Building a Better Line: The Best of the Best

I've long felt that the most important battles on a football field are among the eight to ten players who we hear the least about: the offensive and defensive lines.

Offensive linemen often find themselves among the least heralded players in the league.

Most writers will tell you that the Pro Bowl for offensive linemen is decided by reputation alone. This is true, but largely because there's just no easy to quantify stats about the success of an offensive line. Tackles just don't score touchdowns or gain rushing yards.

The defensive line has to go through similar pains. But when a defensive lineman makes a fantastic play, he may get a sack or a tackle for a loss and earn the praise. If an offensive lineman keeps a dominant pass rusher at bay for the entire game, he is rarely applauded beyond his own locker room.

Here are New England Patriots LT Matt Light's stats (via Football Reference). There's not enough there to fill a trading card.

The glory of an offensive lineman is only that which is reflected off his better-known teammates and their success. To that end, if I were doing a "fantasy" draft of an offensive line to go out and compete, here's what my lineup would be.

It should be noted that while I'm trying to pick who I believe are the best performing players at their position currently, I'm not picking purely in a vacuum here I'm picking players whose talents complement each other. (I.E. picking the five biggest guys who can pass block but can't run block worth a lick isn't going to help my fictional running back.)

On we go:

Left tackle: Joe Thomas, Cleveland Browns

The left tackle has become a glory position of sorts in the past two decades. Michael Lewis recently chronicled this transition in his book The Blind Side, and even he admits that the left tackle only became that glory position—with all the attention, high draft value, and huge contracts that come with it—when players like LB Lawrence Taylor of the New York Giants forced them to become even more specialized and prized players.

Joe Thomas is the result of that specialization. He's a monster at 6'6'' and 305 Lbs., which is actually a lower weight than what he's probably playing at. Still, he's incredibly quick and can stay with even the small, fast defensive ends and linebackers while also being able to splay out into the flat for screens and move into the second level to decimate smaller linebackers.

It may seem odd taking a guy who was on a 4-12 team that was hardly phenomenal on offense, but look at the schedule: played Baltimore and Pittsburgh twice, the NFC East, and the AFC South.

Sacks aren't necessarily the best judge of a defense's pass rushing ability, but of the top six teams in the category from last year, Cleveland played five of them (and two against Pittsburgh) and Thomas gave up only two sacks in those games.

Right Tackle: Jon Runyan, Free Agent (Philadelphia Eagles, 2008)

(Update: Originally had Stacy Andrews here. I ran the adjusted line yards against my perceptions of the Eagles, the Eagles rushing numbers from last year to his side, and the various scouting reports I could find on him and ultimately chose him. Of course, he didn't play for the Eagles last year, so that's a pretty flawed argument and his numbers in Cincinnati were, well, awful. His brother, Shawn Andrews, plays for the Eagles at right guard and I confused the two. Long story short, I'm an idiot.)

This was, by far, the weirdest position to choose in this entire article, made moreso by the fact that the guy who best fit the profile I was looking for didn't actually compile that profile.

What was even more surprising was that Runyan was the guy who actually put up the numbers. Runyan is slow. Real slow. But he's a very solid RT, incredibly durable, and plays through everything.

While he's got a reputation as an effective pass blocker that is both aggressive and athletic, he had a phenomenal year last year in opening up running lanes. The Eagles played a tough schedule and consistently failed to get at least 4 yards on first down rushes (30th in the league at that mark), yet they managed to still open up running lanes in later downs.

This is a choice made all the more weird because Runyan is 35 and I think you'd be mad to sign him for anything but RT depth for the veteran minimum. But if I'm picking up a RT, the 2008 version of Runyan is one hell of an asset and, the general consensus on his career aside, a solid run blocker when need be.

Left Guard: Steve Hutchinson, Minnesota Vikings

The guy responsible for opening up those big running lanes for Adrian Peterson to crash through also happens to be one of the best left guards in the league. He's certainly the most decorated guy on this list with six Pro Bowls and four(!) first-team All-Pro selections.

Reputation, indeed, but in this case it's well earned.

It's not just Peterson that he's been doing great work for. Chester Taylor has benefited greatly from Hutchinson's blocks as well in his time there, putting up his best season (1200 yards, six TDs) in his first year in Minnesota in 2006.

The pass protection numbers haven't been great, but when you're protecting Tarvaris Jackson, I can't expect too much.

Right Guard: Brandon Moore, New York Jets

If you didn't believe me about reputation being almost everything for an offensive lineman in this league, check out the disparity between the Jets' success running left behind perennial Pro Bowler Alan Faneca, whom they gave a 5 year, $40 million contract last year, and running right behind Brandon Moore and Damien Woody.

Now, Woody's a tidy right tackle, so it's hard to really isolate this too much (especially since FO doesn't isolate guards and centers) but going to the left behind Faneca, the Jets are dead last in the league. Going to the middle they're third, and first overall in adjusted yards going further right. That isn't all luck, and it sure isn't all Thomas Jones.


Center: Jeff Saturday, Indianapolis Colts

This was the toughest choice, I feel, because it's so hard to really tell how good a center is compared to his peers. Saturday has probably the hardest job on the field for his team, trying to organize an offensive line and their blocking assignments when the guy behind him is constantly changing the play.

Through all that, the Colts gave up the least adjusted yards in pass protection and just 13 sacks all season.

While their running game wasn't quite as prolific, especially going up the middle, I can't lay all that blame on Saturday. It's simply too hard to isolate centers on specific running plays because, much of the time, they are involved in double teams of onrushing defenders rather than one-on-one blocks.

Extra Analysis

So there's my list. The anomaly I discovered in this really just ends up proving my earliest point: that it's really hard to pick out individual success in the offensive line.

Look at the rushing/pass protection stats of New Orleans, the Giants and The Patriots and it's easy to see that those teams enjoyed phenomenal offensive line play to complement their talented backfields, despite not having ideal size and strength along the line.

How much those stats are due to the strength of their offenses is certainly debatable, but all those lines succeed despite lacking the players that are truly the top of their class at their position.

They all have talent, to be sure.

You'd be hard pressed to find a GM or head coach who wouldn't love to have a Shaun O'Hara, Chris Snee, or Matt Light playing for him. But none of those guys is Jonathon Ogden or Orlando Pace in stature. To be fair, I easily could've put anyone on the Giants or Patriots' left side up there, but in terms of individual talent, coupled with unit production, you really can't beat Hutchinson and Thomas.

And although all those units had success pass blocking and were very effective going to the left side, their success is a better function of their abilities as a group than their individual talent, anyway.

So while individual talent is always a major determining factor in the success of an NFL team, the offensive line is one of the most unique groups on the field in the way they are judged, the way they interact on each and every play, and their ability to overcome the physical disadvantages that often doom players at other positions on the field.

So even if those lines lack the guy scouts drool over, they may be the best lines in the game today.

Although I'd wager that a line of Thomas-Hutchinson-Saturday-Moore-Runyan (2008 version) would give them a run for their money any day.