Bucs offensive line performance ‘19

[indifference]

I would say the 2019 Offensive Line pretty clearly performed better this year than the 2018 Offensive Line:

1)  Cappa was the 2nd best “weak link” in the NFL (worst graded player on an NFL OL).  That is a HUGE increase in play by itself.

 

2)  DSmith was bad in the run game but this was his best year in Pass Protection by far.

 

3)  Jensen was MASSIVELY better this year in Pass Protection than last year.

 

4)  Dot and Marpet were pretty much what they were last year.

 

5)  We averaged 1 less QB Hit Per Game this year compared to last year despite roughly the same number of Drop Backs.

 

6)  We averaged 1.5 less QB Pressures Per Game this year compared to last year despite roughly the same number of Drop Backs.

 

7)  Time to Throw was extremely close between this year and last; .03 difference.

 

8)  The Sack numbers for 2019 are extremely inflated due to Jameis taking a huge number of QB Sacks in the first 9 or so games in the year (where, for whatever reason, he refused to break the line of scrimmage and run the ball)…which is why Pressures and Hits are much more representative.

 

9)  The 2019 vs 2018 RB and TE Pass Blocking disparity also hugely inflates the Sacks and Pressure numbers for the 2019.

a)  The 2019 RB/TE group allowed 5 OF THE TOTAL SACKS and 31 OF THE TOTAL PRESSURES.

b)  The 2018 RB/TE group allowed ONLY 1 OF THE TOTAL SACKS and ONLY 25 OF THE TOTAL PRESSURES.

c)  Clearly, if you remove that RB/TE signal from the two OL performance, the 2019 OL performed even better in Pass Protection than the 2018 OL.

 

10)  Advanced Running Game Stats show 2019 OL was better than 2018 (everywhere except for Power Success).  No small part of this was the ability to run considerably better Off Center/RG in 2019 vs 2018 (Jensen and Benenoch vs Jensen and Cappa) at + 0.3 YPC to the 2019 unit.  The stats (bold = the better of the two):

 

2019

 

* ~ 1.02 Yards Before Contact

* Stuffed (Tackled at or behind the LoS) on 23 % of runs.

* Power Success (Converted 3rd/4th on run and/or 2 yards and in on Goal to Go) = 53 %

Adjusted Line Yards = 3.99

 

2018

* .8 Yards Before Contact

* Stuffed (Tackled at or behind the LoS) on 24.7 % of runs.

* Power Success (Converted 3rd/4th on run and/or 2 yards and in on Goal to Go) = 64 %

* Adjusted Offensive Line Yards = 3.78

 

11)  PFF individual Grades are up across the board and the collective grade is considerably up.

 

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The conclusions are pretty clear:

 

* The difference in play at the Center position (when you don’t have a world-beater at Center, but rather a solid player) when you have two solid OGs adjacent vs one ore more poor players is HUGE.

* Warhop was very bad at his job.

* The 2019 Bucs OL was better than the 2018 Bucs OL due to a huge RG upgrade (NFL average is a HUGE step-up from an absolute failure at RG; personnel is a huge contributor here), which had a knock-on effect of much better Center performance, and due to an upgrade in position coaching.