Analyzing Aaron Rodgers' 28 Sacks From the 2014 Season

Aaron Rodgers sat pretty comfortably in the pocket during the 2014 season for the Green Bay Packers. Ten years in, Rodgers was sacked just 28 times in the regular season, which is the second lowest in his career. Furthermore, the lowest number came last year, when he only played in nine games for the 2013 Packers.

Enjoying an MVP-caliber season behind one of the best offensive lines in football -- one that featured 2014 Pro Bowler Josh Sitton -- Rodgers sailed the ball on his way to 38 touchdowns and just five interceptions. Even with all of that great protection and continuity, his sacks mean something, right? To find out what greater trends we could find, I hit the film room and evaluated each one Rodgers took this past season.

Note: The Packers allowed 30 sacks in the regular season. Rodgers took 28 of them, while Matt Flynn took the other two (Week 17 vs. Detroit, Week 8 at New Orleans).

Let's begin ...

Facts

- The 28 sacks Rodgers took in 2014 ranked him 19th in the league, tying him with the two quarterbacks from New York: Geno Smith and Eli Manning.

- Of the 28, 24 of them came while Rodgers was in shotgun formation. The other four came from I-formation (three) and single-back (one). In other words, he was sacked only four times after taking a snap from under center.

- The Packers were in no-huddle on 42 percent of those shotgun sacks.

- Seven of his sacks came in just the first two weeks alone.

- Most of his sacks came when the Packers were leading (no big surprise for a 12-4 team). Rodgers was sacked 13 times (46 percent of sacks) when the Packers had the lead in a game, 10 when they were down (36 percent), and five times (18 percent) when they were tied with their opponent.

- On the next play after he was sacked, Rodgers attempted 10 passes, going 8-for-10 on those throws for 70 yards and one interception. The Packers punted on 29 percent of the following plays, ran it three times with Eddie Lacy for 2.6 yards per carry, and kicked three field goals. Four times, the Packers gave up the ball as a result of the sack - one on downs, two on safeties, and one lost fumble.

- Rodgers faced pressure in less than three seconds on 68 percent of his sacks, and on 43 percent on sacks he felt pressure in less than 2.5 seconds.

-  The sacks were registered 54 percent of the time by defensive ends, 32 percent by linebackers and 14 percent by defensive tackles. No other position took him to the ground.

- The Packers passed the ball the majority of the time to the short right side of the field (179 plays). Of their sacks, 14 (50 percent) were given up when blockers lined up on the right side of the field.

- Most of Green Bay's sacks were given up on third down (12 plays, 43 percent).  The average distance they needed to get for a first down on those plays was 11 yards. They averaged 10 yards to go on all first downs (nine plays), nine yards on second (six plays), and five yards on their lone fourth down.

- Of the 28 sacks, two of them were because of coverage, while four happened because a player was unblocked. Three of those four players were linebackers.

Chart

Here is graph showing the sacks allowed, broken down by which offensive lineman was charged with blocking the defensive player who made the tackle:

Finally, here's how many sacks each individual player allowed (note: this analysis only looked at the blockers and did not assign Rodgers blame for any sacks):

David Bakhtiari, 6
Bryan Bulaga, 4
T.J. Lang, 3
Derek Sherrod, 3
Richard Rodgers, 2
Corey Linsley, 2
Josh Sitton, 1
Andrew Quarless, 1
JC Tretter, 1

Observations

- Linsley as a rookie center was at fault for only two of Rodgers' sacks, and they both came near the end of the season in Week 13 against the Patriots.

- The lone sack Josh Sitton was at fault for came Week 1. He got it out of the way, I guess.

- On two of the three sacks when the Packers lined up in the I-formation, Richard Rodgers was at fault. That accounted for his only two sacks allowed.

- Sherrod allowed Rodgers to survive for an average of 2.3 seconds on the three sacks he gave up.

- After allowing 20 sacks the first eight games of the season, the Packers only allowed eight after the bye.

Work

Just like college professors require, here is my work that I based my information off of: