What kind of decline can we expect from Detroit’s pass rush? With a guy like Aidan Hutchinson, after all, there’s not just his impact, but the dynamic of opponents having to scheme around him, freeing up opportunities for other defenders.
Hutchinson was having a Defensive Player of the Year kind of season, with half of Detroit’s 15 sacks. I expect the dropoff to be considerable.
In an effort to quantify what kind of impact we might expect, we can look at seasons involving similar players. Two years ago with T.J. Watt, for example, the Steelers had 35 sacks in 11 games with him. They have only 5 sacks in their six games without him.
For ballpark purposes, there are 21 players with at least 100 sacks in the 32-team era. I see 14 seasons in which one of those guys in the prime of his career missed a good chunk of games. When those guys were removed from their teams’ lineups, the decline was about a half a sack per game.
Of these 14 seasons, there were four in which the team actually averaged more sacks in the games the big-name player missed. (They are tagged with black dots in the chart below.) Note, however, that in three of those seasons, the team wasn’t averaging more than 2 sacks per week, so they weren’t really playing at a Hutchinson-type level at that time.
I believe this is a big injury, and one that will cause the Lions to obtain some pass-rushing help in the next few weeks.
| TEAMS LOSING ELITE PASS RUSHERS | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Team | Player | With | Without | Diff |
| 2003 | NY Jets | John Abraham | 3.14 | 1.44 | -54% |
| 2006 | • Atlanta | John Abraham | 2.00 | 2.63 | 31% |
| 2007 | • Indianapolis | Dwight Freeney | 1.33 | 2.29 | 71% |
| 2012 | Baltimore | Terrell Suggs | 2.78 | 1.71 | -38% |
| 2013 | • Denver | Von Miller | 2.44 | 2.71 | 11% |
| 2014 | New England | Chandler Jones | 2.60 | 2.33 | -10% |
| 2015 | St. Louis | Robert Quinn | 3.50 | 1.63 | -54% |
| 2015 | • Miami | Cameron Wake | 1.86 | 2.00 | 8% |
| 2016 | LA Rams | Robert Quinn | 2.11 | 1.71 | -19% |
| 2019 | Houston | J.J. Watt | 2.13 | 1.75 | -18% |
| 2021 | Chicago | Khalil Mack | 3.00 | 2.80 | -7% |
| 2021 | Arizona | J.J. Watt | 2.71 | 2.20 | -19% |
| 2022 | Pittsburgh | T.J. Watt | 3.18 | 0.83 | -74% |
| 2024 | Detroit | Aidan Hutchinson | 3.00 | ? | ? |
—Ian Allan