Eckert’s Examinations: 2023 College LB Pass Rush Stat Study – Payton Wilson

Continuing the series, I wanted to return to the off-ball linebacker position where Pittsburgh selected Payton Wilson in the third round. Today’s goal is to look at and provide stat context for the position using Sports Info Solutions (SIS).

The data in this study looks at their final college season in 2023 as pass rushers, focusing on the players who heard their names called in the draft. The goal is to see how Wilson stacked up among his peers.

First, let’s look at pass snaps along with their total snaps to get a gauge of the players opportunities, and how often they were able to stay on the field for their squads last season:

Wilson was near the top of this year’s draft class in total regular season snaps (715) ranking fourth out of the 18 qualifying LBs. Encouraging given his several past injuries, highlighted by our Melanie Friedlander in this entrance physical article.

He was also on the field well above-average among his peers on pass plays, with 431 pass snaps, landing at an even higher rank of second. In my overall very encouraging run defense stat study on Wilson, we learned he was on the field less, ranking ninth. Very important context to Wilson’s situational experience 2023.

Next, let’s look at the percentages that the players rushed the passer (pass plays only), and Sports Info Solutions positive play %: the rate of pass plays with the player on the field resulted in a positive EPA (lower percentages are best):

Here we see that Wilson also rushed in passing situations quite often, at 32.7-percent, which was fourth-most among his peers in 2023. The visual emphasizes that with more frequency came less positive results, which makes sense and applies to Wilson’s 11.8 positive percentage that was third-worst (16th).

Last season, Wilson encouragingly had six sacks (T-fourth) and 22 pressures (sixth), but the visual above shows that there were even more opportunities to make an impact as a pass rusher. For comparison, Texas A&M’s Edgerrin Cooper and Mississippi State’s Nathaniel Watson tied for the most sacks at the position in 2023 with ten. Cooper did so on lower rush opportunities as well.

Another factor is alignment. Wilson notably played several snaps at edge rusher for NC State, an obviously more difficult situation to produce in. Many of his peers played a much higher rate strictly off the ball, compared to Wilson facing much larger offensive tackles straight up fairly often. This could help in Wilson’s transition to the step up in NFL competition, encouragingly.

Here are essential numbers for the topic, pressure and sack percentages:

These numbers further the point I was just alluding to with Wilson landing below-average in the pressure and sack results from a percentage standpoint. Particularly his 16.3 pressure percentage, which was second-least among qualifiers (17th). Thankfully he cashed in with a higher 4.3 sack rate, tying for ninth, but landed just below the mean.

Volume is very important to recall. For example, Temple’s Jordan Magee’s impressive rates on the top right coming on just 32 pass rushes, compared to Wilson’s more substantial 151 in comparison. A player can only produce if given the opportunity of course, and the often-used stats on the above visual always need to be layered with more context such as quantity, which Wilson provided in spades.

To close, here is a more total view of the players as pass rushers:

• Points Saved Per Rush – The total of a player’s EPA responsibility on pass plays using the Total Points system that distributes credit among all players on the field for a given play (with positive numbers being good). Totals are scaled up to map to the average points scored or allowed on a team level, with the player’s snap count determining how much to adjust. For pass rushers, this includes accounting for sacks, blown blocks forced, turnovers, turnover returns, and other disruptions at the line of scrimmage. Values are modulated using a quality-of-competition multiplier based on each opponent’s previous year of performance).
• Points Above Average Per Play – using the same Total Points system and putting a number to their value above an average level player.

In this final view, Wilson landed below the mean in both data points. His points saved per rush came in at 11th while points above average per play landed at 12th. So, in 2023, Wilson’s greatest impact in my stats study was encouragingly run defense along with some nice qualities in coverage and as a pass rusher, but to a lesser extent.

On the impressive side of things, Wilson provided the second-most snaps in pass situations on the fourth-most total snaps, with recent durability that is encouraging given his past injuries that contributed to his talents being available to Pittsburgh in the third round.

He also rushed the passer at the fourth-highest rate including substantial edge rusher snaps, showing alignment versatility. Likely, those opportunities will be far less in the NFL, and optimistically put him in more ideal situations to be productive as a pass rusher.

The raw totals of six sacks (T-fourth) and 22 pressures (sixth) sound impressive, but he landed next-to-last in pressure rate (17th). Sack percentage was thankfully better, but still dropped to below-average at ninth. We saw a trend of higher quantity equating to less quality for the majority of the draft class though, so not an indictment on Wilson by any stretch.

Other stats on the negative side for Wilson last season included: points saved per rush (11th), points above average per play (12th), and positive percentage (16th) out of the 18 drafted LBs. Each of these numbers look at multiple layers of impact, such as broader team results, quality of competition, and more.

NC State leaned on Wilson heavily, at times likely creating less opportunity to produce. In my opinion, while the NFL is a different animal, narrowing his focus to off-ball LB would hopefully aid in more quality over quantity as opposed to the story of his final college season in 2023. Here’s to that being the case for Wilson in the black and gold.