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Offensive Lines (1 Viewer)

Borden

Borden

Footballguy
We always discuss OL but I thought would be nice to have a thread to reference.

PFF Rankings from 2017 - Link (March 12th, 2018 article date)

NFL.com 10 Best - Link (Updated March 19th, 2018)

FantasyIndex - Link (April 8th)

Fantasy Footballers (mixed rankings) - Link

Football Outsiders - Link (1/1/18)

@Chaka Line Continuity Spreadsheet/Google Doc - Link (As of June 9th, 2018)

 
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Good thread. I like knowing info about how cohesive a unit is from year-to-year. How many returning starters, and how many years in a row have they played together? Also is the line coach the same? 

I think year-to-year cohesiveness impacts offensive lines more than, perhaps, any other football unit.

 
Chaka said:
Good thread. I like knowing info about how cohesive a unit is from year-to-year. How many returning starters, and how many years in a row have they played together? Also is the line coach the same? 

I think year-to-year cohesiveness impacts offensive lines more than, perhaps, any other football unit.
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I have heard this and it does make sense. I am not sure how to measure this to be able to determine how true that is however.

A scheme change could have some effect on this as well. Recently I have been hearing interesting information about how often teams use certain types of run plays more than most teams, for example outside zone.

For the Vikings it certainly wasn't due to cohesiveness or continuity of their offensive line that allowed them to improve from one of the worst offensive lines in 2016 (30th according to FBO) to an average one in 201 (19th according to FBO). They added 3 new starters and changed their scheme to more outside zone than what they had been using the year before because of the addition of Dalvin Cook. In my view this was a pretty quick turn around to improve this much in only one year. 

Another example of an offensive line that changed dramatically in only one offseason was the Rams last year who went from 29th according to FBO in 2016 to 3rd in 2017 due to the additions of Andrew Whitworth at LT and John Sullivan in free agency. That is an amazingly quick turnaround for this unit that certainly was a product of coaching changes as well.

There are inconsistencies in how these offensive lines are being graded by different sources. For example PFF graded the Bills offensive line as the 7th best unit in 2017 while FBO has them as the 27th last year. That is a pretty huge gap.

I guess the direction to go for this thread is to look at which offensive lines have changed the most from last season by losing key players or adding them through free agency, the draft and scheme/coaching changes.

For example the Bills lost Center Eric Wood to retirement, traded LT Cordy Glenn to the Bengals, and LG Incognito retired as well. They signed Marshall Newhouse and Russell Bodine in free agency to fill a couple of those holes, back up Ryan Groy is expected to take over at center for Woods although he will compete with Bodine for that spot. They drafted guard Wyatt Teller out of Virginia Tech in the 5th round. 

 
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Chaka said:
Good thread. I like knowing info about how cohesive a unit is from year-to-year. How many returning starters, and how many years in a row have they played together? Also is the line coach the same? 

I think year-to-year cohesiveness impacts offensive lines more than, perhaps, any other football unit.
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I would say to start with the PFF grading. They have a “combinations” stat that lists how many different OL groupings/setups the team used. 

As far as OL coach and changes, I think that’s too difficult to gauge their effectiveness. If a bad OL has the same OLC then is that a good or bad thing? How much can player coaching help at this level? I’m with you on the group cohesion aspect but I’m not sure if coach is worth the effort.

A bigger impact might be the HC or OC’s system vs the strengths of OL. For example; Big mauling guards usually don’t do as well in outside zone schemes because of the movement involved. Teams that may be changing schemes and the current linemen’s strengths and former schemes might be interesting too.

 
Biabreakable said:
I have heard this and it does make sense. I am not sure how to measure this to be able to determine how true that is however.

A scheme change could have some effect on this as well. Recently I have been hearing interesting information about how often teams use certain types of run plays more than most teams, for example outside zone.

For the Vikings it certainly wasn't due to cohesiveness or continuity of their offensive line that allowed them to improve from one of the worst offensive lines in 2016 (30th according to FBO) to an average one in 201 (19th according to FBO). They added 3 new starters and changed their scheme to more outside zone than what they had been using the year before because of the addition of Dalvin Cook. In my view this was a pretty quick turn around to improve this much in only one year. 

Another example of an offensive line that changed dramatically in only one offseason was the Rams last year who went from 29th according to FBO in 2016 to 3rd in 2017 due to the additions of Andrew Whitworth at LT and John Sullivan in free agency. That is an amazingly quick turnaround for this unit that certainly was a product of coaching changes as well.

There are inconsistencies in how these offensive lines are being graded by different sources. For example PFF graded the Bills offensive line as the 7th best unit in 2017 while FBO has them as the 27th last year. That is a pretty huge gap.

I guess the direction to go for this thread is to look at which offensive lines have changed the most from last season by losing key players or adding them through free agency, the draft and scheme/coaching changes.

For example the Bills lost Center Eric Wood to retirement, traded LT Cordy Glenn to the Bengals, and LG Incognito retired as well. They signed Marshall Newhouse and Russell Bodine in free agency to fill a couple of those holes, back up Ryan Groy is expected to take over at center for Woods although he will compete with Bodine for that spot. They drafted guard Wyatt Teller out of Virginia Tech in the 5th round. 
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Dion Dawkins filled in very well for Glenn last year. Wood and Incognito are actually pretty big loses though. I think there’s a chance Incognito comes out of retirement though. Maybe that’s just me being a hopeful Bills fan though.

 
Borden said:
Dion Dawkins filled in very well for Glenn last year. Wood and Incognito are actually pretty big loses though. I think there’s a chance Incognito comes out of retirement though. Maybe that’s just me being a hopeful Bills fan though.
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I love Dawkins. Him playing well at LT right away is a very good sign, thats a tall order for a rookie player. I wanted the Vikings to draft him if they could.

I was reading in the Bengals thread that Bodine is not so good. Who else to the Bills have that could keep him on the bench?

For the thread I was thinking it would be nice if we could get fans of specific teams to do a write up of their offensive line, the coaches and the changes from last season. I think I could do this for the Vikings for example, but I am not familiar enough with the other teams to talk about them with the same level of depth and understanding.

Maybe an example format of things to cover is something that other posters could follow and help organize the information.

Or another way to approach this I was thinking of is to focus on the teams that drafted rookie RBs this year, how the RB will perform for those teams is still unknown compared to RB who have played, but background on Tampa Bays offensive line for example could be a useful layer of information related to Ronald Jones. Similary the Browns offensive line and Nick Chubb, the Lions offensive line and Kerryon Johnson and so on.

Or a systematic way to do it could be just starting with a division, discuss those 4 teams and keep going from there until all 32 teams have a write up.

If you wanted to take a crack at the Bills offensive line to set an example of the types of stuff that should be discussed I would be happy to make time to discuss the Vikings offensive line. Then maybe recruit other posters here such as @Grahamburn @Just Win Baby @QuizGuy66 ect for the other teams.

 
Borden said:
I would say to start with the PFF grading. They have a “combinations” stat that lists how many different OL groupings/setups the team used. 

As far as OL coach and changes, I think that’s too difficult to gauge their effectiveness. If a bad OL has the same OLC then is that a good or bad thing? How much can player coaching help at this level? I’m with you on the group cohesion aspect but I’m not sure if coach is worth the effort.

A bigger impact might be the HC or OC’s system vs the strengths of OL. For example; Big mauling guards usually don’t do as well in outside zone schemes because of the movement involved. Teams that may be changing schemes and the current linemen’s strengths and former schemes might be interesting too.
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It is definitely difficult to drill down to the relevant info particularly as it relates to the coaching staff.  The truth is I have no idea who is truly a great offensive line coach, and I imagine 99.99999996% of people in the world have no idea either. That's why I default to cohesion, if they keep the same guy year-over-year then the team at least thinks he's good enough. But, sure HC/OC may be a better metric (although good OCs become HCs so if they leave and the OL coach stays is that a knock on unit cohesion? I'm  honestly not sure).

However I do believe that the number of consecutive starts a unit has together is a solid metric, regardless of talent level. Like the OL coach, or any staff member, the more times the team allows someone to do something the more confidence it suggests they have in that person (Link).  Unfortunately it looks like the only way to find out who started for which team on a week-over-week basis is to look at all 256 game logs.  And if you want to go back more than one season, well...ain't nobody got time for that!

Best alternative I can see so far is to use Pro-Football-Reference to see how many starts/games played for each team. While it won't tell how many different starting combinations there were, you can use the 16 game starters as a base to work your way down and glean what you can from there.  If I see a unit that had four or five guys who have started 16, 32, 48 (highly unlikely) games together and they are all coming back this year then I am giving them a bump in my OL rankings. YMMV.

If I decide to tackle this project, unlikely but...maybe, I will make a google doc to share.

 
@Biabreakable To be honest, I don’t actually know much about the Bills. The Dawkins comment was just regurgitated from the Bills thread and some other places but I thought it would be helpful information. I go out of my way to not dive too deep into my team because I just want to enjoy their games on Sunday, not pick apart their performances across positions. Just be a fan. I don’t even draft Bills players in FF because I only want to watch the game for real football reasons. Definitely a lot more people in that Bills thread who would be better at giving their OL opinions than me.

As for the how the thread goes, I personally had no intentions of what I thought it would be. I’m open to every possibility. The one thing that’s hard to over look or undervalue is PFFs grades. They watch every snap of every player and put grades on it. I will admit that I’m a PFF fanboy. They’re doing amazing work. So to me, the plan would be to build off of their rankings last year. Using the Bills example, they lost Incognito and Wood but Glenn was already replaced. Who is likely to replace them? What were their PFF grades last year? Who’s into their natural positions or not? How does the running back fit with the running block styles? Maybe a few other things. Plus, it gives  @Faust a place for all the exciting OL news :D

A project like this those is going DEEP into the depths for FF purposes and would require a ton of work. And it might not even have a worthwhile pay off. I think it would but there could be so many variables that to nail it down would require even more work. I’m not saying that won’t do it or at least some of it but I couldn’t be relied along to complete it.

 
Chaka said:
It is definitely difficult to drill down to the relevant info particularly as it relates to the coaching staff.  The truth is I have no idea who is truly a great offensive line coach, and I imagine 99.99999996% of people in the world have no idea either. That's why I default to cohesion, if they keep the same guy year-over-year then the team at least thinks he's good enough. But, sure HC/OC may be a better metric (although good OCs become HCs so if they leave and the OL coach stays is that a knock on unit cohesion? I'm  honestly not sure).

However I do believe that the number of consecutive starts a unit has together is a solid metric, regardless of talent level. Like the OL coach, or any staff member, the more times the team allows someone to do something the more confidence it suggests they have in that person (Link).  Unfortunately it looks like the only way to find out who started for which team on a week-over-week basis is to look at all 256 game logs.  And if you want to go back more than one season, well...ain't nobody got time for that!

Best alternative I can see so far is to use Pro-Football-Reference to see how many starts/games played for each team. While it won't tell how many different starting combinations there were, you can use the 16 game starters as a base to work your way down and glean what you can from there.  If I see a unit that had four or five guys who have started 16, 32, 48 (highly unlikely) games together and they are all coming back this year then I am giving them a bump in my OL rankings. YMMV.

If I decide to tackle this project, unlikely but...maybe, I will make a google doc to share.
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I think it might be better to test it against last year to see if there is a correlation first. Use PFF grades and years played together chart out a long the same line on a year over year basis. There will be team by team variations of course but see if the averages match up maybe?

I agree 100% that it should. No difference between them and DB groups or QB and WRs.

 
Leveraging some info from my Chargers thread, here are the PFF grades from the Chargers OL last season:

  • Tackle (out of 124 graded Ts):

    LT Okung - 926 snaps - #26 overall, #13 pass blocking, #79 run blocking
  • RT Barksdale - 657 snaps - #82T overall, #40T pass blocking, #122 run blocking
  • Schofield - 407 snaps - #88 overall, #94T pass blocking, #55 run blocking
  • Tevi - 135 snaps - #84 overall, #68 pass blocking, #106 run blocking
  • Hairston - 23 snaps - #58 overall, #69 pass blocking, #52 run blocking

[*]Guard (out of 123 graded Gs):

  • LG Feeney - 665 snaps - #59 overall, #95T pass blocking, #41 run blocking
  • LG Slauson - 424 snaps - #79 overall, #49 pass blocking, #91 run blocking
  • RG Wiggins - 1040 snaps - #111T overall, #88 pass blocking, #112 run blocking

[*]Center (out of 46 graded Cs):

  • Pulley - 1054 snaps - #45 overall, #46 in pass blocking, #44 in run blocking

The good:

  1. LT Okung stayed mostly healthy (missed 1 game) and was the team's best OL. He was particularly good at pass protection, which is important for Rivers' blind side.
  2. LG Feeney had a really good rookie season and was selected to the PFWA All-Rookie Team. The Chargers really like him, and justifiably so IMO. Lynn prefers guards who can pull, and Feeney is very good at that. He will be the starter going forward.
The bad:

  1. The Chargers allowed 188 pressures, which was 7th most in the league. The fact that they allowed the fewest sacks in the league is a testament to Rivers' ability to get the ball out quickly... he led the league with 35 throwaways.
  2. RG Lamp, who was the first guard drafted in the 2017 draft, was lost to injury in preseason, which forced RG Wiggins to start. Wiggins played over 1000 snaps last season, and the team needed that from him once Lamp and Slauson both got hurt. But his play was terrible. Fortunately, the team let him walk.
The ugly:

  1. C Pulley was arguably the single worst offensive lineman in the league who played extensive snaps last season. Per PFF, he was worse than 12 other backup centers last season. He is not a starter-caliber player.
  2. The run blocking on the right side of the line - C Pulley, RG Wiggins, RT Barksdale - was the worst in the league. Each player I named here was near the very bottom of his position group in PFF run blocking grade.
Looking forward, there are reasons for optimism:

  1. Okung returns at LT.
  2. Feeney returns at LG, with a year of experience and an entire offseason to improve.
  3. The Chargers signed Pouncey to start at C. That should be a significant upgrade on Pulley, provided he remains healthy. The Chargers presumably did appropriate due diligence on his hip injury and are satisfied it will not hinder him going forward.
  4. RG Lamp is expected to return successfully from injury and start at RG, upgrading that position.
  5. The team is entering its second year under this coaching staff, so chemistry/cohesiveness could be improved, though injecting Pouncey and Lamp might limit that.
The open questions seem to be:

  1. Can Pouncey remain healthy?
  2. Will Lamp return to full health?
  3. Can Barksdale hold his starting spot? The team could save about $3.8M on the 2018 cap if he is released. Can Schofield beat him out?
Overall, this stands to be the best OL the Chargers have opened a season with in many years IF they can stay healthy.

 
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Okay I just did a quick examination of the Cowboys projected starting OL and their history together.

LT - Tyron Smith

LG - La'el Collins

C - Travis Frederick

RG - Zack Martin

RT - Cameron Fleming

Smith, Frederick & Martin have started 58 of the last 64 games together in their current positions. Collins has started 30 of the last 48 games, 16 at RT and 14 at LG.  Fleming is entirely new to the group. He has 20 starts in 47 games over the last four seasons (2, 7, 5 & 6 starts). So how do we distill this into a clear metric? Of a possible 80 starts the current unit had 61 together last season, do we call that 0.7625 (61/80) and call it a day? Do we discount to reflect Collins projected position shift from RT to LG? Do we bonus on previous seasons together?

Going into 2017 the projected unit had 48 starts together in 2016 (0.6) and 59 starts together in 2015 (0.7375) or an average of 53.5 starts together over those two seasons (0.66875).

Over the past three seasons, going into 2018, the Cowboys line has started an average of 60.333 games together per season regardless of position (75.4%).

Is it worth even attempting to go down this path?

 
Steelers O-Line:

  • LT - Villanueva
  • LG - Ramon Foster
  • C - Pouncey
  • RG - Decastro
  • RT - Marcus Gilbert
  • Backups - Hawkins, Finney, Chuks
Last year they were pretty underwhelming, but they dealt with several injuries that had guys missing for weeks at a time. Their main backup, Hubbard, left in Free Agency, so their depth is largely unproven. Could be ugly if any starters miss significant time. Also, I'm not a huge fan of Alejandro. I think he's overrated with slow feet and tends to lose his block just when the running back needs it.

Still, I think they're top 8 this season.

 
Good stuff JWB.

Did the Chargers add anyone through the draft that might be able to crack the line up?

Not a bad format laid out by JWB. I feel like I got a pretty good overview of where their unit is at from just that post.

Considering the poor run blocking grades, I wonder if that might be related to the low YPC by Melvin Gordon?

Chichen and the egg I guess there as these things are so intertwined and related. Just putting it out there that maybe some of these evaluations of Gordon are too harsh and that maybe he will perform better if the offensive line play improves.

I am somewhat familiar with Feeny as he was one of the offensive linemen I was looking at for the Vikings that year. That is where a lot of my understanding of offensive line players comes from is just evaluating them as rookie prospects.

 
By contrast there is the Indianapolis Colts.

Ourlads projected starters for 2018 are:

LT - Anthony Castanzo

LG - Quenton Nelson

C - Ryan Kelly

RG - Jack Mewhort

RT - Denzelle Good

They started 33 of 80 possible games together last season (41.25%), over the past three seasons it's an average of 39.33% (49.2%). I think it is reasonable to assume this will still be one of the lesser units in the league but they did add the consensus best offensive lineman in the draft in Nelson (remember that Robert Gallery was a consensus once in a generation lineman once upon a time too). Kelly is the 18 pick of the 2016 draft coming back from injury and Mewhort is a second round pick who had started 40 of 48 games prior to missing 11 games last year.

It seems to me that Indy represents a low cohesion unit that actually has some nice talent.  Does a 41.25% designation accurately represent them going into 2018? As Parcells said "You are what your record says you are." I can view that as they are a 41.25% unit OR they are a 0-0 unit (i.e. hope springs eternal).

I'm not sure.  I think this definitely has some value, and it's empirical value which I personally prefer to subjective interpretations (all the film study in the world doesn't tell the viewer what the player in question should have been doing on any given play), but how much weight should we give to this type of analysis?

 
Biabreakable said:
Did the Chargers add anyone through the draft that might be able to crack the line up?
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No, though Lamp was added in last year's draft and did not play due to preseason injury. So it is not unlike adding a high second round draft pick to the starting lineup. Along with free agent Pouncey.

Biabreakable said:
Considering the poor run blocking grades, I wonder if that might be related to the low YPC by Melvin Gordon?

Chichen and the egg I guess there as these things are so intertwined and related. Just putting it out there that maybe some of these evaluations of Gordon are too harsh and that maybe he will perform better if the offensive line play improves.
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I'm sure it is related. IMO Gordon is a guy who gets what is blocked. He has shown he has homerun ability, but only if the blocking is good enough to get him to the open field.

But does that mean Gordon evaluations have been too harsh? I don't think so. When you trade up in the first round to draft a RB, expending a total of 3 draft picks to do it, you should be getting a RB who does more than get what is blocked for him. :shrug:  

 
Perhaps harsh is the wrong word.

I am not sure how SD run blocking specifically matches up against the other 31 teams in PFF grades. Maybe adding those all up could shed some light on that.

I think this is where football outsiders comes in handy as I see the Chargers in 2016 had 3.97 adjusted line yards and 3.92 RB yards. They were ranked 23rd overall there that season. In 2017 they had 3.71 adjusted line yards and 3.93 RB yards. They were 26th overall there. So a slight decline from the previous year in ALY while basically the same RB yards. This lines up with Gordons ypc which has been 3.9 the last two seasons. Gordon had 76.7 rushing yards per game in 2016 and 69.1 rushing yards per game in 2017. The difference presumably being that the Chargers had higher adjusted line yards in 2016 than 2017 although this difference is pretty small.

 
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I may not be the best analyst but I can try at some point for the Bengals - certainly other fans on the boards are more qualified than I am :)

Without qualification I can say that Bodine was the worst center in the league (at the very least the worst starting center).  They team literally schemed its offense around him getting blown up in the middle on every play.  The way fans of other teams constantly refresh their twitter feed for news on free agent players they want their team to sign I was refreshing my twitter for news that Bodine signed elsewhere.  Seriously.  Our top free agent priority this offseason, IMO, was to NOT resign Russell Bodine.  That they followed through even further and addressed the position in round one is all the better.  And yes it still breaks my heart that Ragnow went one lousy pick before ours.  Dave Lapham has to stop tipping our picks to the entire NFL.

-QG

 
QuizGuy66 said:
Without qualification I can say that Bodine was the worst center in the league (at the very least the worst starting center)
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Not even close, at least not according to PFF grades. PFF graded 46 centers last season, and Bodine ranked #28. There were 6 centers graded below him who played 900+ snaps, and others with 500+.

 
QuizGuy66 said:
I may not be the best analyst but I can try at some point for the Bengals - certainly other fans on the boards are more qualified than I am :)

Without qualification I can say that Bodine was the worst center in the league (at the very least the worst starting center).  They team literally schemed its offense around him getting blown up in the middle on every play.  The way fans of other teams constantly refresh their twitter feed for news on free agent players they want their team to sign I was refreshing my twitter for news that Bodine signed elsewhere.  Seriously.  Our top free agent priority this offseason, IMO, was to NOT resign Russell Bodine.  That they followed through even further and addressed the position in round one is all the better.  And yes it still breaks my heart that Ragnow went one lousy pick before ours.  Dave Lapham has to stop tipping our picks to the entire NFL.

-QG
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:D  I can relate to this. TJ Clemmings was never supposed to start for the Vikings but due to injuries he did anyways, two seasons in a row.

I was scarred stiff of the prospect of him making the team again and fate forcing him back into the line up a 3rd year in a row. Glad that didn't happen.

 
Just Win Baby said:
Not even close, at least not according to PFF grades. PFF graded 46 centers last season, and Bodine ranked #28. There were 6 centers graded below him who played 900+ snaps, and others with 500+.
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Does PFF give bonus points for the times the center sat in the lap of the quarterback?

-QG

 
QuizGuy66 said:
Does PFF give bonus points for the times the center sat in the lap of the quarterback?

-QG
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:shrug:  

PFF has an in depth grading system, within which multiple graders give a grade to every player on every play. Nobody, including them, is perfect, but I put stock into their grading.

They gave Bodine a 49.2 grade for pass blocking on 591 pass blocking snaps, which ranked #33. Contrast that to the real worst starting center in the NFL last year, Spencer Pulley of the Chargers, who had a 24.8 pass blocking grade on 640 pass blocking snaps... which ranked dead last. :X  

You may not be a PFF fan, and their grading is surely not perfect... but Bodine's grade was more than twice Pulley's grade. That discrepancy cannot be hand waved.

 
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Just Win Baby said:
Overall, this stands to be the best OL the Chargers have opened a season with in many years IF they can stay healthy.
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More on this from this PFF article: The Los Angeles Chargers are primed for a Super Bowl run

...the main reasons they only went 9-7 lie on offense. Most egregiously along the offensive line. The Chargers line was and has been terrible. There’s no sugar coating it. Despite giving up the fewest sacks in the NFL (a very quarterback driven stat), the Chargers ranked 25th in pass-blocking and 27th in run-blocking. In fact, the Chargers haven’t had an above average pass-blocking offensive line since 2007. That’s a whole decade of ineptitude.

There’s good reason to believe though that for the first time since that ’07 season that things could turn around. They signed center Mike Pouncey who, while overpaid for how he’s graded of late, was still a massive upgrade as PFF’s 14th–highest graded pass-blocking center last year. 2017 second-rounder Forrest Lamp returns to fill one of the guard positions as well. We saw him as a first-round talent and the highest guard on our draft board last year. Those two fill positions where the Chargers were a nightmare in 2017. Spencer Pulley was our third-lowest graded center while Kenny Wiggins was our ninth-lowest graded guard. Even getting average play at either position will prove impactful for the Chargers in 2018.
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The bolded makes what Rivers has accomplished over the past decade that much more impressive.

 
Chaka said:
Good thread. I like knowing info about how cohesive a unit is from year-to-year. How many returning starters, and how many years in a row have they played together? Also is the line coach the same? 

I think year-to-year cohesiveness impacts offensive lines more than, perhaps, any other football unit.
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So I did this for every team from 2015-2017.  I have the projected starting lineups for 2018, how many starts they had from 2015-2017 with the team in question (so a free agent acquisition gets a zero because they did not start with their current team). I also did this for all the projected backups (decided to use FBGs depth charts because I think I may try to distill this into an article).  I also compiled total snaps played for each lineman from 2015-2017. Additionally I included the HC, OC & OL coach along with how many seasons they have been in place for their current team.

ONE THING I NEED IS A RELIABLE SOURCE FOR TOTAL OFFENSIVE SNAPS, YEAR-OVER-YEAR, FOR EACH TEAM. Any ideas?  Football Outsiders has data for snaps played by individual players and even the % of offensive snaps played but the math doesn't quite add up. Same for ESPN. Is there a source that will simply tell me how many offensive plays each team ran?

I am not sure how much new information something like this will provide.  BREAKING NEWS!!!! Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Tennessee, Atlanta, Dallas & Oakland look pretty stacked going into 2018. But I needed to scratch this itch, so here we are.

 
Chaka said:
So I did this for every team from 2015-2017.  I have the projected starting lineups for 2018, how many starts they had from 2015-2017 with the team in question (so a free agent acquisition gets a zero because they did not start with their current team). I also did this for all the projected backups (decided to use FBGs depth charts because I think I may try to distill this into an article).  I also compiled total snaps played for each lineman from 2015-2017. Additionally I included the HC, OC & OL coach along with how many seasons they have been in place for their current team.

ONE THING I NEED IS A RELIABLE SOURCE FOR TOTAL OFFENSIVE SNAPS, YEAR-OVER-YEAR, FOR EACH TEAM. Any ideas?  Football Outsiders has data for snaps played by individual players and even the % of offensive snaps played but the math doesn't quite add up. Same for ESPN. Is there a source that will simply tell me how many offensive plays each team ran?

I am not sure how much new information something like this will provide.  BREAKING NEWS!!!! Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Tennessee, Atlanta, Dallas & Oakland look pretty stacked going into 2018. But I needed to scratch this itch, so here we are.
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I don't have a real answer for this but will add something anecdotal.

Last year was a bit of an exception but generally the Bengals would stick with the same five linemen all game, game after game (with the odd jumbo package throwing in another guy once in a while).  With a new OL coach this rule may not apply to the Bengals anymore - it may be something to bear watching in Dallas since Alexander has taken over the O-line over there.

-QG

 
QuizGuy66 said:
I don't have a real answer for this but will add something anecdotal.

Last year was a bit of an exception but generally the Bengals would stick with the same five linemen all game, game after game (with the odd jumbo package throwing in another guy once in a while).  With a new OL coach this rule may not apply to the Bengals anymore - it may be something to bear watching in Dallas since Alexander has taken over the O-line over there.

-QG
Click to expand...
I noticed the change to Alexander in Dallas, that is a bit of a concern but I think that with Garrett and Linehan running the show together for the last four seasons it probably will be a negligible impact.

Also it is very important to understand that I don't think cohesion is the be-all-end-all metric, just another piece of the puzzle.  There are always outliers like Minnesota (who well over performed based upon that metric) and Oakland (who drastically underperformed).

 
The change of scenery could be just the thing Alexander needs - I mean with 20+ years experience the guy is certainly no chump.  But I will stay that sticking with guys seemed to be the norm under him (whether that was his philosophy or Marvin's or both of theirs is certainly a question for debate).

He certainly has more to work with with the personnel in Dallas.

-QG

 
Borden said:
@Chaka

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/min/2017-snap-counts.htm

Does that work?
Click to expand...
Thanks. I saw that and I was hoping not to have to reverse engineer those numbers for each team over the last three seasons.  For example it shows Joe Berger participated in 1114 offensive snaps, which is 99.82% of total offensive snaps which should indicate there were a total of 1116 offensive snaps run by Minnesota last year.

I can do that, but...ugh doesn't someone have a simple table listing how many plays each team ran last year?

 
Chaka said:
Thanks. I saw that and I was hoping not to have to reverse engineer those numbers for each team over the last three seasons.  For example it shows Joe Berger participated in 1114 offensive snaps, which is 99.82% of total offensive snaps which should indicate there were a total of 1116 offensive snaps run by Minnesota last year.

I can do that, but...ugh doesn't someone have a simple table listing how many plays each team ran last year?
Click to expand...
Plays per Game ?

- OR -

There’s a column here for scrimmage plays.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Of course it shows that AQ Shipley played in 1121 offensive snaps out of a total of 1059 offensive snaps run by Arizona last season, so there's that to deal with.

 
Chaka said:
Of course it shows that AQ Shipley played in 1121 offensive snaps out of a total of 1059 offensive snaps run by Arizona last season, so there's that to deal with.
Click to expand...
Probably because he played on punt and field goal teams?  Are those not counted as offensive snaps perhaps?

 
Arodin said:
Probably because he played on punt and field goal teams?  Are those not counted as offensive snaps perhaps?
Click to expand...
Special teams snaps are shown as a separate category, and IIRC it shows he had one ST snap in 2017.

There are other minor discrepancies, for example PFR shows him with 1121 snaps and another site shows him with 1124.

 
Go to tweets to see charts of:

  • Number of returning starters for every NFL offensive line
  • Updated projected starters for every NFL offensive line
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

# of returning starters by NFL offensive line

Thomas Emerick‏ @ThomasEmerick May 28

# of returning starters by NFL offensive line, based on projected OLs for Week 1

---------------------------------------------------------

Projected OL starters and continuity 4/29 update.

Thomas Emerick‏ @ThomasEmerick

FollowFollow @ThomasEmerick

Projected OL starters and continuity 4/29 update. Black text for returning starters who took majority snaps w/ same team last year (*injury excepted). Green for outstanding Qs both team and position post-draft, bright green for teams with biggest Qs imo. Yellow for rookies

10:19 AM - 29 Apr 2018

 
Bracie Smathers said:
Go to tweets to see charts of:

  • Number of returning starters for every NFL offensive line
  • Updated projected starters for every NFL offensive line
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

# of returning starters by NFL offensive line

Thomas Emerick‏ @ThomasEmerick May 28

# of returning starters by NFL offensive line, based on projected OLs for Week 1

---------------------------------------------------------

Projected OL starters and continuity 4/29 update.

Thomas Emerick‏ @ThomasEmerick

FollowFollow @ThomasEmerick

Projected OL starters and continuity 4/29 update. Black text for returning starters who took majority snaps w/ same team last year (*injury excepted). Green for outstanding Qs both team and position post-draft, bright green for teams with biggest Qs imo. Yellow for rookies

10:19 AM - 29 Apr 2018
Click to expand...
So the green means that the highlighted player has question marks surrounding him or does "outstanding Q" mean something else?

 
So how does someone create a table in this forum?  If I had data from a spreadsheet I wanted to import into a post and not have the format go all wonky, what is the process?

 
Pro Football Logic also has player ratings, although their method for creating the ratings is less transparent.

Based on their player ratings for individual offensive linemen, here are the team offensive line rankings that I calculate:

1. PHI
2. DAL
3. OAK
4. LAR
5. PIT
6. ATL
7. NE
8. TEN
9. NO
10. KC
11. WAS
12. SF
13. GB
14. DET
15. JAC
16. TB
17. CLE
18. IND
19. DEN
20. CAR
21. LAC
22. CHI
23. MIA
24. NYJ
25. BAL
26. ARI
27. CIN
28. MIN
29. NYG
30. SEA
31. HOU
32. BUF

 
ZWK said:
Pro Football Logic also has player ratings, although their method for creating the ratings is less transparent.

Based on their player ratings for individual offensive linemen, here are the team offensive line rankings that I calculate:

1. PHI
2. DAL
3. OAK
4. LAR
5. PIT
6. ATL
7. NE
8. TEN
9. NO
10. KC
11. WAS
12. SF
13. GB
14. DET
15. JAC
16. TB
17. CLE
18. IND
19. DEN
20. CAR
21. LAC
22. CHI
23. MIA
24. NYJ
25. BAL
26. ARI
27. CIN
28. MIN
29. NYG
30. SEA
31. HOU
32. BUF
Click to expand...
This going forward for 2018, correct?

 
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