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Took plays off? Lazy? Not at all. Nick Fairley is more Suh than he is Haynesworth
By KC Joyner
ESPN Insider
Nick Fairley was in opposing backfields a lot last season for Auburn.
Longtime NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle was a master of public relations, in large part because he understood the difference between having good character and having a good reputation.
Rozelle knew that if you have good character but possessed a bad reputation, you might as well have bad character because you weren't going to be given the benefit of the doubt with regard to your actual character.
This mindset is worth remembering when reviewing the NFL draft case of former Auburn Tigers standout defensive tackle Nick Fairley.
Fairley has been frequently described as a lazy, cheap shot artist who stepped up his game only in high-profile moments last year. Those are very strong accusations, which you'd think would be backed by a pile of tape. But after reviewing a slate of Fairley's 2010 contests, it's quite clear that the metrics do not concur with most of these damaging descriptions.
Let's start with the "lazy" comment: The evidence most analysts give when accusing Fairley of this is that he either wasn't on the field often enough or he took too many plays off when he was on the field.
Those two accusations both are demonstrably false. In the eight-game breakdown for this analysis (at Mississippi State, vs. Clemson, vs. South Carolina, at Kentucky, vs. Arkansas, vs. LSU, at Ole Miss and vs. Georgia), Fairley was in the game for 427 out of 544 plays, or 78.5 percent of the time.
That is a high enough number on its own for a defensive tackle, but it is actually negatively skewed by instances in which he was taken out in games when Auburn was up by at least 18 points in the fourth quarter and the Tigers coaches were trying to get backups some playing time. There were 18 plays fitting that description -- take those out and his on-field time increases to 81.1 percent.
Another fact in Fairley's favor is that the Auburn defensive coaches had a rotating defensive line. That means on many of the plays in which he wasn't in the game, it was a matter of the Tigers platooning the entire defensive line and not just moving Fairley out of the contest because of endurance issues. He was out on the field when the coaches wanted him to be out there.
The numbers also belie the claim that Fairley made a habit of taking plays off. He had a negative impact on an offensive play on 41 out of 94 offensive drives in those eight contests. Any defender who can do something to hurt an offense on 43 percent of their drives certainly can't be loafing on too many snaps.
Another item that contradicts the idea that Fairley was indolent is how his numbers compare with the metrics that Ndamukong Suh posted in a seven-game review of his senior season at Nebraska (vs. Texas Tech, vs. Iowa State, vs. Oklahoma, at Kansas, vs. Kansas State, at Colorado, vs. Texas in the Big 12 championship game).
Suh generated a splash play (defined as when a defender does something to negatively impact the passing game) on 37 out of the 236 pure pass-rush attempts he made in those games (pure being non-boot/rollout/screen plays). That equates to a 15.7 percent splash play percentage. Fairley posted a 15.9 percent mark in that category on 235 pure rush attempts, which is a slightly higher rate.
Suh had a reputation for being one of the highest-motor players of the 2010 NFL draft in large part because of his impact on the passing game. One would think Fairley would be viewed in the same light given his equivalent consistency and the fact that he seemed to be purely obsessed with hitting quarterbacks, but that hasn't happened.
A likely reason it didn't happen is the aforementioned tunnel vision focus on getting after opposing passers. This fervor was evident in many contests but came to the fore in this game against Georgia.
Those hits aren't even an all-inclusive list of the questionable shots Fairley landed on Bulldogs quarterback Aaron Murray, but the reaction of the college football world to the actions by Mark Richt's team in dealing with Fairley shows the double standard that Fairley has had to deal with when it comes to the reputation/character perspective.
Richt's players retaliated against him on two different occasions -- once via a double-team chop block that occurred on a drive right after one of the questionable hits, and another when Georgia's center jumped on Fairley on the play following the one in which Murray's knee was run into (an action that led to a bench-clearing brawl).
Ethically speaking, these deeds easily could have been seen as a form of gridiron vigilante justice. Instead, they were seen as being justifiable because they were retaliatory in nature.
This isn't meant to excuse Fairley for some questionable decisions, but rather to point out that in the eye-for-an-eye mentality that often permeates the NFL, actions like the one that Fairley took against the opposing team's quarterback might be considered more than acceptable under certain circumstances.
Put that together with Fairley's underrated endurance and high-motor play and it makes you scratch your head at the reasons given for why his stock has been falling. His football character is a lot better than his reputation implies.
KC Joyner, aka the Football Scientist, is a regular contributor to ESPN Insider. He also can be found on Twitter @kcjoynertfs and at his website. He is the author of "Blindsided: Why the Left Tackle is Overrated and Other Contrarian Football Thoughts."
By KC Joyner
ESPN Insider
Nick Fairley was in opposing backfields a lot last season for Auburn.
Longtime NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle was a master of public relations, in large part because he understood the difference between having good character and having a good reputation.
Rozelle knew that if you have good character but possessed a bad reputation, you might as well have bad character because you weren't going to be given the benefit of the doubt with regard to your actual character.
This mindset is worth remembering when reviewing the NFL draft case of former Auburn Tigers standout defensive tackle Nick Fairley.
Fairley has been frequently described as a lazy, cheap shot artist who stepped up his game only in high-profile moments last year. Those are very strong accusations, which you'd think would be backed by a pile of tape. But after reviewing a slate of Fairley's 2010 contests, it's quite clear that the metrics do not concur with most of these damaging descriptions.
Let's start with the "lazy" comment: The evidence most analysts give when accusing Fairley of this is that he either wasn't on the field often enough or he took too many plays off when he was on the field.
Those two accusations both are demonstrably false. In the eight-game breakdown for this analysis (at Mississippi State, vs. Clemson, vs. South Carolina, at Kentucky, vs. Arkansas, vs. LSU, at Ole Miss and vs. Georgia), Fairley was in the game for 427 out of 544 plays, or 78.5 percent of the time.
That is a high enough number on its own for a defensive tackle, but it is actually negatively skewed by instances in which he was taken out in games when Auburn was up by at least 18 points in the fourth quarter and the Tigers coaches were trying to get backups some playing time. There were 18 plays fitting that description -- take those out and his on-field time increases to 81.1 percent.
Another fact in Fairley's favor is that the Auburn defensive coaches had a rotating defensive line. That means on many of the plays in which he wasn't in the game, it was a matter of the Tigers platooning the entire defensive line and not just moving Fairley out of the contest because of endurance issues. He was out on the field when the coaches wanted him to be out there.
The numbers also belie the claim that Fairley made a habit of taking plays off. He had a negative impact on an offensive play on 41 out of 94 offensive drives in those eight contests. Any defender who can do something to hurt an offense on 43 percent of their drives certainly can't be loafing on too many snaps.
Another item that contradicts the idea that Fairley was indolent is how his numbers compare with the metrics that Ndamukong Suh posted in a seven-game review of his senior season at Nebraska (vs. Texas Tech, vs. Iowa State, vs. Oklahoma, at Kansas, vs. Kansas State, at Colorado, vs. Texas in the Big 12 championship game).
Suh generated a splash play (defined as when a defender does something to negatively impact the passing game) on 37 out of the 236 pure pass-rush attempts he made in those games (pure being non-boot/rollout/screen plays). That equates to a 15.7 percent splash play percentage. Fairley posted a 15.9 percent mark in that category on 235 pure rush attempts, which is a slightly higher rate.
Suh had a reputation for being one of the highest-motor players of the 2010 NFL draft in large part because of his impact on the passing game. One would think Fairley would be viewed in the same light given his equivalent consistency and the fact that he seemed to be purely obsessed with hitting quarterbacks, but that hasn't happened.
A likely reason it didn't happen is the aforementioned tunnel vision focus on getting after opposing passers. This fervor was evident in many contests but came to the fore in this game against Georgia.
Those hits aren't even an all-inclusive list of the questionable shots Fairley landed on Bulldogs quarterback Aaron Murray, but the reaction of the college football world to the actions by Mark Richt's team in dealing with Fairley shows the double standard that Fairley has had to deal with when it comes to the reputation/character perspective.
Richt's players retaliated against him on two different occasions -- once via a double-team chop block that occurred on a drive right after one of the questionable hits, and another when Georgia's center jumped on Fairley on the play following the one in which Murray's knee was run into (an action that led to a bench-clearing brawl).
Ethically speaking, these deeds easily could have been seen as a form of gridiron vigilante justice. Instead, they were seen as being justifiable because they were retaliatory in nature.
This isn't meant to excuse Fairley for some questionable decisions, but rather to point out that in the eye-for-an-eye mentality that often permeates the NFL, actions like the one that Fairley took against the opposing team's quarterback might be considered more than acceptable under certain circumstances.
Put that together with Fairley's underrated endurance and high-motor play and it makes you scratch your head at the reasons given for why his stock has been falling. His football character is a lot better than his reputation implies.
KC Joyner, aka the Football Scientist, is a regular contributor to ESPN Insider. He also can be found on Twitter @kcjoynertfs and at his website. He is the author of "Blindsided: Why the Left Tackle is Overrated and Other Contrarian Football Thoughts."