Von Miller: 2.75 seconds

2.75 Seconds

With some inspiration and a good model from Topher Doll, I went ahead and clocked all of Von Miller's sacks as a professional to establish a baseline of how long it takes for him to sack the quarterback.  As far as my methods? From snap to contact, I timed each sack three separate times then averaged the numbers into a final time for that sack.   Not convinced?

Now, I clocked the ones where Von Miller split a sack so that's where I come up with an extra sack in each season.  I also didn't count the sacks that have an asterisk in the overall time for the following reasons:

- Inside Stunts

- Used as a spy initially

- Used in zone coverage initially

- Unblocked

These are not conducive for finding an overall baseline of what we can expect from Von Miller rushing the passer

By Time

There are 31 total sacks here. Now that we have a baseline number of 2.75 seconds from snap to contact, There is no need to exclude the other five sacks.

Football Outsiders uses 3.0 seconds as their holy grail of sack times.  Generally speaking, at least by that metric, sacks under 3.0 are out of the quarterback's control, sacks that occur more than 3.0 seconds are due to the QB holding the ball too long.

Von Miller's baseline of 2.75 seconds per sack falls well within that metric.  Looking specifically from sack to sack, 22 of Von's 31 sacks (or 70.9%) have occurred within 3 seconds of the snap.  How does that compare to the rest of the Broncos line?

Using research conducted by Topher Doll:

Ayers: 3.97 seconds to sack
Jackson: 4.13 seconds to sack
Phillips: 4.15 seconds to sack (3.6 without his 7 second sack)
Wolfe: 4.20 seconds to sack

Taking a look at each player's baseline NONE of them fit the mold.  The speed rush is back folks.  I wish I tracked numbers across the board (which I may do from now on) because I'm willing to bet across the NFL landscape that Von Miller is probably amongst the top 3 if not the fastest pass rusher in the league.

2.75 seconds, that's all it takes before #58 starts to eat.  Just for reference, Andrew Luck's average time to throw last year was 2.86 seconds.  He better get the ball out faster than that this week.

Fun Sack Facts

- Von has four 1st Q sacks, five 2nd Q sacks, twelve 3rd Q sacks, and 10 4th quarter sacks.  That gives you (9) in the 1st half of games and (22) in the 2nd half of games.

- 13 (41.9%) of his sacks have come with the score tied or the Broncos trailing.

- 7 (22.6%) of his sacks have come with at least a one score lead.

- 11 (35.5%) of his sacks have come with at least a two score lead.

- Von has recorded 10 (32.3%) sacks against an AFC West opponent.  The Chargers (5) and Chiefs (4) have been most victimized.