How bad was our 2018 Offensive line?

[PAjwPhilly]

(05-20-2019, 06:31 PM)fredtoast Wrote: FootballOutsiders has a formula they use to try and separate the RB skills from the O-line skills when grading run blocking.  They penalize the O-line for tackles for loss or zero gain, and give the RBs more credit for yards gained more than 5 yards past the line of scrimmage.  It is called "adjusted line yards".  Based on just the standard "avg per carry" the Bengals 4.7 avg ranks 8th in the league, but their "adjusted line yards" is only 4.1 and ranked 22nd.  We averaged 4.7 per carry because our RBs ranked 11th in "second level yards per carry" (5 to 10 yards past line of scrimmage) and 3rd in "open field yards per carry" (10+ yards past line of scrimmage).

They also rank O-lines on "power success" (3rd or 4th down with 2 yards or less to go, and anything within 2 yard line).  The Bengals actually di very well in this category ranking 7th in the league.

Finally they calculate an "adjusted sack rate" that takes into account sacks and intentional groundings per attempt adjusted for down distance and opponent.  Bengals ranked 19th in this metric.

So while these numbers are bad, they are not as bad as some people here seems to think.  Lots of people here claimed we had one of the worst O-lines in the league last year and claim we will be bottom 5 in 2019.

I am hoping Price will be a different player with a healthy offseason to work out and get stronger, plus we added the best O-lineman in the draft.  I don't think we will have a great O-line next year, but it should be easily in the top half of the league.

Here are all the rankings......https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/ol

Power success... the stat doesn't show the sample size. You can easily inflate stats with smaller samples. Therefore, we may also have had the fewest 3rd/4th and shorts... and also the fewest 1st downs.  Looking at the stats we were bottom in both. We were ranked 23rd in 1st downs snaps and 26th in 3rd downs attempted. We may have finished 7th in power success but our attempts at such a stat were lower than most teams. Even our success rate at 4th down wasn't at the high end of the league.

While I am impressed we had anything close to what you reported... the games showed something else. And good stats for a crappy offense can be explained as easily as sample size.

I think the thing that people fail to realize is that while we were bad and it was really painful to watch... there were crappier teams out there statistically. And those teams bump us up a few spots. So while our hopes were crushed by an OL that struggled all season, there were worse issues offensively around the league.

http://www.espn.com/nfl/statistics/team/_/stat/downs/sort/firstDowns