Justin Houston: How much does a pass rush affect winning?

Oct 26, 2014; Kansas City, MO, USA; Kansas City Chiefs outside linebacker Justin Houston (50) celebrates with linebacker Tamba Hali (91) after making a sack against the St. Louis Rams in the first half at Arrowhead Stadium. Mandatory Credit: John Rieger-USA TODAY Sports

Well, as many could probably have predicted, a good pass rush is valuable but simply having a great pass rush by itself does not translate directly into winning games and making the playoffs. Before I get to my final observations as to how this all relates to the 2015 Kansas City Chiefs I want to show you one more list.

Since Justin Houston is a star pass rushing individual player and not the entire KC pass rush I thought it might be worth looking at how the best individual pass rushers’ teams have fared over the same time span.

So I went back over the 2011-2014 seasons and found all the players that ended the season with 16 sacks or more. If a player averages a sack or more per game they have had an elite individual season, but how did their teams do? Here is a list of the twelve players that did so over the last four seasons along with their team record.

2011 – Jared Allen – 22 sacks – Minnesota – 3-13 record (no playoffs)
2011 – DeMarcus Ware – 19.5 sacks – Dallas – 8-8 record (no playoffs)
2011 – Jason Babin – 18 sacks – Philadelphia – 8-8 record (no playoffs)
2011 – Jason Pierre-Paul – 16.5 sacks – NYG – 9-7 record (made playoffs)
2012 – JJ Watt – 20.5 sacks – Houston – 12-4 record (made playoffs)
2012 – Aldon Smith – 19.5 sacks – San Francisco – 11-4-1 record (made playoffs)
2012 – Von Miller – 18.5 sacks – Denver – 13-3 record (made playoffs)
2013 – Robert Mathis – 19.5 sacks – Indianapolis – 11-5 record (made playoffs)
2013 – Robert Quinn – 19 sacks – St. Louis – 7-9 record (no playoffs)
2014 – Justin Houston – 22 sacks – Kansas City – 9-7 record (no playoffs)
2014 – JJ Watt – 20.5 sacks – Houston – 9-7 record (no playoffs)
2014 – Elvis Dumervil – 17 sacks – Baltimore – 10-6 record (made playoffs)

That’s an overall record of 110-81-1 in those seasons for a winning percentage of 57.6% (or 9.2 wins/season) with exactly half of the teams making the playoffs. Again, that’s not bad, but it again proves that simply having a great sack artist on your team doesn’t mean you are making the playoffs. In fact, notice that of the four highest sack totals on that list only one of the four teams (JJ Watt and the Texans in 2012) made the playoffs.

Next: Was signing Houston the correct move?