PFF: Samuel And Asomugha Among Three-Worst Tackling Corners In Football

Here’s some good news for those happy to see former Eagles corner Asante Samuel leave for Atlanta.

Those who have defended Samuel’s lack of physicality and inability to tackle might have some future trouble debunking it as pure myth.

According to a recent Pro Football Focus study, Samuel graded out as the most inefficient tackling cornerback in football over the past three seasons.

Samuel played 2,460 snaps from 2009-2011. He made only 93 solo tackles and seven assisted stops, while whiffing 37 times. That means Samuel missed a tackle once every 3.7 attempts. That’s brutal.

From the article:

At the other end things get ugly, very ugly. In a rather fitting tie for last place Asante Samuel and Tanard Jackson have each missed a tackle for every 3.7 they attempted over the past three seasons. That is a shocking display of tackling, in particular for Jackson who is supposed to be a hard-hitting safety and able to bring down the ball carrier. Samuel is at least known to shy away from contact and make Deion Sanders type ‘business decisions’ when it comes to putting himself on the line, but it remains no better a display.

That’s good. But there’s just one problem. Curren Eagles corner Nnamdi Asomugha isn’t much better. He graded as the third-worst tackling corner over the past three seasons, missing one out of every 4.6 tackles.

In third place is Nnamdi Asomugha, who has quietly been a terrible tackler for years now. This was never really noticed from his play in Oakland because he was targeted so infrequently, and only surfaced each year when we ran the numbers, but his new role in Philadelphia did nothing to dispel the trend. Asomugha has now missed 25 tackles over the past three seasons, which is one for every 4.6 he attempted in that time frame. He wants to be Philadelphia’s answer to Charles Woodson from the Packers, and if that’s the case it’s going to require more than a step up in coverage. Woodson’s ratio of missed tackles is better, putting him in the middle of the pack with a miss every 7.6 attempts.