i've been saying it for years: the quality of OL play has gone down pretty strongly in the last 10-ish years. i'm not prescient or anything - i think most would agree. this is both college and pro.
just watch the NFL: most on here are steelers fans (or haters). you can see just how bad the steelers OL has been for at least 5 years. bottom 1/3 of the NFL. and the NFL only really has a few teams who have a solid OL across the board.
i was listening to bill polian on the radio today. if you've never listened to him, he's really good at explaining things. here's some points he made today:
* started out by talking about his time with the colts. the OC started EVERY practice with this statement - "Job #1 is to protect #18. if we do that, we have a better than 50% chance to win every game." bill said "very few teams have this mentality."
* he also said OL coaching is poor. teams don't focus on teaching. "colleges do not prepare offensive tackles for the NFL. they have to be coached." one would assume the transition from HS to college is even more pronounced.
* another point he made: "teams don't practive blocking correctly." he made the point that the you can not teach blocking w/out contact. but that teams aren't doing live drills nearly enough. "they're doing this to prevent injuries. but there's no data that this is true." that may sound like, "old man yells at clouds," thing from an older guy. but based on what we've seen, there's probably some truth in that.
i think there are other factors in play as well. namely, spread offenses leave OL out on an island A LOT (more receivers = less blockers). and defensive coordinators are more and more creative at getting defenders on clean rushes. and also, pass rushers are making tons of money. great athletes are trying to be rush ends. those guys used to be tight ends but tight ends rarely get paid. an NFL DE who gets home 10x/year is going to get paid a ton.
thanks for attending my ted talk.
just watch the NFL: most on here are steelers fans (or haters). you can see just how bad the steelers OL has been for at least 5 years. bottom 1/3 of the NFL. and the NFL only really has a few teams who have a solid OL across the board.
i was listening to bill polian on the radio today. if you've never listened to him, he's really good at explaining things. here's some points he made today:
* started out by talking about his time with the colts. the OC started EVERY practice with this statement - "Job #1 is to protect #18. if we do that, we have a better than 50% chance to win every game." bill said "very few teams have this mentality."
* he also said OL coaching is poor. teams don't focus on teaching. "colleges do not prepare offensive tackles for the NFL. they have to be coached." one would assume the transition from HS to college is even more pronounced.
* another point he made: "teams don't practive blocking correctly." he made the point that the you can not teach blocking w/out contact. but that teams aren't doing live drills nearly enough. "they're doing this to prevent injuries. but there's no data that this is true." that may sound like, "old man yells at clouds," thing from an older guy. but based on what we've seen, there's probably some truth in that.
i think there are other factors in play as well. namely, spread offenses leave OL out on an island A LOT (more receivers = less blockers). and defensive coordinators are more and more creative at getting defenders on clean rushes. and also, pass rushers are making tons of money. great athletes are trying to be rush ends. those guys used to be tight ends but tight ends rarely get paid. an NFL DE who gets home 10x/year is going to get paid a ton.
thanks for attending my ted talk.
