Rating the Redskins' O-Line

Want to shout, “Cerrato, hey, Vinny -- what about the offensive line? Why not select a lineman with one of the 3 second-round picks? Did we really need another tight end?”

The Washington Redskins offensive line is much maligned lately after giving up 10 sacks in back-to-back losses to Pittsburgh & Dallas.

Ever wonder how the Skins’ O-line compares to the rest of the NFL?

Very hard to measure statistically as the only readily available stats are rushing yards and sacks allowed.

Many other factors should be taken into account like Philly would rather pass than run while Minnesota can’t put the ball in the hands of Adrian Peterson enough, or the Jet’s Brett Favre isn’t as mobile as Jacksonville’s David Garrard, and there are teams with porous defenses, which means the offense often has to abandon the run.

Here is how the numbers below work. Take the team rankings for rushing yards and fewest sacks and combine them. This is not rocket science; in fact, it is not science at all. However, its gives us a measurement that produced some interesting results.

Team Yards Rank Sacks Rank Total
1 NY Giants 1,727 1 12 6 7
2 Tennessee 1,327 7 6 1 8
2 Atlanta 1,534 2 12 6 8
4 Carolina 1,337 6 13 9 15
5 Baltimore 1,468 3 18 13 16
6 Tampa Bay 1,151 14 11 4 18
7 Denver 1,089 18 8 2 20
8 Dallas 1,159 13 17 12 25
8 NY Jets 1,251 9 19 16 25
10 Redskins 1,394 5 26 22 27

28 49 ers 1,095 17 36 30 47
29 St Louis 959 25 32 26 51
30 Pittsburgh 998 23 35 29 52
31 Detroit 809 31 37 31 62
31 Bengals 837 30 38 32 62


Now we understand better why the New York Giants and Tennessee have the best records in football. On the top of the list of surprises is Atlanta, maybe we should stop giving credit to rookie quarterback Matt Ryan and start giving it to the O-line. How about Pittsburgh? The Steelers are only ahead of Detroit & Cincinnati. How is that possible?

Despite all of the obvious missed variables that go into making a great offensive line, there was hope of finding some secrets to success of line building by looking at the top four O-lines, as they all rank in the top 10 in both rushing and fewest sacks. Want to shout to Vinny, “Look how it’s done.”

Well, healthy is a big plus. Both the Giants and Tennessee lines have started all 10 games, while Atlanta had 4 ten-game starters. Both Redskins tackles Steven Heyer and Chris Samuels have missed games, but they do have 3 10-game starters.

Giant’s average age is 29. Tennessee’s is 28, but if you take 15-year center Kevin Mawae away, the age drops to 26, which is the same as Carolina & Atlanta. The Redskins average age is just under 31. If you replace Heyer with Jon Jansen it is over 32.

The Giants also have the team experience as all have been playing for New York since 2005 and Tennessee’s have been on the Titans since 2006. For the Redskins Heyer and guard Pete Kendal came aboard last year.

Tennessee, Atlanta & Carolina were built through the draft as each has 4 home grown starters. The Giants have 3. Samuels is the only starter drafted by the Redskins.

The Redskins’ O-line is a microcosm of the whole team. The line, like the Redskins, is built through free agency. Jansen (1999) and Samuels (2000) are the last high round draft choices. There are 9 linemen, but only 3 were drafted.

The O-line points to what appears to be a design flaw when building with free agents -- age & continuity. This enables a team to be playoff competitive but maybe not a serious title contender. Since Dan Snyder and the “build through the free agency” philosophy took over, the 3 playoff appearances have all been via the wild card. They have never won a division title much less reached a championship game.

Book'em Dano.