LINK to the article Ranking the 2011 Offensive Lines – Part 1
As we make our way through this week devoted to the offensive line, it only seems right that we put out our list of offensive line rankings. This is PFF’s way of letting you know which units graded out the best and in which areas. There are some limitations to these rankings, in that they don’t account for strength of opponents nor do they look at how injuries impacted individual players. Instead, we’ve looked at how each individual lineman graded out and compiled three different categories: pass blocking, run blocking (including screen blocking) and penalties. Then we added them and like magic, got ourselves a set of rankings with the number next to the team in parenthesis denoting their 2010 finish. (Note that these numbers are just for the regular season.)
Tomorrow we’ll continue to count down to the top, but for now, we start at the bottom.
32. Chicago Bears (31st)
Run Rank 31st,
Pass Rank 31st,
Penalties Rank 25th
Does this really surprise anyone?
The Bears at least attempted to rectify their horrible offensive line by drafting
Gabe Carimi, only for the tackle to manage 100 snaps before a dislocated knee ended his year. It left them with a group of individuals who struggle to get much push in the run game, and aren’t much better in pass protection. You’d struggle to find a line that performed as badly as the Bears over the years.
Best Player: By default, this was
Edwin Williams (+0.5), though this is more of a reflection on the rest of the line which amassed a combined
-116.1 grade.
Worst Player: Take your pick.
J’Marcus Webb (-26.2) was a failure on the left side, but even he was outdone by
Lance Louis (-35.6). Louis should never have moved out to tackle and it really showed down the stretch; in no game more so than when he gave up five sacks to a Chiefs defense that simply destroyed him.