Stops are an excellent indicator of a good tackler who excels in making proper reads, and fighting through blocks. This is what a Stop looks like on the field. For most of football history we used pretty terrible stats to rank defensive players. It really came down to tackles and interceptions for a very long time as not even sacks were officially tracked until 1982, and “passes defended” are positively modern. On offense we at least had counting stats like yards and touchdowns (and even passer rating) which, while imperfect, aren’t terrible. On defense, no one really knew anything for…