse who’s win percentage was 21.2 percent and 27.9 percent. The only difference between Robinson and Verse is the number in the sack column. Verse had 12.5 sacks last season to Robinson’s 4.5. However, their pressure rates and win-rates are right in line with each other.

In that case, how much do sacks actually matter if a player is still impacting the play? On the play below, Robinson doesn’t get the actual sack on the play, but he forces Michigan quarterback JJ McCarthy to throw the ball away into the dirt. There are several other examples on Robinson’s tape where he forces an inaccurate throw with the quarterback getting rid of the ball at the last second. This play came on third down and forced the Michigan offense off the field.

Of course sacks to matter to an extent. A negative play like a sack can have a huge impact for a defense. 939 out of 1,118 sacks last year resulted in the drive being killed. That’s an 84 percent rate. For Robinson, given his pressure rate and win-rate, at some point the sacks have to come. Sacks are just as much a quarterback stat as they are a defensive stat. There is some luck involved. Does that luck change for Robinson at the next level?

Robinson is certainly an interesting study. The athleticism is very similar to that of another Penn State edge rusher in Micah Parsons. The faster time in the shuttle suggests that Robinson could even be better than Parsons in space.

RAS

It’s fair to have concerns about Robinson’s lack of sack production at Penn State. However, there is some context needed in that conversation as well. Robinson still consistently won his matches and created pressure. He still regularly impacted plays and disrupted game plans for opposing offenses. That’s the type of defensive player most NFL teams should want on their side. It’s one thing that made Aaron Donald so special as teams’ entire game plans revolved around him.

Like most rookie edge rushers, it may take a year or two for Robinson to hit his stride. However, if the goal is to compete for a Super Bowl in 2025, selecting Robinson makes sense as that would be when he’d be ready for his second-year jump. Robinson isn’t an easy evaluation and like most prospects has concerns. The question is, if the Rams did draft him, could they get him to reach his ceiling? That’s what makes Robinson so intriguing.