"Unless you watch every snap of every game, it's nigh on impossible to evaluate offensive line play. You can infer some things from numbers, but that can often lead to incorrect conclusions. For example, logic would say that Aaron Rodgers getting sacked the most of any quarterback means he has the worst pass-protecting line, right? Except that conclusion overlooks the fact eight of those sacks were due to Rodgers' decisions and another two were the results of skill position players not picking up the pass rush. It also doesn't consider the fact Rodgers is guilty of having the sixth-highest average time to sack (from when the ball is snapped) of any player in the league. With our game charting and grading, however, Pro Football Focus accounts for those factors. And that is why the Packers are the 11th-ranked pass-blocking line in our rankings. This season, we've seen how poor line play can totally cripple a team -- not to mention a quarterback. But which are the best and worst lines in the league? Let's take a look. 2012 offensive line rankings Pro Football Focus grades every play of every game to evaluate the performance of the offensive line. On any given play, a player will get a positive or negative score between plus-2.0 and minus-2.0 (with 0 being average) depending on how well or badly they executed their assignment. All plays get tallied up and normalized to account for total snaps played to generate the game grade. The grades below represent the cumulative total of all offensive lineman game grades for each team. Overall grade combines elements of pass blocking, run blocking and penalties taken. For more on PFF's grading methodology, click here." Team Overall Grade Pass Rank Grade Run Rank Grade Penalty Rank Grade SF 1 90.3 12 14.3 1 76.4 19 -0.4 NE 2 56.7 18 1.1 2 42.4 2 13.2 NO 3 53.6 9 19.9 5 26.3 5 7.4 CIN 4 53.1 2 45.6 16 4.1 11 3.4 NYJ 5 51.8 4 26.2 10 14.6 3 11 DEN 6 49.2 1 53.6 22 -2.1 24 -2.3 KC 7 41.4 8 22 9 16 10 3.4 DET 8 39.8 7 25 11 12 13 2.8 MIN 9 38.3 14 8.8 7 21.9 4 7.6 CLE 10 33.8 3 27.5 14 6.5 18 -0.2 TEN 11 32.8 5 25.4 13 7.9 20 -0.5 HOU 12 31.2 13 14.3 12 11.7 6 5.2 BUF 13 25.8 6 25.4 19 2.7 23 -2.3 BAL 14 23.3 20 0.3 6 23.9 21 -0.9 NYG 15 23.1 23 -5.9 4 27.8 16 1.2 ATL 16 19 19 0.6 15 4.8 1 13.6 PHI 17 18.2 25 -8.1 3 30.6 27 -4.3 PIT 18 12.5 10 19.5 25 -5.1 22 -1.9 WAS 19 12.4 16 5.2 17 3.9 12 3.3 GB 20 0.7 11 14.9 29 -11.9 25 -2.3 MIA 21 0.2 15 6.5 24 -2.7 26 -3.6 TB 22 -0.8 17 1.5 20 2.5 28 -4.8 DAL 23 -10.5 28 -18.1 8 17.8 31 -10.2 SEA 24 -11 21 -2 21 1.4 32 -10.4 OAK 25 -11.7 22 -4.5 26 -7.3 17 0.1 STL 26 -13.8 24 -6.7 23 -2.3 29 -4.8 SD 27 -22.8 31 -31.4 18 3.4 7 5.2 IND 28 -29.7 30 -24 27 -9.5 8 3.8 CAR 29 -30 26 -13.6 31 -17.9 15 1.5 JAC 30 -30.9 27 -17.8 30 -15.1 14 2 CHI 31 -40.2 29 -20.2 28 -10 30 -10 ARI 32 -76.5 32 -51.1 32 -28.9 9 3.5 The underrated -- New York Jets This is really going to surprise some people. I maintain that Jets fans have been spoiled in recent memory by having the league's best offensive line. Now any drop feels like a plunge into mediocrity, but that's just not been the case. Nick Mangold isn't having his most consistent year, but is still playing some fine football. Both guards are playing above average, even if Matt Slauson is struggling in the run game. And D'Brickashaw Ferguson? Well, he hasn't given up a sack and has been near shutdown on the blind side. No, this unit is being made a scapegoat. They've gotten better and better since moving on from Wayne Hunter, with Austin Howard making up for some pass-protection problems with some good work in the run game. The real problem is that when they do allow pressure, their quarterback (Mark Sanchez) is so bad at dealing with it that it makes the pressure stand out that much more. As it is they've allowed only 97 combined sacks, hits and hurries -- seventh fewest in the league.
Was an ESPN insider article released today. Apologize for the chart. Would have to sit here all day to fix the spacing. I was pleasantly surprised by the results given the 'hoopla' surrounding our offensive line this year.
Im not here to place blame on any part of the Offense but the whole unit sucks because of its leader.......Sporano
WTF do u want from Sparano? Do you think he designs plays to run into Brandom Moore's ass cheek? Surprised about the OL, but they have no doubt been better than last year. I don't have a problem with Sparano I have a problem with the weapons at our disposal.
THanks for the OP. I agree, the Sanchez Fans buy into an urban legend that the OL is far below average, when they are better than average.
I've seen enough awful offensive lines this year to realize the Jets have one of the better ones. I wouldn't have expected 5th, but the talent around the offensive line is so mediocre it makes it look worse.
Good to see this written as it kind of confirms what I see anecdotally. It's hard to quantify but as I watch other games around the league the eye test just gives me a feeling that the Jets pass protection is at least on par with the rest of the league. I also noticed that when Howard gets beat he seems to get beat to the inside for whatever reason. A few occasions he has been beaten to the outside but not real badly.
Pass protection hasn't been an issue this year, it's opening those running lanes, which we're actually improving on. Since jettisoning WFH you can't pin many of the sacks on the oline. Howard has been a pleasant surprise at RT.
Some of us were posting this months ago to counter the non-stop apologists claiming Sanchez can't succeed because of our crappy O-Line, when in fact we were one of the best with pass protection
i've been saying for a while,get a game changing rb on this team and the offense is good enough to win.instead of greene plug in a rice,forte,mjd type back and we could do something. even with sanchez. the oline is good enough
The line has been ok in my opinion. Not great, but solid enough to compete. A lot of sacks have been due to blitz packages. A lot of the blame for that has to go to the OC, Sanchez, RB and TE's. I still see no communication, no audibles, and no adjustments to better handle this. Even with the line playing ok though, the Jets still need to invest in Oline this offseason. Moore and Slauson will be FA's. I'd try to upgrade at Guard at this point, and maybe bring one back if the price is right. We also have no depth at OT. Smith is a FA and will probably walk, and Howard has been a nice surprise but is still an average player.
I knew I gave up on that kid for a good reason. He's gotten into David Carr stage - without his accuracy. P.S. if the protection holds up for good 5 seconds but the QB still throws a pick, you KNOW the protection is not really an issue. It's the QB. I tend to think Cheat found a way to abuse Nacho.
Spot on. The running game has been pretty brutal. Part of that is on the oline and part of it is because Greene pretty much only runs in a straight line. Obviously a good running game would help the passing game, open up the play action, so you could argue a small percentage of the oline's inability to aid in the running game is reflected in our poor passing play...but that's stretching it pretty thin. This shows pretty significantly that Sanchez is getting very good protection. The problem is that he panics and throws into coverage as well as the fact that he has issues holding on to the ball when he does get hit. There are QBs who take more hits that don't fumble and QBs who get pressured more frequently that don't throw as many picks. So definitely does not reflect well on Sanchez.
I am past tired of the Sanchez Fans throwing everyone else on the team under the bus to excuse his awful failings. It's not a legitimate dispute anymore. You will not have any of them address the points in the OP head on. Instead they will ignore it, and elsewhere continue to blame the OL as if they're "failings" are the real reason Sanchez blows. It's what they do.
