The NFL has an offensive line crisis

Does NFL have offensive line problem?

By Bucky Brooks

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000845643/article/does-nfl-have-offensive-line-problem-plus-jared-goffs-growth

“Where are the good offensive linemen?”

When a veteran scout asked me that question at a college game a couple weeks ago, I didn’t give it much thought at the time. I simply thought it was a crusty, old scout complaining about a position group that is undervalued in the public sector but viewed in high regard on the scouting trail. While quarterbacks, pass catchers and running backs dominate the conversation in fantasy football drafts, general managers and scouts around the league still cite offensive tackle — particularly left tackle — as one of the core positions of a championship-caliber squad in real football.

In a league governed by quarterback play, team builders believe protecting the passer is tantamount to success.

“It never changes,” an AFC team’s college scouting director told me. “Everything is built around the quarterback and the passing game. On offense, you’re always trying to find a QB1 — and when you get him, it’s all about keeping him protected and upright in the pocket. … With defenses loading up on pass rushers at defensive end and defensive tackle, you have to keep the edges protected and find a way to stop the leakage on the inside.

“In a perfect world, you would have a pair of offensive tackles that can hold their own in pass protection and find a way to piecemeal the interior. … It’s hard to find five great offensive linemen, but if you can get the right guys in the right spots, you can win a lot of games.”

To that last point, it is easy to see why the Cowboys, Steelers and Raiders field explosive offenses, given that all currently boast sensational lines. Each unit features elite athletes on the edges and nasty, nimble competitors on the inside. Although those teams used different methods to build their respective fronts, the common denominator is the overall athleticism, toughness and physicality that jumps off the screen when you watch them play.

The Cowboys and Steelers possess homegrown units built through astute drafting in successive years. Dallas spent three first-round picks in four years on LT Tyron Smith, C Travis Frederick and RG Zack Martin — and then added RT La’el Collins as an undrafted free agent after a unique and unfortunate circumstances torpedoed the likely first-rounder’s stock. Meanwhile, in one three-year span, the Steelers used a pair of first-round picks on interior blockers (C Maurkice Pouncey and RG David DeCastro) and added RT Marcus Gilbert with a second-round selection. LG Ramon Foster came aboard after going undrafted, while LT Alejandro Villanueva joined Pittsburgh as an unheralded free-agent signee.

On the other hand, the Raiders signed four of their five starting offensive linemen in free agency: LT Donald Penn, LG Kelechi Osemele, C Rodney Hudson and RT Marshall Newhouse. RG Gabe Jackson, Oakland’s third-round pick in a 2014 haul that also included Khalil Mack and Derek Carr, is the one homegrown stud. The Raiders’ front line is the perfect example of a pro department assembling a solid cast of blockers with complementary skills through alternative means.

That’s why I don’t necessarily agree the sentiment that there is a dire lack of quality offensive linemen available. Coaches and scouts with a clear understanding of what they want to play at the position are able to identify proper fits in the draft and free agency. Whether it’s the agile edge blockers with a combination of size, length and body control or the rugged interior blockers with a nasty disposition, the best evaluators are still finding their guys. And that starts with a good plan.

I worked as a scout in Seattle under former Redskins GM Scot McCloughan when he was the Seahawks’ director of college scouting in the early 2000s. I remember him giving me specific instructions when scouting each position. McCloughan told me that offensive tackles needed to have exceptional size, arm length, quickness and flexibility to match the premier pass rushers in the game. He advised me to look for offensive guards with outstanding strength and power. He wanted interior blockers to be able to move defenders off the ball in the running game while also showing the balance and body control to anchor against hard-charging pass rushers. With centers, it was all about their football intelligence and consistency. McCloughan believed they could overcome athletic limitations with their awareness and overall understanding of blocking concepts.

But it’s more than identifying the right kind of guys at each spot — it’s also finding a way to develop them in challenging times. The collective bargaining agreement signed in 2011 severely reduced the amount of practice time teams can have with their players. Also, full-contact practices are quite limited. With other restrictions spelled out in the agreement to limit team drills and one-on-one periods in the offseason program, the NFL doesn’t offer as many opportunities to fully cultivate a young player’s skills as it used to.

“You don’t have enough time to develop guys on the field,” a veteran offensive line coach who’s worked at all levels of the game told me. “Playing on the offensive line requires a lot of reps and you simply don’t have enough opportunities to teach them through live contact. Plus, the padded-practice limitations during the regular season make it harder to prepare young players to get ready for the pro game.”

This is something Arizona Cardinals head coach Bruce Arians pointed to at the 2016 Annual League Meeting when asked to address the declining of offensive lines around the league.

“Yeah, because they don’t get to practice,” Arians told reporters. “Offensive linemen and defensive linemen can’t get better in shorts. And they’re prohibited from going one-on-one. That’s all they do for a living. So of course they’re going to get worse, because we can’t practice. And then only one practice a day in training camp, only one practice a day during the week up until, what, about Week 14? So, it’s extremely hard to get young offensive linemen better. Because they don’t ever get to practice football. They’re not getting any better practicing soccer.

“Since we’ve made the rule changes (in 2011), the quality of the football is going way down.”

In addition to this gripe among NFL coaches and scouts, there has also been plenty of finger-pointing at the college game for failing to supply the NFL with plug-and-play O-linemen. Pro evaluators point to the spread offense as one of the detrimental factors.

“You rarely see offensive linemen in three-point stances,” an NFC scout said to me. “They are always in a two-point stance (in the spread) and they spend most of the game position blocking pass rushers on quick throws. You rarely see them fire off the ball in the run game or execute some of the tasks we will ask them to do at the NFL level.

“It makes the evaluation harder because you’re projecting so much when grading offensive linemen.”

After hearing so much complaining from NFL folks about the quality of line play at lower levels, I reached out to a college coach — who also has experience coaching at the high school level, as well as a brief stint in the CFL — to get his gauge on why it’s been so difficult for NFL coaches to find and develop offensive linemen.

“We have the same challenges as pro coaches,” the college assistant coach told me. “We don’t have a lot of time with the kids and you’re trying to teach them technique and scheme on the run. If they’re talented and have to play early in their careers, we’re trying to get them up to speed on the concepts before we can get the details of footwork and hand placement.

“Granted, we don’t carry as many protections as pro teams, but it’s still tough for a high school kid with limited experience or exposure to grasp high-level concepts. We try to rep it as much as possible, but it’s hard to get them ready for the NFL when I’m struggling to get them ready to play college ball.”

I think that is an important point to remember: College coaches shouldn’t be expected to get their players ready for the next level. The college game is vastly different than the NFL, and pro coaches need to consult their old high school/college coaching manuals to see how they can build functional offensive linemen and effective units.

“They should steal a page from our book and have extra periods for the developmental guys,” the college assistant said. “We have scout team scrimmages and extra individual periods for our young guys to help them hone their skills. If they can add 15 minutes of individualized time for their bottom-of-the-roster players or practice-squad guys, they will see their O-Line improve quickly.”

Another way to improve O-line play is to recruit better athletes to play up front. This is something that the Seattle Seahawks have attempted to do under Tom Cable in recent years with the team converting defensive linemen to blockers. The veteran coach successfully nurtured J.R. Sweezy into a top-notch offensive guard after the ex-N.C. State standout entered the league as a lightly regarded defensive tackle prospect taken in the seventh round. With the veteran assistant also having enjoyed success at the collegiate level with conversions (see: Jeremy Newberry and Tarik Glenn during Cable’s time at Cal), I can’t knock the Seahawks for attempting to flip guys from other positions to the offensive line. Sure, the daring moves elicit eye rolls and snickers from traditionalists, but the prospect of turning an undrafted free agent into a quality starter is a potential game changer for teams with great teachers at the position.

OK, yes: The Seahawks’ offensive line has struggled to keep Russell Wilson upright in the pocket the past few seasons. (Losing Sweezy to a lucrative free-agent deal with the Buccaneers didn’t help.) But that’s missing the larger point here. I believe the conversion model is one that should be considered by others — but with a twist. Instead of focusing on defensive linemen moving over to offense, teams should identify oversized tight ends with the potential to transition to offensive tackle. Tight ends are superior athletes and they’re familiar with the responsibilities in the running game. Not to mention, they have been exposed to blocking edge rushers in one-on-one matchups, which gives them a chance to master the skills in time. Considering how many college teams execute this conversion with recruits and young players, I would steal a page from their playbook to upgrade one of the league’s marquee positions.

“If I had to do a conversion, I would rather move a tight end to offensive tackle because it isn’t foreign to him,” the college assistant told me. “You have to bulk them up, clean up their technique and flip their mentality from being a pass catcher to blocker, but you could uncover a few good players if they are willing to fully buy in.”

In fact, there are already some notable success stories on this front. Jason Peters, Alejandro Villanueva, Garry Gilliam and Nate Solder all successfully transitioned from tight end to offensive tackle as pros or during the later stages in college, so the blueprint is there.

In this pass-happy league, it’s high time for teams to consider every option to build a sustainable fortress around the quarterback.

The Trouble with NFL Offensive Linemen: Bad Starts and Worse Finishes

https://www.si.com/nfl/2017/09/12/trouble-nfl-offensive-linemen-new-york-giants-seattle-seahawks-week-1-no-touchdowns

The Giants and Seahawks both have Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks, excellent defenses and playmakers on offense. And both have high expectations for this season. But neither team could figure out a way to muster a touchdown on Sunday.

Even though it’s just Week 1, it seems fair to ask: Can you really be a contender without a good offensive line?

The epidemic of poor offensive line play is something we are hearing more and more about across the NFL. Some blame the practice rules imposed by the 2011 CBA, which limit both offseason practice time and the number of padded practices in which linemen can get in full-contact reps. Others point to the rise of spread offenses in college, where linemen often aren’t asked to finish blocks or even put their hand in the dirt in a three-point stance.

“That’s a question for the offseason,” Giants coach Ben McAdoo said on Monday, less than 24 hours after his team’s 19-3 season-opening loss to the Cowboys. “We need to find a way to win a ballgame this week and find a way to get better up front in a hurry.”

He’s right—but the key question, now that the season is underway, is how much better can the Giants’ and the Seahawks’ offensive lines really get? The Giants opted to go with the same starting five as last season, despite the unit’s struggles in 2016. They had been banking on left tackle Ereck Flowers, their first-round pick in 2015, taking a big step forward in Year 3. The Seahawks, meanwhile, put stock in another year of experience for their young draft picks, and they signed free agent Luke Joeckel, the former No. 2 overall pick, after the Jaguars let him walk.

The early returns were not pretty. You may have seen that disheartening freeze frame from the Seahawks’ 17-9 loss to the Packers circulating on social media: Russell Wilson on a third-and-10, a good 15 yards behind the line of scrimmage, trying to run away from three Packers defenders. The only thing left to do for the four offensive linemen who got beat was to chase the players chasing their quarterback. Wilson got rid of the ball, completing a throw to tight end Jimmy Graham, for a loss of one yard.

It wasn’t even the worst play of the night—that would be the third-down strip sack of Wilson in the third quarter, on which the game turned for the Packers. Defensive tackle Mike Daniels, who had beaten right guard Mark Glowinski for a sack of Wilson just two plays earlier, this time beat the left guard, Joeckel, with a similar inside move and knocked the ball loose. The Packers recovered on Seattle’s 6-yard line and scored a touchdown on the next snap.

The Giants’ woes up front weren’t quite as dramatic—McAdoo praised Eli Manning for keeping two hands on the ball and not fumbling, which gives you an idea of how often he was in a pressure situation—but they are no less concerning. The Cowboys don’t have a particularly talented front, but Demarcus Lawrence and Charles Tapper looked like Von Miller or Khalil Mack against right guard John Jerry and right tackle Bobby Hart (Hart was hampered by an ankle injury). In particular, the Giants struggled with third-down stunts, a rather routine tactic used by defenses on passing downs. “We had some technical breakdowns,” McAdoo said.

In fairness, both the Giants and the Seahawks lost on the road to defending division champions. The Packers have a talented front seven, and Cowboys defensive coordinator Rod Marinelli has had a track record of getting a performance out of his unit that is greater than the sum of its parts. Also, most coaches will tell you that the defense is always ahead of the offense early in the season, and that the last piece of an offense to come together is usually its pass protection, because of the required unison between several players.

But, for two teams that have the potential to be contenders (and for several others who do not) the play of the offensive line on opening weekend was a glaring weakness. The unit has been a sore point for the Seahawks since the spring of 2015, when, after making their second trip to the Super Bowl in two seasons, they traded All-Pro center Max Unger and a first-round pick to the Saints in exchange for tight end Jimmy Graham. The Giants’ two Super Bowl titles in the past decade featured strong line play on both sides of the ball, but as the stalwarts on those teams slowly faded to retirement, the Giants have struggled to replenish the same quality of play on the offensive line.

The two theories mentioned above—the new practice rules and the rise of collegiate spread offenses—have no doubt played a role in some of the ugly NFL line play. It takes more time for players to adjust from college to pro-style offenses, and they have less practice time to do so. And that’s magnified by the fact that the NFL becomes more and more of a passing league each year. Geoff Schwartz, a seventh-round draft pick out of Oregon in 2008, played eight seasons in the NFL (including two with the Giants) and recalls needing a few months as a rookie to master his three-point stance, and then having to re-work it in the offseason with the help of veteran teammate Jordan Gross. But he was on the practice squad his first season, so he had time to adjust.

“In college, there is so much misdirection, and the tempo is so fast at times, you don’t even have to really block anybody because the defense is so tired,” Schwartz said. “What we’ve really lost in college is the idea of finishing. In the NFL, you have to finish to be an elite offensive lineman. In college, your goal is to get back to the line of scrimmage and snap the ball again. The mentality of not finishing in college hurts you when you get to the NFL.”

Nick Hardwick, who played 11 seasons as the Chargers’ center before retiring in 2014, suggests another theory for the decline in play. “I’ve talked to some nose tackles and defensive tackles around the league who say the craftiness from offensive linemen is dissipating,” he said. “Guys understand the basics of the game—hat placement, eye placement, footwork, hands—but they don’t understand the nuances that take their game to the next level. The subtleties of having a personal game plan for how to set up your opponent, so you are not countering his moves, he’s countering yours.”

What about the teams that have had success up front? The Cowboys and the Titans, for example, have invested high draft picks in players with experience playing in pro-style offenses at the college level. The Raiders, on the other hand, spent a lot of money in free agency over the last few years to build a line that is among the best in the league. These teams have not only invested the resources, but so far they seem to have used them wisely. In the 2016 draft, for example, the Titans traded up to pick tackle Jack Conklin from Michigan State at No. 8 overall. Last season, he was named first team All-Pro. A year earlier, the Giants stayed put at No. 10 to draft Flowers, who has immense physical talent but had some technique issues coming out of Miami that he’s yet to overcome.

That’s not to say Flowers, and some of the other young players on the Seattle and New York lines, won’t take steps forward this season. Take the case of Eric Fisher, the No. 1 overall pick in 2013, who struggled early on and was even demoted from his left tackle job as recently as two years ago. He bounced back and has developed into a solid left tackle who earned a four-year contract extension last summer. The Chiefs offensive line has emerged as one of the better units in the league and was key to the team’s upset win over the Patriots last Thursday.

McAdoo said they’d consider lineup changes, or tweaks to the scheme to give the offense a better chance up front. Of course, players who have been there before say there’s only so much you can do at this point in the season. If there’s just one weak spot on the line, coaches can scheme to send extra help his direction with running backs or tight ends chipping, and by having the QB get rid of the ball quickly. But both the Giants and Seahawks have shown flaws at multiple positions up front.

“At some point, they are going to run into a unit on the other side of the ball that is going to be able to pierce that front and make it an absolute nightmare for either Russell Wilson or Eli Manning,” Hardwick said. “By having a poor offensive line, you cap off the potential of your team.”

That’s the big question both teams are facing this season. With the season already underway, can they raise the level of play on their offensive line or make enough adjustments in order to make a deep playoff run? Or, will their performance up front yet again hold them back this season? It’s an important question, and one that’s becoming even more important in today’s NFL.