Not Getting Your Money's Worth

When the Washington Redskins made Adam Archuleta the highest paid safety in the NFL with a $30 million contract over 6 years with $10 million in guaranteed money, they were probably hoping to get the Archuleta of 2005 who was involved in plays an average of only 5.6 yards past the line of scrimmage. Instead, what the Redskins have gotten has been far different from that. For whatever reason, Archuleta has not managed to have the defensive impact on plays this year that he had for the Rams last year and did not even start this past Sunday. Let's see what kind of impact Archuleta has had.

This season, for the plays I was able to chart, Archuleta has been involved in plays that ended in tackles where he either had a solo tackle or an assist one an average of 9.8 yards past the line of scrimmage, a far cry from his numbers of 2005. Pass coverage has never been a strong point of Archuleta's game and this season has been no different with his tackles coming an average of 15.5 yards beyond scrimmage. Stopping the run where Archuleta is self-admittedly better has not been that good either with those plays coming an average of 6.1 yards past the line of scrimmage.

As far as how well Archuleta has done involving himself in plays where he stops the opponent from having a successful play, the numbers again paint a depressing picture. On pass plays, the opponent has a success rate of 83.3%, with receivers gaining an extra 13.1 yards per successful play. Once again, Archuleta has been a little better on running plays, mostly because running plays are generally going to gain less yardage than pass plays. When Archuleta has made a run tackle, the opponents have already been successful 67.8% of the time with an average of 4.7 yards past what they needed for the run to be considered successful.

With a resume like that it is no wonder why the Redskins decided to give Troy Vincent a go at safety even if he is not a Freak of Training like Adam.