Pro Football Focus down on Cleveland Browns offensive line

PFF down on Browns Offensive Line

Pro Football Focus ranks the Browns at number 20 in their rankings. Their reasons have some merit. Yet they ring strange in the ears of those who follow PFF’s statistical analysis. Here is what they had to say,

"Cleveland’s interior offensive line was the major reason why the line was widely touted as one of the league’s best in 2018, but the front now looks much different after shipping Kevin Zeitler to New York in exchange for Odell Beckham and Olivier Vernon. Second-year guard Austin Corbett, who has logged just 14 NFL snaps, will step in alongside right tackle Chris Hubbard. The Browns’ offense is now lightyears better following an exciting offseason, but it will be intriguing to see how the offensive line fares given their losses. – Pro Football Focus"

The PFF Analysis Team makes a good point about Kevin Zeitler vs. Austin Corbett. Ignoring their skewed details of the Zeitler trade, the fact that he is gone will hurt the Browns. But guard, like any other individual offensive line position, does not directly correlate to wins and losses.

Let’s be honest about this situation here, no team should be paying a right guard what the Browns were paying Zeitler. Don’t get me wrong, I like Zeitler as a player. But in the NFL, the right guard is usually a college left tackle who cannot play left tackle in the NFL. Then he got switched to right tackle. He didn’t work out there so he was moved inside to guard. That is how NFL teams develop guards.

It doesn’t make sense to pay guards big money when they can be had cheaply in the draft. Paying a left guard makes some sense depending on scheme. But right guard is money down the drain.

Corbett was a college left tackle. If he could play left tackle in the NFL, he would have been playing there last year instead of the now Arizona Cardinal Desmond Harrison. All this means is Corbett is a prime candidate to become a guard. This is how it is done in the NFL.

For PFF to focus so much on the loss of Zeitler is out of character. They know that one position does not affect a group to that extent. PFF must have also ignored the shocking improvement in offensive line play when Gregg Williams became interim head coach and now head coach Freddie Kitchens took over the offense.

When the scheme changed, the offensive line’s efficiency dramatically improved. Under the Hue Jackson/Todd Haley regime, the Browns led the league in quarterback sacks allowed. But after the scheme change they allowed the fewest quarterback sacks in the league. It was truly a tale of two different teams.

The dramatic improvement cannot be ignored as a statistical anomaly. The scheme change significantly improved the overall offensive line play. (not to mention swapping out Harrison for Greg Robinson)

Which begs the interesting question, does scheme affect offensive line statistics? And does the play of the skilled groups in the offensive affect offensive line efficiency?