DeAngelo Hall vs. Josh Wilson vs. Carlos Rogers, A comparison

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I felt through three games that DeAngelo Hall was off to a better start than he had been in years. So I went to the numbers to check to see if he was actually better.

I then decided to do a comparison for other prominent corners who have spend significant snaps playing for the Redskins.

The database I am using for this info is from STATS and only goes back to 2008. YPT stands for yards per target, which is a nice stat because a yard in 2008 is worth roughly the same as in 2013, so it's good for comparing guys off a 6 year period. It's a bit less effective at comparing guys across the boundaries of defensive schemes as you'll see below.

The Haslett scheme hurts average YPT numbers compared to what Vic Fangio and Rob Ryan run, who coach the other two defensive schemes in this comparison.

Here are the numbers, which are not adjusted for quality of competition or role:

DeAngelo Hall

2013 - 8.00 YPT
2012 - 9.33 YPT
2011 - 9.12 YPT
2010 - 9.75 YPT
2009 - 6.26 YPT
2008 (2TM) - 7.05 YPT
2008 (WAS) - 4.05 YPT
2008 (OAK) - 8.66 YPT

Josh Wilson

2013 - 7.81 YPT
2012 - 8.75 YPT
2011 - 6.59 YPT
2010 - 7.34 YPT
2009 - 7.04 YPT
2008 - 8.70 YPT

Carlos Rogers

2013 - 5.73 YPT
2012 - 6.34 YPT
2011 - 7.18 YPT
2010 - 7.90 YPT
2009 - 8.80 YPT
2008 - 5.95 YPT

League average sits around 7.7 YPT every season.

Takeaways

2012 colors Josh Wilson's career in a way that isn't the most fair. He's been a really good corner, and by far the most effective corner to play for the Redskins since Jim Haslett became the DC.

DeAngelo Hall is playing a very strong four game stretch relative to the rest of his Washington career. I expected my eyes to be deceiving me, but they really weren't. That ridiculous half season he put up in 2008 remains a major outlier. He only played in 9 games in 2009, and the Redskins played a ridiculously weak schedule of passers that year (number 5 overall defense! everyone fired!)

Which doesn't explain Carlos Rogers' horrible struggles that year, given he's been well above average every other season on this list. Rogers was misused terribly in 2010, and has been really good in SF's scheme. His five game stretch to start this year puts him right at his career best totals from 2007-2008.

Hall has been consistently one of the worst cover guys in football each of the last three years, but he hasn't been one of the worst cover guys to start this season. It's not his fault (or really Wilson's) that the Redskins have started slowly on defense this year.