On Wednesday, a lot of analytical effort was spent on the Cleveland Browns offensive line in the wake of trade rumors surrounding one Joe Thomas. The folks over at Pro Football Focus took issue with the team potentially trading Thomas, a player who not only rates as the best at his position, but one of the best in football. It then went on to say that the Browns’ offensive line, despite the team’s inability to run the football, was one of the best in the NFL—a stance that was met with plenty of scrutiny.
Fast forward to Thursday, and Pro Football Focus fires back, saying that the lack of run game is not the fault of the five men who comprise the offensive line, but the others who are responsible for taking on blocking assignments. Take a look:
Offensive lines are far too often perceived to be the only component in blocking for both the run and pass; in reality, they are only the most important part of a bigger puzzle. Backs, tight ends, and receivers all play a significant role, especially in certain blocking schemes.
When you add up all the blocking grades by players at positions other than the offensive line, Cleveland doesn’t just rank towards the bottom—they’re dead last in the NFL, with a cumulative blocking grade of -29.1, three times worse than even “bad” teams, and five times worse than the league average.
For as well as Gary Barnidge has been playing as a receiver, he has been little short of disastrous as a blocker—and Jim Dray has been little better in his snaps. FB Malcolm Johnson is our lowest-graded player at his position. No blocking scheme in football can get it done just with the five guys along the line—even a light defensive front has six guys in the box, one more than they can pick up—so you need the other players involved in the run game to hold up their end of the bargain to have any success on the ground.
Consequently, the Browns are a team that likes to run outside zone, and can’t reliably get to the edge. Their average yards per carry around right end is 2.7; to the left, it’s just 1.1. Running either side of G John Greco, by contrast, is yielding an average of 4.0 yards per carry.
When they run outside zone, the Browns have gained just 104 yards on 41 attempts (2.5 yards per carry), compared to more than a full yard better when they run inside. When they run outside zone, the blocking is generating an average of just 0.49 yards before the running back is contacted, which is 24th in the NFL. Inside, that jumps more than a yard, despite poor lead blocking.
Interestingly, while Thomas rates at a league-best 93.8 among left tackles, Mitchell Scwhartz (85.5), Joel Bitonio (83.3) and John Greco (80.2) all rate highly. It’s not until you get to center Alex Mack (77.9) where average grades start to roll around. If we assume that these grades—based on execution of assignments and such—hold true, then this is fairly eye-opening revelation, one that I know I wouldn’t have thought of until painted in this light. That the Browns can get just 1.1 yards-per-carry around one of the best left tackles to play the game speaks volumes.
The PFF piece dives further into the team’s passing game and how they’re being obliterated by the quarterbacks holding on to the ball well beyond the league average amount of time. The offensive line alone has surrendered only 82 total pressures, 47 fewer than the worst unit in the league. the issue becomes when Josh McCown and Johnny Manziel take more than 2.5 seconds to throw the ball. Manziel is actually the fourth-worst in football, making things even that much more interesting for Thursday night.
