by Aaron Schatz

More today from our many, many spreadsheets of stats from the 2011 season. Today, we'll look at which defenders had the most Defeats in 2011. Defeats are defined as any play (tackle, assist, pass defensed, interception, or forced fumble) that does one of three things:

1) causes a turnover

2) causes a loss of yardage

3) stops conversion on third or fourth down

Almost every sack is a Defeat, so it is no surprise that Jared Allen, with his 22-sack season, led the NFL with 33 Defeats in 2011. Jason Pierre-Paul was second with 32, and Derrick Johnson and Terrell Suggs tied for third with 31.

Johnson was the top player in Defeats who was not a pass rusher. He had a mix of all kinds of plays: seven tackles for loss on runs, two sacks, five passes defensed on third down including two picks, and a number of tackles that stopped the opponent short of a third-down conversion. Johnson had 19 Defeats on third or fourth down, which tied for the league lead with Paul Posluszny and Troy Polamalu.

Here's a list of all players with at least 25 Defeats in 2011:

Most Defensive Defeats, 2011 Player Team Pos Defeats 69-J.Allen MIN DE 33 90-J.Pierre-Paul NYG DE 32 56-D.Johnson KC ILB 31 55-T.Suggs BAL OLB 31 55-J.Laurinaitis STL ILB 30 58-D.Washington ARI ILB 30 58-V.Miller DEN OLB 29 93-C.Campbell ARI DE 28 51-P.Posluszny JAC ILB 28 94-D.Ware DAL OLB 28 53-N.Bowman SF ILB 27 52-D.Jackson CLE ILB 27 50-N.Barnett BUF ILB 26 55-L.Briggs CHI OLB 26 91-C.Clemons SEA DE 26 94-M.Kiwanuka NYG OLB 26 43-T.Polamalu PIT SAF 26 56-S.Weatherspoon ATL OLB 26

Weirdly, no player had exactly 25 Defeats last year. The top safeties other than Troy Polamalu were Kam Chancellor (24) and Eric Weddle (22). Brandon Flowers and Nate Clements tied for the lead among cornerbacks with 22 Defeats each. Nate Clements? Yep, he had nine passes defensed on third down including two picks, five tackles for a loss (one of which was a sack), two forced fumbles, and a few tackles after complete passes that prevented a conversion. This shows that a) Nate Clements made more big plays than you realized last year and b) If you had only one stat to represent the best defensive players in the league, you would not use Defeats.

Geno Atkins and Cullen Jenkins tied for the lead among defensive tackles at 19 Defeats. Ndamukong Suh had 29 Defeats in 2010, the most by any defensive tackle in a decade. That was down to 15 last year, third among defensive tackles.

Daryl Smith, who led the league in Defeats in 2010, was down to 21 last year. That's still a lot, but it doesn't match the 35 he put up the year before. His Defeats were down in part because Posluszny was making a lot of those plays. You can find a list of the 2010 leaders in Defeats here.

In case anyone is wondering about "percent of total team defeats," everyone who had at least 16 percent of team Defeats is also on the table above, and ranking based on percent of team Defeats doesn't change things much.

Looking at pass plays and run plays split up:



Most Pass Defeats, 2011 Player Team Pos Defeats 94-D.Ware DAL OLB 24 69-J.Allen MIN DE 23 58-V.Miller DEN OLB 21 55-T.Suggs BAL OLB 21 93-J.Babin PHI DE 20 30-D.Coleman JAC CB 20 51-P.Posluszny JAC ILB 20 25-R.Sherman SEA CB 20 93-C.Campbell ARI DE 19 90-J.Pierre-Paul NYG DE 19 22-C.Rogers SF CB 19 Most Run Defeats, 2011 Player Team Pos Defeats 56-D.Johnson KC ILB 20 53-K.Conner IND OLB 19 94-M.Kiwanuka NYG OLB 17 52-D.Jackson CLE ILB 16 55-J.Laurinaitis STL ILB 15 51-P.Angerer IND ILB 14 55-L.Briggs CHI OLB 14 51-J.Mayo NE OLB 14 51-J.Mays DEN ILB 14

Kavell Conner! I bet you didn't see that one coming. The 2010 seventh-round pick led the league with 13 run tackles for a loss. He made his average run tackle after a gain of just 2.1 yards, more than a yard closer than any other Colts linebacker. Mathias Kiwanuka was second with 12 run tackles for loss, and Charles Johnson of Carolina was third with 11.

By the way, can I just complain about how annoying it is to have to make sure we keep 51-J.Mayo and 51-J.Mays separated, especially in the game charting?

Finally, two more tables: The percentage of total Plays by a defender that counted as Defeats. These lists have a minimum of 25 total Plays. One of the leaders on the "lowest percentage" table is a bit of a surprise. The leaders on the "highest percentage" table are all pass rushers, which is not much of a surprise.

Highest Percentage of Plays as Defeats, 2011 Player Team Pos Plays Dfts Pct 90-J.Peppers CHI DE 40 23 58% 93-J.Babin PHI DE 41 23 56% 94-A.Smith HOU DE 27 15 56% 91-D.Bowers TB DE 29 16 55% 95-M.Anderson NE DE 29 16 55% 99-Ald.Smith SF OLB 39 21 54% 91-C.Long STL DE 38 20 53% 55-J.Abraham ATL DE 37 19 51% 95-C.Johnson CAR DE 44 22 50% 92-C.Avril DET DE 38 19 50% Lowest Percentage of Plays as Defeats, 2011 Player Team Pos Plays Dfts Pct 90-I.Sopoaga SF DT 30 0 0% 25-Ty.Johnson MIN SAF 26 0 0% 24-D.Gomes WAS SAF 31 1 3% 46-C.Harris CHI SAF 31 1 3% 92-E.Mitchell HOU DT 28 1 4% 31-S.Brown NE SAF 27 1 4% 24-C.Hope TEN SAF 26 1 4% 53-G.Jones NYG ILB 25 1 4% 28-Q.Carter DEN SAF 49 2 4% 49-R.Johnson ARI SAF 43 2 5%

Wait a minute, I know Isaac Sopoaga's role is to soak up blockers, not to penetrate into the backfield, but still... he had no Defeats in 2011? Yes, that's correct. Isaac Sopoaga did not make a single tackle behind the line of scrimmage last year. He had no sacks and no passes defensed; his only pass play was hustling upfield to get a tackle on a five-yard pass to Larry Fitzgerald. Sopoaga did have six Defeats in 2010 when he was a defensive end rather than a nose tackle.

Usually, this is where I say you can get all the data on the player pages, but right now you can't, unfortunately. I apologize for the fact that these stats are not yet fully updated for 2011 on our player pages; we've had some technical issues we're trying to straighten out. I'll make sure I left everyone know when those player pages are finally updated.