https://www.profootballfocus.com/blog/2014/01/13/2013-offensive-line-rankings/ Run Blocking is good, Pass Blocking is one of the worst in the league, and the group is one top penalized teams in the league. For what it's worth, the Broncos Offensive Line is the best in the league.
And the Broncos lost their best offensive lineman this year and are ranked #1, but I would bet they have the best O-Line because of Manning. The Texans have a lot of work to do. Maybe the coaching change, different system, and a replacement for Newton will help.
Wade Smith (LG) is FA, will not be brought back and is another OL hole that will need to be filled this offseason.
2 rookies...quessenberry and b.williams are both as good as advertised. They can handle the job. Just not RT. Need a RT.
Q looked good in the preseason. It seemed likely that he would have eventually won a starting job on that line. If not at LG then at RT. There was some concern about him fitting into a power running scheme, but if we're sticking with the ZBS, then I don't have a problem penciling him in as Wade Smith's replacement. I don't think we can say anything about Williams at this time. He got injured in OTA's, missed almost all of camp and only played in the last preseason game before being put on IR. I can't remember seeing him play at all. He's more of a question mark. PFF re-confirms to me that Brooks is better than a lot of Texans fans give him credit for. If you believe Quessenberry can be an effective LG, then a lot of the line problems can be solved simply by drafting a RT to compete with Williams. Let the loser be the "swing tackle". I wouldn't be shocked to see huge improvement in the OLine play next season.
The OL pretty obviously started to mail it in by the season's midpoint. Once Schaub torched our chances at a winning record and Kubiak completely lost the locker room, this was the unit that flat out gave up. Including Brown. Good news is, a new coach, new season, and new QB might inject a little care back into things. Smith and Newton should be finished on the starting line. We'll have to see what Quessenberry and Williams can do. Also need to accept that they'll need some time to settle - not a plug and play position unless you're talking about high first rounders. An improved TE position (1 and 2) would take some pressure off the line Biggest thing will be what blocking scheme O'Brien wants to implement. I'm not convinced the ZBS is going to stick around, but we'll see. If we change, the personnel almost have to be turned over. This sort of overreaction is silly. Exactly how much do you think he's hurting our cap? He's not worthy of remaining as a starter....but that doesn't somehow make him worse than the laughably pathetic duo of Andrew Gardner or Ryan Harris. Newton as a backup is perfectly fine.
He'll be playing LT. Nobody drafts long term RT's that high. We suck at RT, I get it, but in the grand scheme of thing RT isn't the most important position in the world. It is what it is.
Interesting to see how little correlation there is to offensive line vs quality of the team. 3 teams ranked in the 20's made the playoffs (KC, Indy, Seattle), as did 3 teams in the top 10 (Denver, Cinci, Philly).
Interesting to see their opinion of Brandon Brooks. I didn't remember hearing his name much this season, which is usually a good thing for O-linemen. I will be very curious to see what kind of blocking scheme O'Brien utilizes. What did he do at Penn State?
https://www.profootballfocus.com/blog/2013/12/19/secret-superstars-week-15-2/ [rquoter]No, it hasn’t been a good year in Houston. That much is obvious in a season where they began as Super Bowl contenders but have ended up leading the race for the first overall pick in 2014 and have already fired former head coach Gary Kubiak. Still, in a season that’s gone so poorly, there have been some highlights. The most notable of those is the incomparable J.J. Watt, but if you cast your eyes to the other side of the trenches, you’ll find a young guard who is having a very strong end of the year push. A second-round draft pick a year ago, Brandon Brooks (+5.4) rotated in during the latter part of the 2012 season, and has really kicked on as a full-time starter in 2013. Sunday marked the highest graded game of his career, but it’s worth noting that he’s had just four negatively graded games all year and currently sits as our 10th-ranked guard in 2013, so he’s not just a one-game wonder. It was a particularly impressive performance on Sunday, though, where he consistently got to linebackers either on pull blocks or just heading straight to the second level. It wasn’t anything flashy, and he wasn’t driving defenders to the ground, but watch what he does on 1st-and-10 with 14:56 remaining in the game. Meeting linebacker Kelvin Sheppard on the pull block to his left, he locks on and drives him back to widen the running lane. Definitely a player who has impressed in his second year in the league.[/rquoter] Note that at this point in the season, they had Brooks rated as the 10th best guard in the league. Not RG, just guard. Not bad, and it was only his 2nd year.
Quarterback and pass rush have a far greater impact on wins and losses than offensive line play. If your quarterback has good pocket presence and accuracy under pressure, he will mask bad offensive line play. On the flip side, if your pass rush can disrupt the opposing QB's ability to make reads and be accurate, you will mask his ability to make plays.
It's as if they sought out to rank each player individually then combine their score instead of focusing on how the unit performed as whole. As a cohesive function that gave the team an advantage. I don't care if some of the players rated well on those high ranking lines, they weren't necessarily good as a whole.
This ranking system is worthless. My team (Redskins) ranked 3rd on their list. Whenever they rank our pass blocking better then our run blocking something is wrong there. They add up each linemans productivty and get an average which is not the way to do it. The reason being, LT Trent Williams has over 70% of the productivity of the Oline himself. Ok so the ROLB.RE will have a hard time getting to the QB/stopping the run, but what about the LG/C/RG/RT? Did they not watch the two Giants games? Justin Tuck made our RG his b****. Had like 7 or 8 sacks in our 2 games. Just use the original ranking you had in your head for your team before even looking at this list.
