Offensive line play in the NFL

[Valuist]

Watching the Cards/Rams game last night, one thing has become apparent: offensive line play has never been worse. One would think lineman would be better at pass blocking now since the college game has become much more passer-friendly over the past 20 years. I heard one talent scout claim that he'd grade at least 10 teams D or F in their pass blocking.

Why? A friend of mine claims it stems from the new(er) collective bargaining agreement. Far more limited contact in practice nowadays; teams and players spend very little time on fundamentals. Similarly, we saw some real bad tackling in week 1.

[Robert Fischer]

could be ^^


The d-lineman are also a lot more athletic. A good offensive lineman often gets dominated, but hangs on for more than a couple seconds.

Passer Friendly --> however the TE is now a glorified big receiver who goes down the seam or subs out for a WR, RBs are over-matched and/or sent out in the flats. And the D-Line is basically pass rushing upfield almost every down.


I agree that even the good teams have struggled in protection.

There are also a lot of teams without the coaching or players to be a top passing team who insist on Airing it out.

With the speed of the game and no blocking schemes(a spread offense) a QB has to go right through his progression(s) and instantly make decision. Even better if he can feel the pocket break down and shuffle away from the heat...
If QB and coaches aren't up to that task it can get ugly.

[Robert Fischer]

The NFL is kind of a joke with all this passing...

in week 4:

14 QBs had 300YARDS or more! :D
15 if you include Josh Freeman's 299yards...

5 had 350yards or more

Brees had 446 and Tannehill had 431
(both in separate games, both wk 4 losing efforts)


300 yards in a game used to be sort of an elite achievement reserved for the best efforts, or the occasional losing effort comeback attempt(usually by good QBs).
Now if you don't throw for 300 yards you were mediocre...

[Valuist]

The NFL is kind of a joke with all this passing...

in week 4:

14 QBs had 300YARDS or more! :D
15 if you include Josh Freeman's 299yards...

5 had 350yards or more

Brees had 446 and Tannehill had 431
(both in separate games, both wk 4 losing efforts)


300 yards in a game used to be sort of an elite achievement reserved for the best efforts, or the occasional losing effort comeback attempt(usually by good QBs).
Now if you don't throw for 300 yards you were mediocre...

Its not an accident both those 400 yard passing efforts were in losing efforts. A lot of the big passing yardage games comes in catchup situations.

[Stillriledup]

The O line is permitted to hold all day long also. NFL looks the other way most times because they want their stars (the QBs) to be safe and not get knocked out for the year. So, knowing holding happens all the time, its amazing that the D lineman are pushing around so many O lineman.

[Robert Goren]

This year it seems a lot more O lines are struggling than last year. Maybe it is just a lot of injuries. or may be nobody is scared of the run any more. Cuttler went go off his left tackle a couple weeks ago after the guy never made a block all day, I was wonder why the people were giving Cuttler so much grief. That left tackle should be taking his paycheck with his hand behind his back. The GB line nearly got Rodgers killed in Seattle the other night. It looks like there may be only 3 or 4 decsent O lines this year. It seems to O linemen are being babied by the coaches these day as much wide recievers. Nobody gets chewed out for missing a block or dropping a pass in the NFL anymore.