FALL 2025
PRSS: A New Metric to Quantify Pocket Collapses in the National Football League
AUTHORS
Jahan Hafiz, Round Rock High School
Avi Mandhana, Eastside Catholic School
Derek Park, The Wheatley School
Sohan Saleem, Garnet Valley High School
ABSTRACT
In the NFL, “quarterback pressure” refers to defensive actions that disrupt a passer’s timing, decisions, and positioning. Numerous quantitative measures have been proposed, with mixed effectiveness. We introduce the Pocket Reduction Speed Score (PRSS), a geometric, tracking-based metric that quantifies how quickly the quarterback’s pocket shrinks. We apply the metric to player-tracking data from the 2021 NFL regular season, compute PRSS for each play, and examine its association with yards gained. PRSS offers a continuous, interpretable measure that captures multi-defender effects and the moment of greatest pressure, complementing existing binary and closest-defender metrics while offering applications in pass-protection evaluation, scouting, and scheme design.
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