You might recall that during the preseason, I concocted a relatively thorough analysis of the offensive line of all 32 teams. The crux of the project -- and what I thought would crack the secret to fantasy success wide open -- was that by determining where the talented offensive lines resided, the picks for skill positions would be made much more intelligently. Well, today we finally get to test that thesis and put the rubber to the road. If you recall, the the offensive lines for each of the league's 32 teams were broken down into five tiers with regard to quality: the creme de la creme, the highly competent, the serviceable, the grim, and the bunk.
The Creme de la Creme
Teams: the Dallas Cowboys, the Cleveland Browns, the Minnesota Vikings, the New England Patriots, and the New York Giants
The Skinny: The glaring error here was calling the Browns offensive line the best in the game and hyping Jamal Lewis for a big season. Still, our creme de la creme group performed quite well averaging 34 sacks on the season and 4.4 yards per carry. The Giants also led the league in yards per carry. The creme de la creme group was definitely solid, but this clearly did not make anyone's season by focusing their drafts here.
The Highly Competent
Teams: The Green Bay Packers, The New Orleans Saints, The Arizona Cardinals, The San Francisco 49ers, The Tennessee Titans, The Miami Dolphins, The Buffalo Bills
The Skinny: This group really held up well as surprises such as Arizona, Miami, and Tennessee really stepped up their game with a lot of the credit due to the respective offensive lines. This group averaged 4.9 yards per carry and a very respectable 29 sacks on average for the season. The Saints and Titans line played particularly well as they both allowed a mere 12 and 13 sacks respectively. This group right here deserves credit in particularly for the wildly successful passing game of Kurt Warner, Drew Brees, and Aaron Rodgers.
The Serviceable
Teams: the Jacksonville Jaguars, the Indianapolis Colts, the Philadelphia Eagles, the Carolina Panthers, the New York Jets, the Oakland Raiders, the San Diego Chargers
The Skinny: This group followed the script exactly, performing simply serviceable averaging 4.2 yards per carry on the ground and allowing 28 sacks. Clearly, between Philadelphia, Oakland, Indianapolis, ad San Diego, injuries were an issue here. While, the numbers were not terrible, this is a theme to keep in mind when selecting skill players as there is a correlation between line quality an propensity for injury.
The Grim
Teams: the Chicago Bears, the Washington Redskins, the Seattle Seahawks, the Denver Broncos, the Houston Texans, the Atlanta Falcons
The Skinny: Besides the bad call on Chicago given Matt Forte's bountiful rookie season, this one held up well also. The Seahawks line played awful and they enjoyed minimal success both on the ground and through the air. The Broncos offensive line actually played great, allowing a league low in sacks and posting big numbers through the air and on the ground in many occasions. As a group, the grim lines allowed 28 sacks on average for the season and gained 4.3 yard per carry on the ground. This group as a whole performed a little better than expected.
The Bunk
Teams: the Detroit Lions, the Kansas City Chiefs, the St. Louis Rams, the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Baltimore Ravens, the Cincinnati Bengals
The Skinny: As expected, this group sucked and caused fantasy owners all sorts of trouble as the stars suffered from injuries and posted consistently inconsistent games. The bunk group allowed an average of 45 sacks on the season and averaged 3.9 yards per carry. Every single team on this list suffered the loss of at least one of their starting quarterback or running backs, so avoiding the bottom offensive lines seems to be a valid strategy.
Key Takeaway
Broadly speaking, the top three tiers of offensive lines lived up to their expectations of not ruining their respective stars' fantasy seasons at the very least. But, in terms of gaming the skill of the elite offensive lines and selecting skill players amongst those teams, that strategy did not bear a lot of fruit given that analyzing the best offensive lines is a bit of a crap shoot. Offensive lines are continually faced with injuries and in reality, it's pretty tough to gauge skill as a unit. On the contrary, the strategy of avoiding the really bad offensive lines proved particularly useful. A quick scan of the bottom two tiers calls to mind a virtual who's who of 2008 fantasy team killers such as Clinton Portis, Steven Jackson, Larry Johnson, Willie Parker, Willis McGahee, and basically anyone who played for the Bengals. Hence, next year we'll focus our analysis more on the avoidance of players with very poor offensive line support as opposed to trying to select players on teams with seemingly high quality offensive lines.
