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Interior vs Outside


Hunter2_1

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If you had to pick between having a strong interior offensive line, or a strong outside , which would you go for?

Arguments for inside: We're seeing a lot more value placed on interior rush, as QBs release the ball a lot quicker now. As a Patriot fan, I can comment on this as both Denver and NYG have played us absolutely brilliantly in the past by sending pressure through the middle. Chicago's wonderful interior OL last season can be given credit for springing Jordan Howard in their zone running scheme. Whitehair, Long and Sitton played technically brilliant all season, and it resulted in a good year for Howard.

Arguments for outside: It's well known; the value of tackles in protecting your QB from the animals that seek to destroy him. I'll come to my team again, Von Miller almost single handedly ended our 2015 campaign by constantly beating our first, second AND third tackles. Also, the outside can set the edge for a good outside zone run.

A few years ago I would have called this "not even close" (perhaps it still isn't), but I do think with the onset of extremely handy interior pressure, the question can be asked. 

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I'd still say outside. It's a passing league, and the premium pass rushers are still coming from outside. I think if you have strong tackles and a weaker interior, you're more likely to be successful in today's NFL than a strong interior and weaker tackles. 

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Interior, you can scheme for a RB or TE to help block on the outside against elite pass rushers. There's not much you can really do against elite DTs except double teaming them. Plus 3 great lineman>Vs 2 great OTs.

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Great question...a lot will depend on scheme of course...for example when the Saints had Evans & Nicks at OG they were able to short set which gave Brees' not only a great pocket to keep guys out his face but also created natural escape routes which allow him to move around between guard and tackle stepping up to get himself out of trouble and give him better sight lines...we see the Seahawks do that with Wilson as well to compensate for his height and use his athletic ability to the fullest...on the other hand teams with excellent OTs are able to get their RBs & TEs out in passing formations far more which then take rushers away from blitzing or gives your QB easy completions...

I think right now I would probably say interior...simply put the quickest way between two points is a straight line...some of the guys we are seeing playing DT and even NT these days 10 years ago would have been 50lbs lighter and playing LB...you need to be able to keep these guys out of your QBs face or they will destroy the rhythm and timing of your plays...

Having a strong interior is also a bigger benefit in the running game as well.

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7 minutes ago, Madmike90 said:

Great question...a lot will depend on scheme of course...for example when the Saints had Evans & Nicks at OG they were able to short set which gave Brees' not only a great pocket to keep guys out his face but also created natural escape routes which allow him to move around between guard and tackle stepping up to get himself out of trouble and give him better sight lines...we see the Seahawks do that with Wilson as well to compensate for his height and use his athletic ability to the fullest...on the other hand teams with excellent OTs are able to get their RBs & TEs out in passing formations far more which then take rushers away from blitzing or gives your QB easy completions...

I think right now I would probably say interior...simply put the quickest way between two points is a straight line...some of the guys we are seeing playing DT and even NT these days 10 years ago would have been 50lbs lighter and playing LB...you need to be able to keep these guys out of your QBs face or they will destroy the rhythm and timing of your plays...

Having a strong interior is also a bigger benefit in the running game as well.

This is exactly where I am. I think interior pressure is harder to deal with as a QB. You can avoid over-pursuing edge rushers quite often, but once that pocket collapses up it's own **, it's play over. 

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Outside, for me. For a number of reasons. Great interior pass rushers are far less common than great outside rushers. And honestly, good interior pass rushers are less common as well. It's harder to generate a pass rush inside than outside, so that makes me a bit less concerned with preventing a pass rush inside. An interior pass rush can be more disruptive, but it's just not nearly as frequent. Additionally, the QB does have better vision to an interior rush. I think there's generally a greater gap between a great LT/RT and a bad LT/RT, than there is with interior guys. KC had some bad OLs between the great ones in the early 2000s, and the solid one we have now, and it was never the awful G or C that killed us, it was almost always having Jordan Black or Will Svitek starting at one of the OT spots. We could overcome interior holes, but never perimeter ones. I do think the interior would be more beneficial for a run game, but I think it's easier to do some things schematically to open up the run game, than it is to do some things schematically to fix a struggling pass protection. There's some easy things to do to try to boost a struggling pass pro, but they mostly involve adding more players to pass pro, which hurts your passing offense elsewhere.

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inside. 

You get to run the ball up the gut and the qb's pocket wont get destroyed. 

 

With Poor tackles you can always help with a TE(chipping/full on blocking), and if the edge guy gets some heat, the qb can step up in the pocket and buy himself some time. Not much you can do when the middle gets whipped. 

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