i posted this in the comments thread for OJ's fanpost, but i think it's worth using as my first fanpost ever. i cleaned up some grammar. i also changed the title since it was pretty long.

turnovers/big play "capacity"

i think it’s interesting that tinoisamoa seems to have some good numbers in the big-play department. he’s played 84 games, and he’s got 16 turnovers forced, ten sacks, and 25 passes defended. that’s a turnover or big play on the QB once every four games, not bad for a LB of any caliber. ray lewis, long considered the definition of an excellent and well-rounded LB, has a combined 74 big plays in 178 games, or around one every 3 games. lewis averages a PD every other game, tinoisamoa’s average is around one every 3.4 games.

8 of pisa’s turnovers – fully half – came in his first year of seven, however, which is worth noting.

in comparison (i threw in some names of guys that came in this offseason):

pisa: 84 games, 7 INT, 9 FF, 25 PD, 10 sacks
ellison: 42 games, 2 INT, 0 FF, 9 PD, 2 sacks
poz: 19 games, 1 INT, 1 FF, 6 PD, 0 sacks (our LBs blitz a LOT, too, as we learned in the breakdown posted earlier this offseason)
mitchell: 91 games, 6 INT, 5 FF, 23 PD, 12 sacks
crowell: 65 games, 5 INT, 4 FF, 17 PD, 7 sacks
keiaho: 39 games, 1 INT, 2 FF, 1 PD, .5 sacks
june: 88 games, 12 INT, 3 FF, 24 PD, 1 sack (obviously a coverage lb)
peterson: 135 games, 15 INT, 6 FF, 40 PD, 19.5 sacks
pisa’s stats extrapolated to 135 games (like peterson): 135 games, 12 INT, 15 FF, 41 PD, 16 sacks (quite comparable, all told).

just some food for thought. past performance isn’t a guarantee of anything, as we all know (see: aaron schobel, derrick dockery, jason peters), but it IS something to think about. as we’ve seen with players like whitner, not everyone has big-play ability in them. a player can be a strong contributor for a long time without making a huge impact, but i really think that i’d prefer a player that doesn’t have the measurables of someone else but can make the plays (see: jairus byrd, hopefully).

also note that ellison’s numbers in this department (not tackling, obviously) are very close to poz’s future numbers if you extrapolate his out.