The Tackle Statistic and The Decades of Defense

Credit: Sports Illustrated/Getty Images

The 1970’s and 1980’s were chalked full of historical NFL defenses, many with great nicknames.

• The 1970's Dallas Cowboys, better known as ‘Doomsday Defense’.
• The 1971 Minnesota Vikings, had a defensive line known as ‘The Purple People Eaters’.
• The 1975 Los Angeles Rams had a defensive line nicknamed ‘The Fearsome Foursome’.
• The 1976 Pittsburgh Steelers, better known as ‘The Steel Curtain’.
• The 1977 Denver Broncos, better known as ‘The Orange Crush’.
• The 1977 Atlanta Falcons had a lesser known defense (due to the terrible offense) nicknamed ‘Gritz Blitz’. (You get it? Southern Grits? Atlanta?)
• The 1981 New York Jets had a defensive line known as ‘The New York Sack Exchange’.
• The 1982 Miami Dolphins had a Super Bowl appearance with a defensive unit called ‘The Killer B’s’ because 6 of the 11 starters had last names that start with B. (Brudzinski, Baumhower, Barnett, Blackwood, Bokamper, Blackwood, Bowser, and Betters)
• The 1985 Chicago Bears, famously known as ‘Monsters of the Midway’ (in fact, Chicago has used this defensive nickname on and off since the 1940's).
• The 1986 New Orleans Saints defense better known as ‘The Dome Patrol’ (for always defending the Saint’s home stadium known as The Superdome.)
• The 1986 New York Giants, led by Lawrence Taylor, were better known as ‘The Big Blue Wrecking Crew’.
• Even the undefeated, offensive powerhouse 1972 Dolphins had a historic defense, nicknamed the ‘No-Name Defense’ due to the offense getting more publicity.

Despite this huge list of famous and highly productive defenses in the 1970’s and 1980's, defensive statistics were almost non-existent. In the 1970’s the only defensive statistics tracked were interceptions and touchdowns. In 1982 defensive players finally got credit for sacks, although the QB’s loss of yardage caused by a sack was tracked since the 1960’s. Also in 1982, defensive players finally got credit for forced fumbles. Maybe more surprisingly, the tackle statistic was not kept until 1994, and finally became an official statistic in 2001.

Why does this lack of historical tackle data matter? Well, unlike many other football statistics that change with the evolution of play (e.g. passing yards now versus passing yards in the 70's), tackling really hasn’t changed. Yes, there are some more defined rules about how a tackle can be made for safety purposes (and rightfully so), but these new rules and modern defense schemes do not change the quantity of tackles made. Furthermore, tackles are a statistic that any defensive player can achieve. Thus, if we had better historical tackling data, we could actually compare apples to apples across an extended period of time, with very few confounding variables, other than slight variations due to position played. Without this historical data it can be difficult to put a defensive players historical impact in perspective.

(Now, this is not to discount the general difficulty, even today, of counting the number of tackles.)

Let me give you a compelling example of how this lack in historical defensive statistics hurts the record books. The all-time leader in tackles (combining both tackles for loss and regular tackles) is Ray Lewis with 2,055 career tackles. Ray Lewis played Linebacker from 1996 to 2012, when tackling stats were regularly kept. Ray Lewis is deservedly in the Hall of Fame. Now, lets look at the Orange Crush’s Randy Gradishar, who played Linebacker from 1974 to 1983, when hardly any defensive stats were kept. If you look on NFL.com or through the PFF historical statistics, you will find blanks for his tackles. However, through various means, it is estimated that Gradishar had 2,049 career tackles. According to PFF, that is 2nd all time, with Ray Lewis above him by 6 and both London Fletcher and Junior Seau below him by 18 and 203 tackles respectively. Ray Lewis got those 6 more tackles in 7 more seasons than Randy Gradishar. Yet, Randy Gradishar is not in the Hall of Fame. If we say the number of tackles Ray Lewis had and number of tackles Randy Gradishar had are both close approximation due to the difficulty of counting assisted tackles, they may actually be even closer.

While we have a strong estimation of how many tackles Randy Gradishar had in his pre-tackle-stat career, we do not know this for many other great historical players. For example, we have no idea how many tackles Hall of Famer and leader of the Doomsday Defense, Bob Lilly had. Or the Orange Crush’s other inside linebacker Tom Jackson. Or sack specialist before there were officially sacks, Deacon Jones. The list goes on and on.

So, next time you look up your favorite defensive players stats, whether its for your own curiosity or to prove a point to your Raiders fan friend who thinks it was smart to trade away Khalil Mack, remember the many defensive powerhouses that came before the tackle stat.