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It's the Offensive Line, Stupid
The NFL's Scoreboard Fireworks May Be Rooted in Good Blocking; Houston's Myers Gets a 21.8
By REED ALBERGOTTI
All the record-breaking, high-flying fireworks produced by NFL offenses during the season's first two weeks has everyone cooking up theories around the backyard barbeque.
But there's a pretty good argument to be made that in a year with a truncated offseason, the primary force behind all this prolific offense has to be the groups of players who make up at least 45% of every offensive unit: The linemen.
Every piece of choreography in the NFL's ballet of brutality starts with these five heavily padded oafs. "Your big guys are really the foundation of what you do on offense," says Tony Boselli, a former offensive lineman. "Teams that have a better, or at least a solid offensive line have a better chance."
The play of offensive lines is hard to measure. While teams go to great lengths to grade linemen, there are no official statistics presented to the public.
Some of this is a result of football's secretive nature. It's difficult to evaluate the play of a lineman without knowing what his blocking assignment was on a given play—and that's something no team is going to offer up. Without knowing what a player was supposed to do, it's impossible to know for sure whether he should get credit for making the correct block.
Not all members of an O-line have the same level of responsibility, either. Left tackles, for instance, have to block the toughest pass rushers, while centers often have help from the guards to their right and left.
The only way to judge this is to employ someone with an educated eye to spend hour after mind-numbing hour watching every lineman's performance on every play. For the past three full NFL seasons, a small outfit called Pro Football Focus has been doing just that.
Based, quite incongruously, in the U.K, this company has a staff of 18 analysts who break down every game. Four are responsible for grading offensive linemen and together they've tabulated about 500,000 blocks over three full seasons.
Each analyst spends somewhere around six hours per game studying film, according to Pro Football Focus's founder, Neil Hornsby. Each time a lineman attempts a block on a running play, he's given a grade on whether or not he was successful. On passing plays, the linemen are graded down when they allow a sack, a hit on the quarterback or defensive pressure that affects the play. The grades are based on how a player's score compares to the overall average for the position.
"There is absolutely no guessing," says Hornsby. "We don't grade down anybody unless we're 90% sure what was supposed to happen."
The company makes some data available to the public, but the company's more-advanced stats are held back and are purchased by NFL teams and analysts. Hornsby says five or six players have subscribed to Pro Football Focus and haven't been shy about voicing displeasure if they believe they've been erroneously graded. After last year's Super Bowl, he says, Green Bay Packers lineman Josh Sitton disputed a sack that was credited against him (Hornsby agreed and changed his score). Earlier this month, he says, another lineman emailed him to say he wasn't responsible for a hit to his quarterback that was tied to him. Again, after further review, Hornsby removed it.
The lobbying only goes so far, he says. "They don't always get what they want."
Hornsby's effort is something of a noble quest—an attempt to decode the mysteries of offensive lines for causal fans. And there are some signs that a team whose linemen score well by these rankings can expect to win a fair number of games—if not rightnow, then soon.
According to last year's Pro Football Focus grades, the New York Jets had the best offensive line. The team rushed for 2,374 yards, the fourth highest total in the league, and only allowed 28 sacks, the eighth lowest. The Jets went on to lose in the AFC title game. The New England Patriots, who came in No. 3, saw quarterback Tom Brady sacked only 25 times (third-best in the NFL) and win the league's MVP award. The Baltimore Ravens (No. 4) also made the playoffs.
Based on last year's grades and this year's roster moves, the best starting offensive line this year belongs to the Houston Texans, who finished No. 2 last season. Despite missing the playoffs last year, they were No. 4 in the NFL in total yards through the air and No. 7 in run yardage.
According to the numbers, the Texans have two huge stars: center Chris Myers received a score of 21.8 and left guard Wade Smith earned a 17.8. To put that in perspective: The average overall grade given by Pro Football Focus was -3.0
Whle the season is young, the Texans rank No. 9 in passing yards, No. 5 in rushing and No. 9 in fewest sacks. Most telling may be their ability to run this effectively without their injured star running back Arian Foster. The Texans rushed for 167 yards against Indianapolis in their first week and 138 against Miami.
Another team to watch: the Ravens, who are currently the league's top run-blocking team. After upgrading their line this season, Baltimore moved up in the Pro Football Focus grades from No. 4 last year to No. 2 as presently constituted. The team moved left tackle Michael Oher (-10.8) to the right side and brought in veteran Bryant McKinnie (3.8) to fill his place.
In the opening game against Pittsburgh, Baltimore rushed for a phenomenal 170 yards against last year's No. 1 defense against the run. (The following week, the Ravens inexplicably managed to gain only 45 yards on the ground and 197 through the air in a loss to Tennessee).
Three of this season's five teams with the highest-ranked offensive lines (the Texans, Jets and New England Patriots) are also undefeated. The Cincinnati Bengals, who are ranked fifth, upset the Cleveland Browns and narrowly lost on the road to the Denver Broncos, 22-24. Cincinnati's left tackle, Andrew Whitworth (24.6), has one of the league's highest rankings.
These numbers might have tipped one of the season's biggest surprises: Rookie quarterback Cam Newton, who has passed for 854 yards in two games. His Carolina Panthers had the No. 8 best pass-blocking line when the season started.
The Dallas Cowboys, a team many people counted out before the season, were also ranked high in pass blocking (ninth) and have passed for 774 yards, third in the league so far. On the other side of the ledger: The suddenly anemic Kansas City Chiefs. They ranked No. 29 in pass blocking before the season.
Some of the results are more curious: The Detroit Lions, who by this data should have the NFL's second-worst run-blocking line, are 2-0. One possible explanation is something Pro Football Focus doesn't factor in to its grades: continuity. The Lions' five starters took 5,362 snaps together last season, the second-most in the NFL.
On the Line
How all 32 NFL teams' offensive lines rank overall and on run and pass blocks.
Source: Pro Football Focus
It's the Offensive Line, Stupid
The NFL's Scoreboard Fireworks May Be Rooted in Good Blocking; Houston's Myers Gets a 21.8
By REED ALBERGOTTI
All the record-breaking, high-flying fireworks produced by NFL offenses during the season's first two weeks has everyone cooking up theories around the backyard barbeque.
But there's a pretty good argument to be made that in a year with a truncated offseason, the primary force behind all this prolific offense has to be the groups of players who make up at least 45% of every offensive unit: The linemen.
Every piece of choreography in the NFL's ballet of brutality starts with these five heavily padded oafs. "Your big guys are really the foundation of what you do on offense," says Tony Boselli, a former offensive lineman. "Teams that have a better, or at least a solid offensive line have a better chance."
The play of offensive lines is hard to measure. While teams go to great lengths to grade linemen, there are no official statistics presented to the public.
Some of this is a result of football's secretive nature. It's difficult to evaluate the play of a lineman without knowing what his blocking assignment was on a given play—and that's something no team is going to offer up. Without knowing what a player was supposed to do, it's impossible to know for sure whether he should get credit for making the correct block.
Not all members of an O-line have the same level of responsibility, either. Left tackles, for instance, have to block the toughest pass rushers, while centers often have help from the guards to their right and left.
The only way to judge this is to employ someone with an educated eye to spend hour after mind-numbing hour watching every lineman's performance on every play. For the past three full NFL seasons, a small outfit called Pro Football Focus has been doing just that.
Based, quite incongruously, in the U.K, this company has a staff of 18 analysts who break down every game. Four are responsible for grading offensive linemen and together they've tabulated about 500,000 blocks over three full seasons.
Each analyst spends somewhere around six hours per game studying film, according to Pro Football Focus's founder, Neil Hornsby. Each time a lineman attempts a block on a running play, he's given a grade on whether or not he was successful. On passing plays, the linemen are graded down when they allow a sack, a hit on the quarterback or defensive pressure that affects the play. The grades are based on how a player's score compares to the overall average for the position.
"There is absolutely no guessing," says Hornsby. "We don't grade down anybody unless we're 90% sure what was supposed to happen."
The company makes some data available to the public, but the company's more-advanced stats are held back and are purchased by NFL teams and analysts. Hornsby says five or six players have subscribed to Pro Football Focus and haven't been shy about voicing displeasure if they believe they've been erroneously graded. After last year's Super Bowl, he says, Green Bay Packers lineman Josh Sitton disputed a sack that was credited against him (Hornsby agreed and changed his score). Earlier this month, he says, another lineman emailed him to say he wasn't responsible for a hit to his quarterback that was tied to him. Again, after further review, Hornsby removed it.
The lobbying only goes so far, he says. "They don't always get what they want."
Hornsby's effort is something of a noble quest—an attempt to decode the mysteries of offensive lines for causal fans. And there are some signs that a team whose linemen score well by these rankings can expect to win a fair number of games—if not rightnow, then soon.
According to last year's Pro Football Focus grades, the New York Jets had the best offensive line. The team rushed for 2,374 yards, the fourth highest total in the league, and only allowed 28 sacks, the eighth lowest. The Jets went on to lose in the AFC title game. The New England Patriots, who came in No. 3, saw quarterback Tom Brady sacked only 25 times (third-best in the NFL) and win the league's MVP award. The Baltimore Ravens (No. 4) also made the playoffs.
Based on last year's grades and this year's roster moves, the best starting offensive line this year belongs to the Houston Texans, who finished No. 2 last season. Despite missing the playoffs last year, they were No. 4 in the NFL in total yards through the air and No. 7 in run yardage.
According to the numbers, the Texans have two huge stars: center Chris Myers received a score of 21.8 and left guard Wade Smith earned a 17.8. To put that in perspective: The average overall grade given by Pro Football Focus was -3.0
Whle the season is young, the Texans rank No. 9 in passing yards, No. 5 in rushing and No. 9 in fewest sacks. Most telling may be their ability to run this effectively without their injured star running back Arian Foster. The Texans rushed for 167 yards against Indianapolis in their first week and 138 against Miami.
Another team to watch: the Ravens, who are currently the league's top run-blocking team. After upgrading their line this season, Baltimore moved up in the Pro Football Focus grades from No. 4 last year to No. 2 as presently constituted. The team moved left tackle Michael Oher (-10.8) to the right side and brought in veteran Bryant McKinnie (3.8) to fill his place.
In the opening game against Pittsburgh, Baltimore rushed for a phenomenal 170 yards against last year's No. 1 defense against the run. (The following week, the Ravens inexplicably managed to gain only 45 yards on the ground and 197 through the air in a loss to Tennessee).
Three of this season's five teams with the highest-ranked offensive lines (the Texans, Jets and New England Patriots) are also undefeated. The Cincinnati Bengals, who are ranked fifth, upset the Cleveland Browns and narrowly lost on the road to the Denver Broncos, 22-24. Cincinnati's left tackle, Andrew Whitworth (24.6), has one of the league's highest rankings.
These numbers might have tipped one of the season's biggest surprises: Rookie quarterback Cam Newton, who has passed for 854 yards in two games. His Carolina Panthers had the No. 8 best pass-blocking line when the season started.
The Dallas Cowboys, a team many people counted out before the season, were also ranked high in pass blocking (ninth) and have passed for 774 yards, third in the league so far. On the other side of the ledger: The suddenly anemic Kansas City Chiefs. They ranked No. 29 in pass blocking before the season.
Some of the results are more curious: The Detroit Lions, who by this data should have the NFL's second-worst run-blocking line, are 2-0. One possible explanation is something Pro Football Focus doesn't factor in to its grades: continuity. The Lions' five starters took 5,362 snaps together last season, the second-most in the NFL.
On the Line
How all 32 NFL teams' offensive lines rank overall and on run and pass blocks.
Code:
OVERALL RanK RUN BLOCK PASS BLOCK1. Texans 2 12. Ravens 1 33. Jets 4 24. Patriots 3 205. Bengals 7 116. Browns 12 67. Chargers 8 188. Cowboys 9 89. Panthers 14 710. Giants 10 1911. Eagles 11 1012. Packers 17 913. Dolphins 13 1314. Falcons 19 1715. Jaguars 15 2216. 49ers 6 2717. Chiefs 5 2918. Colts 18 1219. Seahawks 16 2120. Saints 23 421. Broncos 27 1522. Rams 29 523. Bills 21 1624. Lions 31 1425. Vikings 30 2426. Redskins 24 3027. Cardinals 22 2828. Steelers 25 2529. Raiders 26 2630. Bears 20 3131. Buccaneers 28 3232. Titans 32 23
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