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December 8th, 2011 
Bewsaf
A lot of what you have been seeing regarding the offensive line on PFS is the individual breakdowns of each lineman. Those individual snapshots help fans understand how a particular player is doing without all the rest of the action that is going on around the lineman. How valuable is that particular player to a team.
But what about each teams offensive line, as a unit?
One thing about the offensive line, it’s sum is sometimes better or worse than its parts. This post will take a look at each of the AFC West teams and how their offensive lines are doing as a unit on critical downs, pass protection, and the number of times they are stuffed for no yards on running downs.
Let’s look at those stats…
One stat that is important to know when running the ball is how well the offensive unit does on critical downs. A critical down is a running play on 3rd or 4th down with 2 or fewer yards to go. According to the chart, below, the Chargers lead the AFC West in the times they pick up critical yards. And that is really no surprise if you have been following the individual offensive line breakdowns PFS has been putting out. The Chargers have (or had) two Pro Bowl type guards who get movement on their blocks along with a nice run blocking right tackle.
If might be somewhat of a surprise that Denver is last in the AFC West in picking up critical yards on the ground. However, it is no surprise to the defense that is playing the Broncos that Denver will probably run the ball on those downs. When teams know you are going to run the ball…it makes it harder to do just that.
| Offensive Line Group Performance | ||||||
| Team | Critical Downs |
Stuffed | Sacks | Adjusted Sack Rate |
Pressure Rate | |
| Broncos |  |
50% | 18% | 27 | 8% | 40% |
| Chargers |  |
69% | 17% | 28 | 6% | 46% |
| Chiefs |  |
63% | 21% | 28 | 7% | 41% |
| Raiders |  |
65% | 18% | 21 | 5% | 41% |
You might notice in the chart, above, that the Kansas City Chiefs are last in the AFC West (23rd in NFL) in the number of times they have been stuffed at the line of scrimmage for negative or no yards. The NFL average is a little over 18%.
When it comes to the number of sacks given up over the course of 13 weeks, the Oakland Raiders have the lowest sack, per attempt, rate in the AFC West. The problem with looking at a sack rate is that it includes missed blocks by tight ends and running backs, missed blitz reads by the quarterback, and of course, offensive line play. The best measure for evaluating an offensive line’s pass protection ability is to look at the number of pressures, per game, by ONLY offensive linemen.
Currently, the team’s lineman in the AFC West that has given up the fewest pressures is the Denver Broncos. They give a pressure on the quarterback on 40% of their throws, while the Chargers are giving up pressure on the quarterback on 46% of their throws.
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