Chiefs: Aaron Donald Over Chris Jones? Are you Sure? – For several years now, the Los Angeles Rams Aaron Donald has been recognized as the best defensive lineman in the NFL. Better than J.J. Watt? Yes. Better than Chris Jones? Yes. Well, maybe. After looking at some of their statistics over the past two years… I’m not so sure anymore. Let me know what you think.
Here’s a look at some of their critical stats:
At first glance, it looks like there’s no argument to be had here. Aaron Donald wins on all counts except Passes Defensed. However, as David Perkins has pointed out: “… [we] need number of snaps to adequately compare these stats otherwise data is incomplete.” So, let’s take a look at the snap counts for these two over the past two years and then get an average in each category.
Those stats in red represent which player had the better average total in that category. For instance, Chris Jones produced 1 Sack every 52.2 snaps he took, whereas, Aaron Donald had 1 Sack every 56.1 snaps he took. Which one do you want most? The one who can take the fewest snaps and produce the most results.
To get a better feel (comparison) for this stat, let’s think back to the stellar year Justin Houston had in 2014, when he produced 22.0 Sacks in 1,032 defensive snaps. That worked out to 1 Sack every 49.9 snaps he took. It just hardly ever gets better than that. So, you can see that Chris Jones 52.2 score is nearly as stellar.
Sacks alone are not the full measure of a defensive lineman. The major difference between Donald and CJ is… the way they’re used. One is an every down player — that would be Aaron Donald — while the other is used mostly on passing downs. So, Donald has what can be seen as a slightly better Tackles per Snap score: 17.3 to 18.7.
Still, Sacks and Tackles don’t tell the whole story either, do they? Chris Jones is 6-foot-6 and Aaron Donald is 6-foot-1 which is likely the reasons CJ has a huge edge in knocking down passes (PDs). His two PDs in the Super Bowl were crucial down the stretch, and along with a dozen other plays made by his teammates, were critical in that win.
For Aaron Donald, taking 618 snaps for every Pass Defensed must place him near the bottom of the league in that category. However, that partially has to do with, playing style. Donald is by far the best at hand-to-hand combat as a DL of anyone in the league and since he spends all his time leveraging his body to get into the backfield, which he’s very, very good at, he doesn’t use his arms to go up and block passes very often. In fact, he only has 11 total PDs in his 6 year career and yes, that likely has something to do with him being almost half a foot shorter than Chris Jones. On the flip side, Jones response to having two IOL assigned to him often means that instead of expending his energies in an attempt to beat that double-team, he uses his height and wingspan to place his arms in the path of the QBs pass, like he did in the clip above.
Two differing styles. Neither one is right. Neither one is wrong. Both highly successful, and valuable.
Steve Spagnuolo has employed the “pressure up the middle” approach for years now and that’s what both Aaron Donald and Chris Jones provide. Spags will also move a DE inside to achieve that kind of pressure but there is no doubting how fast Donald can get to the QB:
You’ll notice that Aaron Donald also won in the Forced Fumbles category. When he gets to a ballcarrier — RB or QB — he goes after the ball. A definite strength.
You’ll notice I made the QB Hits category results green for both players, to represent what I consider a virtual tie. 28.5 (by Donald) to 29.1 (by CJ) is only 0.6 percentage points apart which can’t really be distinguished or differentiated.
Aaron Donald or Chris Jones Summary
In August of 2018, the Los Angeles Rams agreed to a six-year, $135 million extension with Donald. Do I think Chris Jones should be paid anywhere near that amount? No… or… I don’t know. Does that mean I don’t think Chris Jones is as good as Donald? Or worth it? That’s tricky.
Teams have obviously figured out how to double-team Aaron Donald and that’s why his sack totals fell from 20.5 to 12.5 in one season. Steve Spagnuolo needs an interior penetrator — someone like Chris Jones — so i think a deal will get done. It just probably won’t be for AD money.
Who would I take? I don’t think Aaron Donald fits Steve Spagnuolo’s system so that would be a plus for CJ. The numbers in the second graph tell a much different story than those in graph one. Chris Jones brings a ton of personality and positive Juju… positive traits not figured intot he numbers. So I’m sticking with the guy who helped get us our first Super Bowl ring in half a century.
Laddie Morse — ArrowheadOne
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