I was talking to a friend of mine and we got into the discussion of the importance of O-Lines. I’m of the opinion that an amazing top-5 O-Line props up nearly any QB enough to be a great QB. He’s of the opinion an amazing top-5 QB helps inflate O-Line stats.
Who is right - or is it a little of both?
2012 Vikings. Peterson MVP season where he fell nine yards short of the single season record. O-line was a big reason for that.
Ponder threw for less than 3k yards and had 18 TDs to 12 INTs. That’s terrible considering teams were stacking the box on AD.
Dak Prescott every year?
Christian Ponder had some good o-lines
And the numerous QBs before him in the mid 2000s.
Chiefs also had some great Olines in the 2000s while blocking for the likes of Trent Green, Brodie Croyle, and Damon Huard.
I think the success of an NFL offense is too complex to boil it down to these two things. An o-line can be top 5 but is way better at run blocking than pass blocking. The OC may not be a good play caller (i.e. knows how to get a QB in rhythm, or set up bigger plays, or situational play calls). The OC may also not be a good play designer (i.e. creating ways to get star players the ball in space, playing defensive matchup rules against them). These are only a couple of things that go into it that muck up the waters for this debate.
I feel like this is a call-out to a certain large mustachioed coach in the Atlanta area…
Though to be fair to him, all of that applies and his QB was objectively terrible.
2009 Jets.
The 2020 Pats had a top 5 offensive line and Cam threw for 8 TDs and 10 Ints.
Man that Pats team was not good but was way more fun to watch than what we have now
Browns have had a pretty good Olines through the years with absolutely terrible QBs. I think both things can happen but it just depends.
Bengals have had a terrible (less terrible this year) Line all of Joe Burrows career. He’s been great.
Correction: Browns have had good O Lines for the past few years. With the exception of Joe Thomas, the Browns have fielded some awful O Lines for most of their expansion era (with slight exceptions in 2007 and 2014).
The Chiefs O Line in the late 90s and early 2000s may be the greatest ever and their best QB was Trent Green.
Alex smith was behind an o line that was named player of the week twice, and had a pretty below average season
Staley Boone Goodwin Iupati Davis®
I believe for the chiefs Alex Smith had outstanding lines, and one year did not throw a td to a wr. He definitely got better. Frankly every chiefs team from the early 90s until the last year of Smith and obviously Mahomes had very solid olines with I believe two hall of famers on those lines over the years (Shields, Roaf), and many many really good ones
Us in 2019, though it isn’t fair to call Brisket “terrible” per se
I think depending on the permutation of OL quality and QB quality you have different results:
Elite Top 5 OL and Elite QB = Super Bowl team
Elite Top 5 OL and Decent QB = makes QB look much better than they are
Elite Top 5 OL and bad QB = QB looks a bit better than they are, makes OL look much worse
Decent OL and Elite QB = OL looks amazing
Decent OL and Decent QB = your average middling team’s situation
Decent OL and bad QB = QB makes decent OL look terrible, most fans of teams with bad QBs always also claim their OL is terrible
Bad OL and elite QB = OL looks fine
Bad OL and decent QB = OL makes QB look terrible, I think this is the cause for most of the guys who look terrible early in their careers and succeed on a new team
Bad OL and Bad QB = 2023 Jets offense
The year Romo got hurt the cowboys had a dominant online and like a top 5 running game but the qb was so bad that they still got a top 5 pick.
Mark Sanchez used to have great O-Line his first 2 seasons with the Jets and still posted very average numbers. He did get them to the playoffs though but mainly because of their great D.
I’d go to Pennington as an example before I went to Sanchez. Mostly because it was the O-Lines fault the butt fumble happened
2015 Cowboys had an o-line about as good as the 2014 unit and went 1-11 without Romo
I miss Fredbeard so much.
2020 Eagles OL had a lot of injuries and inexperienced players, and a lot of week to week shifting around to cover for that, but according to PFF they were still one of the better units on the season, and Kelce played 16 games, which always helps
and Carson Wentz still shit his pants that spectacularly