I think this puts into perspective where our O-line actually is. Bottom top 10.
We should be ahead of the Rams though.
Doesnât that list have the Lions line at number 10 overall? Not bottom 10?
2 Likes
No, I meant towards the bottom of the top 10. I donât think we should be 10 though. I think we should be 9, because I think weâre better than the Rams.
I was one of those who thought we had a top 3 O-line. What I was saying is this list shows those people that weâre actually towards the bottom of the top 10.
1 Like
PFF does this thing that is one of my pet peeves. They assign numbers to subjective judgements and then act like the assignment of numbers somehow turns their opinions into objective measurements.
4 Likes
10. DETROIT LIONS
Itâs fair to be optimistic about Detroit building one of the best offensive lines in the NFL.
Left tackle Taylor Decker is coming off career-highs in overall grade (82.0) and pass-blocking grade (85.8) while ranking 12th overall among tackles last season. Heâs ranked above average in both pass blocking and run blocking since entering the league in 2016.
The Lions will trot out rookie Penei Sewell at right tackle after drafting him with the seventh overall pick. He was the top offensive tackle on the PFF draft board. Sewell posted the highest grade weâve seen from a true freshman and the highest overall grade for any offensive tackle since 2014 prior to his opting out of the 2020 season. Sewell has the tools and production to become one of the better all-around tackles in the league very soon.
Center Frank Ragnow has improved in all three of his NFL seasons, headlined by an 80.3 grade last season, the third-best mark among centers. Ragnow allowed half as many pressures last season as he did in 2019 on just about the same number of snaps.
Guard is the biggest question mark for the Lionsâ offensive line. 2020 third-rounder Jonah Jackson started at left guard last year, but his 57.0 overall grade ranked just 58th out of 84 qualifiers. Jackson showed plenty of potential as a pass protector in college, so the hope is that his 67th-ranked 51.2 pass-blocking grade will improve. Halapoulivaati Vaitai is the starter at right guard, where he performed well on 282 snaps a year ago. Vaitai has spent most of his career at right tackle, but his power is a better fit at guard, which should mitigate some of his pass-blocking woes.
The Lions appear to have built the foundation of an excellent offensive line for the foreseeable future.
1 Like
I think itâs a fair assessment based on Jackson being merely average at best as a rookie. He âmayâ blossom, he has the tools to be good, but you canât start talking âtop 5â with where he and Vaitai are at based on what weâve actually seen. Sewell was my top target in the 1st round and we stole him. I see the potential to be Ogden. But this would be the 3rd out of a 5 man unit that we havenât seen it yet. It wouldnât shock me, if next season we dump Vaitai and his contract and Stenberg cracks the starting role at either OG spot. Decker/Ragnow/Sewell âshouldâ be foundational studs, but weâll have to see where it all shakes out.
3 Likes
so we should be top 10.
Yep. Especially problematic on the OL when they donât know the assignments.
Austin Blythe signed with KC for $990,000. He played OG in 2018 and 2019 and would have been a cheap backup for center and would have competed for a job at OG. He had 1 penalty last season and was unsigned until early April. His rating at OG in 2018 was pretty good I believe, not sure why we didnât at least look at it. However, they may have lucked out with Drake JacksonâŚ
Hopefully he and fellow team mate and former Wildcat Logan Stenberg, who was the invisible player for the Lions last season, can be valuable depth and possible starters. I doubt that Jackson pushes Ragnow as a starter but moving to OG he might be in play.
Having another center who made line calls is a good thing.
There is no doubt that Crosby is solid depth but I personally hope that he gets moved for a player of need for us later in the season, traded to a team that is in the hunt. Dan Skipper has been in the league since 2017 w/o being able to stick, at this point I would rather get a guy with some ceiling. The same is true for C Evan Brown who has been in the league since 2018.
When the rubber hits the road I think how the OL plays will rest mostly on Sewell being able to adjust to both the NFL and RT. Expecting a smooth transition isnât realistic but possible, I hope it is. At least we got a decent blocking TE in Fells who can step right in and help if needed.
I always appreciate your input, bro. Youâre stuff is always among my favorite to read. I am with you - I think The OL is fairly young, and wouldnât be surprised to see them go many directions at guard, next offseason.
Restructure Vatai to something that makes more financial sense
OR
More likely cut Vatai as a cap casualty
If we cut Vatai, is his replacement on the roster? Do we draft a replacement in the first 3 rounds? Young FA that can be a piece for the future?
What if we go monster DE in the firstâŚOG in the 2nd, and WRs come from rounds 3 and below? How much meltdown would that cause in the fanbase? LOL.
The lack of reading the name Stenberg so far this season is a tad disturbing. By meaning that he was a good draft pick and was a damn good collegian.
1 Like
This is a pet peeve of mine, but in the business world. There are so many decision models out there that claim to âremove biasâ or âcreate better, quantitative decisionsâ because they use some weighted calculation system⌠but they all start with people arbitrarily assigning numbers to some potential solution. And then if the end solution isnât what you want, you just go back and re-adjust the initial assigned numbers, and viola!- itâs an âunbiasedâ system that always gives the results you want!
2 Likes
The new staff wonât know anything about Stenberg until the full pads come on in training camp in August. Canât learn much about o-linemen playing in shorts and t-shirts.
Right tackle Rob Havenstein enjoyed a bounceback 2020 after an uncharacteristically poor 2019. His 80.6 overall grade tied for 14th
David Edwards had a strong second season at left guard, grading out at 70.5 overall â 18th-best among guards.
Brian Allen returns as the starting center. We last saw him in 2019 when he graded out at just 58.6 overall, including a 45.4 grade in pass protection. Heâs replacing the departed Austin Blythe, who was solid in 2020.
Umm . . . how exactly are the Rams ranked 8th with a handful of guys in the bottom half of the league?
1 Like
The Rams have McVay⌠and everything he touches turns into gold⌠
What could go wrong with a OLT that will turn 40yo during the season???
Iâm telling ya, ole Matty Stafford is going to be running for his life. Whatâs the over/under on how many games he last before he gets hurt?
1 Like
Work is where this irritation started for me, too. It became especially common during the heyday of Six Sigma at Dow (my former employer).
The one silver lining is that those of us who understood how numbers worked could take advantage of it when needed.
Thanks bro. Lynn has worked with some plodders like Forrest Lamp who started for him at LG last year, Cyrus Kouandjio in Buffalo. So I donât think we have to have Alex Gibbs type personnel even though weâll run zone and man. Stenberg flat mauled people in the run game and though he doesnât have sweet feet, he was also a wall against the pass. Iâd like to see what he has. Interesting that we picked up his running mate from UK Drake Jackson who was a stud at Center and a great run blocker even though heâs undersized. Vaitai mostly sucked last year at RT, but supposedly was hurt and that was affecting his play. Maybe in this system and sandwiched between Ragnow and Sewell can be just what we need there. TBD.
2 Likes
Yep ⌠a pet peeve of mine as well. Iâve brought this up in threads before. There are some posters that put a lot of weight into what they say however. Iâve had a few debates on this subject.
I once supplied a quote by Bill B. where he made a comment that he had thought an OL player played poorly too until he looked at the play calls and verified who had what assignments before he realized the problem was elsewhere. He pointed out that no one can properly judge a player unless they know the assignment. This was in response to someone quoting PFF stats on a player.
Then you have to realize how PFF grades. They use a 3rd party, overseas company, who know nothing about football to grade every play. They then use senior analysts to spot check that work and provide insight on the grades. These senior analysts know football but like Bill B. said they canât know the play. Therefore they canât judge it.
Needless to say the grades are heavily subjective and are heavily influenced by the senior analysts opinions. Which could be way off base to begin with.
They then take these extremely subjective and opinion-based stats and push them off as facts to create articles and narratives that they control.
Worse part is that fans buy into it and treat them as factual. When the truth is they are complete fiction and nothing more than someones opinion.
Bill B. had been very vocal over the years about how these analytics company are not reliable info. I tried to find that quote from Bill again and couldnât but I found a few others.
âWith all due respect to those websites, I donât really know how some of that information is determined or evaluated,â Belichick said on WEEI Tuesday, via CSN New England. âI know that in the past, weâve looked at those websites â not any one in particular â but just in general weâve looked at those websites and said, âOK, hereâs their top rated guy. Where are we?â just to kind of gauge where we feel like the value of the websites are. If theyâre rating them the same as we are, maybe thatâs something we need to keep a close eye on so we can start to track a lot of guys. If thereâs some big discrepancy, is there really any value to that? Iâd say a lot of that stuff is not real accurate, so take it with a grain of salt.â
The reporter explained: advanced statistics, analytics, next-gen stats.
âWhat the hell is that?â Belichick said. âI mean, you can take those advanced websites and metric them in whatever you want. I donât know. I have no idea. Iâve never looked at one. I wouldnât even care to look at one. I donât even care what they say.â
On the Analytics subject and Bill B. I recall an article I once read where Bill B. said that he loves to mess with the metrics on these analytics sites by doing stuff to screw with them. I couldnât find that article either but basically what he said was he would call and design a play just to screw up the analytics stats so that they are unreliable ⌠lol