Do the Seahawks need a good offensive line?
By Nick on Saturday 9 April 2016, 19:31 - Permalink
There's been a lot of consternation over the apparent lack of talent on the Seahawks Offensive Line. For example this article states it "may just be the worst position group in the entire NFL".
But, as squeaky as their playoff games were, the Seattle Seahawks were one score away from taking their Divisional playoff game into overtime, and did go 10-6 for the season; whereas the offensive lines I hear the most compliments about are the Browns and the Cowboys, who went 3-13 and 4-12 respectively.
So, do offensive lines matter? It's interesting to compare the 32 NFL team's successes against the quality of their offensive line and see if there's a match. I'm taking the quality of the offensive lines in the 2015 season from Pro Football Focus's rankings at the end of the season here: https://www.profootballfocus.com/blog/2016/01/20/pro-ranking-all-32-offensive-lines-this-season/ ; and my analysis... well, my quick look at some stats... is inspired by Shell Kapadia's article on ESPN: http://espn.go.com/blog/seattle-seahawks/post/_/id/18978/making-sense-of-the-seahawks-offensive-line-philosophy .
So, comparing offensive line rank to the most important statistic first, did the team make the playoffs or not?
Rank | Team | Playoffs? |
---|---|---|
1 | Dallas Cowboys | ![]() |
2 | Carolina Panthers | ![]() |
3 | New Orleans Saints | ![]() |
4 | Atlanta Falcons | ![]() |
5 | Cleveland Browns | ![]() |
6 | Oakland Raiders | ![]() |
7 | Green Bay Packers | ![]() |
8 | Cincinnati Bengals | ![]() |
9 | Buffalo Bills | ![]() |
10 | Pittsburgh Steelers | ![]() |
11 | Washington Redskins | ![]() |
12 | Philadelphia Eagles | ![]() |
13 | Baltimore Ravens | ![]() |
14 | Minnesota Vikings | ![]() |
15 | Indianapolis Colts | ![]() |
16 | Chicago Bears | ![]() |
17 | Arizona Cardinals | ![]() |
18 | Houston Texans | ![]() |
19 | Jacksonville Jaguars | ![]() |
20 | New York Giants | ![]() |
20 | Denver Broncos | ![]() |
22 | Kansas City Chiefs | ![]() |
23 | Tampa Bay Buccaneers | ![]() |
24 | Detroit Lions | ![]() |
25 | New England Patriots | ![]() |
26 | New York Jets | ![]() |
27 | San Francisco 49ers | ![]() |
28 | St Louis Rams | ![]() |
29 | Tennessee Titans | ![]() |
30 | Seattle Seahawks | ![]() |
31 | Miami Dolphins | ![]() |
32 | San Diego Chargers | ![]() |
So, apart from showing that tables are hard.... there is a pretty even spread of playoff teams across all levels of offensive line play quality.
How about teams versus wins? The X axis below is decreasing in offensive line rank from left to right, so you'd expect a general trend of wins to go down from left to right...
Same again, I see no trend by wins.
But how about a more realistic rating of how good a team is than wins, FootballOutsiders' offensive DVOA ranking? Lower numbers are a higher rank.
Again, all over the place.
Originally I planned some kind of scatter graph with team or helmet logos, but that's not something I can put together in a reasonable amount of time. So while it's something I've thrown together using online resources, and arguably some of the the axis should have been the other way around... I think the complete lack of any trend shows something. Especially as the offensive line is about half of one side of the team, and key to every play, I think the results are a little surprising; maybe of all the positions for the offensive line their team play is more important that a collection of individual statistics?
And maybe, in relation to the Seahawks, it shows that a philosophy of having an Offensive Line that is just good enough, rather than exemplary, especially considering the apparent lack of talent at the position, is the way to go?