quarterback sack
In American football and Canadian
football, a quarterback sack occurs when the quarterback is tackled behind the line of scrimmage before he can
throw a forward pass. This often occurs if the opposing team's defensive line or linebackers are able to quickly get
past blocking players of the offensive team, the quarterback's protection; or if the quarterback is unable to find, in a
reasonable amount of time, an available eligible receiver including
Yardage
In the NFL, yards lost on the play are added as negative yardage to the team's passing totals; however, the quarterback's individual passing total remains unchanged. Before that change in record keeping, tackling a player behind the line of scrimmage resulted in a loss from that player's (passing) statistics, even if it were fairly obvious a rush play had been intended. NCAA continues to subtract sack yardage from individual rushing totals.
Rules
To be considered a sack the quarterback must intend to throw a forward pass. If the play is designed for the quarterback to rush the ball, any loss is subtracted from the quarterback's rushing total. If the quarterback's intent is not obvious statisticians use certain criteria, such as the offensive line blocking scheme, to decide. Other unique situations where a loss reduces a quarterback's rushing total (not a sack) are "kneel downs" (used to run time off the game clock), and aborted plays, such as a fumbled snap that the quarterback falls on to maintain possession.
A player will receive credit for half of a sack when multiple players contribute to the sacking of a quarterback.
Term
The term "sack" was not widely used before ca. 1970; previously one would simply refer to a player's being tackled behind the line (of scrimmage), in so many words. The NFL only began to keep track of sacks in 1982.[1]
Origin
"Quarterback sack" was first coined by hall of fame defensive end Deacon Jones. [2] He felt that a sack devastated the offense in the same way that a city was devastated when it was sacked.[3]
See also
References
- ^ NFL Sack Records
- ^ Deacon Jones from The Pro Football Hall of Fame
- ^ [1]
External links
- Sack Story, an article describing the controversy over the sack record
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
