Best Power Offensive Line in the NFL: Competition in Camps Will Be Fierce; Andre Smith Still Has Work To Do

by Josh Kirkendall on May 18, 2010 9:54 AM EDT in Analysis

Ah, the offensive line. I love those beasties. They are the pure definition of football. Quarterbacks? Running backs? Wide receivers? Sure, they have all the glitz, the glamour and the joy of being more recognized as the popular players in the game. But without the offensive line, there is not glitz, no glamour, no television shows or Twitter accounts worth following.

According to Football Outsiders -- those wacky guys with obsessive statistical analysis -- the Bengals overall adjusted line yards ranked 24th in the NFL (basically advanced statistics regarding the team's rushing offense). However, when it came to Power Success, "percentage of runs on third and fourth down, two yards or less to go, that achieved a first down or a touchdown" (which also includes runs on first-and-goal and second-and-goal from the two-yard line), the Bengals were the best, converting 79%. Furthermore, the team's adjusted sack rate "which gives sacks (plus intentional grounding penalties) per pass attempt adjusted for down, distance, and opponent", ranked 10th in the NFL.

Player	Snaps	Sacks	Hits	Pressure
Kyle Cook	1,093	1	4	11
Bobbie Williams	1,096	3	1	10
Evan Mathis	610	0	5	3
Nate Livings	486	0	1	7
Andrew Whitworth	1,084	5	6	13
Anthony Collins	396	3	2	6
Dennis Roland	722	7	3	8
Andre Smith	115	0	0	0
Stats provided by Pro Football Focus

In reality, the Bengals keep stacking themselves with quality offensive line talent, even using two of their 2010 NFL draft picks on offensive linemen. Unlike last year, which was a gross experimentation on how to make the line to resemble quality, the Bengals are in a far superior position, affording themselves position battles are several spots on the line.

One of the more position battles of interest will start at right tackle; nothing is certain. Andre Smith is still healing his broken foot, a process that was finished after offseason surgery this year, Paul Alexander says that Dennis Roland "is going to be there at the start." However, Alexander, rightly so, doesn't want to announce any sort of depth chart yet, considering all of the battles that will take place on the offensive line from now until the start of the season. But if you ask me (and you didn't), it's Smith's to lose.

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My suggestion to Alexander

Each day of practice have the caterers (ok., more like the junior high school lunch ladies that get hired at camp to prepare meals) bring out a nice big plate of ribs and chicken breasts, all barbqued to perfection.

Anyone on the line that blows a scheme or gets any sort of penalty has to eat tofu and salad while the rest get to eat BBQ in front of them.

by UpStateMike on May 18, 2010 10:57 AM EDT reply actions

We would have the best O-line in the NFL..

great idea except for the Tofu, give them Activia…. That will make them shit themselves, if they eat to much of it…. LOL

by WHYUS!! on May 18, 2010 12:46 PM EDT up reply actions

Andre Smith would be an All Pro

while losing half of his game checks for failing to keep his weight under 350. A win-win for everyone except Andre’s agent.

by Cedric Benson Boat Party on May 18, 2010 1:05 PM EDT up reply actions

Right Tackle

It looks like Right Tackle was more of a problem spot last year than I realized.

Whitworth gave up a sack every 200 snaps against the opposing teams best sackers. Cook, Livings and Mathis did better than I expected giving up only 1 sack in 2000 snaps. Even though it was against the opposing teams nose tackles, still pretty impressive. Williams was ok giving up 1 per 300 snaps. The drop-off came at right tackle with 1 sack per 100 snaps. Smith didn’t give up any in his 100 snaps.

Smith starting could take 10 sacks off the total next year, which combined with improved targets for Carson should vastly improve the passing game.

Earlier someone mentioned (in a different post) that Carson hasn’t been going through his progressions. Now we see that it could be because he constanly saw pressure from his throwing side and had to hurry his throw. This could explain a lot of our passing woes.

by jim0ijk on May 18, 2010 11:27 AM EDT reply actions

I meant to say

that Collins and Roland combined for 1 sack per 100 snaps at right Tackle.

by jim0ijk on May 18, 2010 11:37 AM EDT up reply actions

True

I’d imagine if Andre comes along as anticipated and cuts the right tackle number down coupled with the overall improvement that will come with the line having continuity and more experience should allow Carson to just feel more comfortable with the protection and develop better trust.

by Cedric Benson Boat Party on May 18, 2010 1:08 PM EDT up reply actions

This is why I am not a big fan of Bobbie Williams

though — he wasn’t that great.

They give a lot of help to the right side with the tight end. But it would be good to see the numbers for that broken out — how often did Whit have any help vs Roland?

by occams_tiger_teeth on May 19, 2010 2:47 AM EDT up reply actions

The most telling stats are

1.) The amount of Pressures. Though they are better than sacks, this affects Carson’s accuracy, obviously.

2.) Dennis Roland’s amount of sacks and pressures vs. Andre Smith’s. Granted, Roland played about 6 times the amount of snaps that Andre did, if Dr. Jiggles can stay healthy, there’s no way that he shouldn’t be the starter on the right side.

The O-Line will be improved with another year under it’s belt, but I wonder by how much. If they can make the leap in pass protection in 2010 in the same way that they did with run blocking in 2009, they will be a dominant unit.

by Anthony Cosenza on May 18, 2010 11:30 AM EDT reply actions

Not sure what this line is

last year to me it looked like palmer was rushing a lot, it looked like when he dropped back he had little time to throw, that was evident by the amount of rushing yards he had early on also, however, I’m hoping that with the great rushing attack coupled with the new receivers we have, the line can form a pocket so we can get some play action going, we need that to go down the field, just something we didn’t have last year, I’m hoping to have Andre on the line to help solidify it and take us deep into the playoffs, hopefully super bowl bound baby

by whodeydoc on May 18, 2010 12:54 PM EDT reply actions

need to put those offensive line stats in context

1) for power rushing we used an unbalanced line a lot which probably gooses the power stats a little, however, on third & fourth downs its not like a beefed up line should have surprised the defense too much. But certainly, it was something teams hadn’t necessarily seen before. Also, I think that’s where Benson truly excels (not breakaway runs, but always getting something), so I’d say line was probably more a top 10 power running line than the best.

2) obviously the passing game was treated with kid gloves last year. lots of quicker drops so that makes the sack and pressure stats look better than the actual protection. you can see this in the fact that we were in 11th in most passes attempted had the 6th fewest total yards.

We have an OK offensive line that will hopefully improve at LT (Whit with more reps), RT (Andrew with more reps), and C (Kyle with more reps). Bobbie will likely decline in ability (only slightly) from here on out and LG is a total unknown in my opinion. The line is guilty until proven innocent still, sorry.

by Sleeping With Bieniemy on May 18, 2010 1:29 PM EDT reply actions

Good points!

Blogger at CincyJungle.com -- SB Nation Cincinnati Bengals blog.

by Josh Kirkendall on May 18, 2010 2:46 PM EDT up reply actions

If whitworth gave up 5 sacks...?

Why does hobson keep saying he only gave up 1?..

by Tdlong85 on May 18, 2010 1:32 PM EDT reply actions

Coaches didn’t credit him with the other four, they presumably blamed either the TE or the guard for the sack. Other stat people felt differently.

by FriarBob on May 18, 2010 10:27 PM EDT up reply actions

You left out a fairly significant stat.

Penalties, especially holding.

by BamaBengal on May 18, 2010 2:22 PM EDT reply actions

Agreed

Whit was one of the more penalized players in the NFL last year, though mostly false starts.

by jim0ijk on May 18, 2010 4:14 PM EDT up reply actions

that's why I added it as the first Pavlonian reponse.

I’m telling you what Brat needs to do.

Reward mistake free practice through food incentives. Trust me. If Whit or anyone else has to go all day during practice just eating tofu and salad, esp while watching (hopefully) others eating BBQ ribs and chicken, they’ll get the message loud and clear.

by UpStateMike on May 18, 2010 5:10 PM EDT up reply actions