DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Is the Browns OL tipping off opponents?

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And you know perfectly well that its unreasonable to assume he picked up the last offense just fine but can't understand this one.

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I actually agree with you; I just don't like the assumption that academic intelligence translates on the field.

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Chris O'Banaya

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I hear his nickname on the team is "Red'

Sorry, I digress. Carry on!

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Tuesday, November 8, 2011

ClevelandBrowns.com
By Daniel Wolf
Senior Writer

The Cleveland Browns have had their fair share of issues on offense this season, which is really just a nice way of saying they have big problems.

After Sunday's loss to the Houston Texans, former St. Louis Rams and Browns offensive lineman Ryan Tucker was on WKYC Channel 3's show Browns Insider, talking about Cleveland's offensive line.

Tucker played in the NFL for 12 seasons at right tackle and right guard, and knows a thing or two about playing in the trenches.

While showing only a couple replays from the Texans game, Tucker pointed out something very interesting in each of the examples shown—the young and inexperienced offensive guards are two of the biggest problems in the pass protection. They are also a big reason why quarterback Colt McCoy continues to get beaten down every Sunday, not to mention a reason as to why the passing game is as inept as it is.

Starting left guard Jason Pinkston is a rookie, and starting right guard Shawn Lauvao is a first-year starter who is only in his second year in the NFL.

Tucker pointed out how the guards were not finding Texans linebacker Brian Cushing pre-snap, since he was moving around from the right to the left side on Sunday. When Cushing moved around, and he did that quite a bit, Tucker said the guards were not aware of his movements and cited how it was also the fault of both center Alek Mack and McCoy for not picking up Cushing's movement.


Both guards Shawn Lauvao (pictured above) and Jason
Pinkston are a big part of the problem on the O-Line.
(ClevelandBrowns.com)
This led to Cushing punishing McCoy over and over again. Tucker also mentioned how the guards should have kicked out to pick up Cushing on his blitzes and failed to many times. Cushing finished the game with a sack, a quarterback hit and several pressures on McCoy.

In other words, Tucker is implying the offensive line and McCoy are going through the learning pains of having two first-time starting guards, along with a center and quarterback who are learning a new offensive system—the West Coast offense.

To help support Tucker's observations, reference was made to on ProFootballFocus.com (PFF). If you don't have a subscription to this site, you're really missing out on some fantastic statistical breakdowns, all the way down to individual plays.

Per PFF, the Browns guards have given up a total of three sacks, nine quarterback hits and 21 quarterback pressures. Important to note these numbers are more than the totals from the right tackle position, which has been a problem for the Browns offensive line all season-long, too.

At right tackle, Tony Pashos, Artis Hicks and Oniel Cousins have all spent time at the position, collectively allowing two sacks, six quarterback hits and 23 quarterback pressures.

So, for as bad as Cleveland fans—on Twitter—are complaining about right tackle, know that both guard positions are equally bad, if not worse since it is a combination of two positions and not just one.

This goes to show how important losing left guard Eric Steinbach really was for the offensive line this season. Hopefully, next season, he can get healthy, continue to play at a high level, help the line and help mentor both Pinkston and Lauvao into becoming better guards.

It should also be noted how starting left tackle, Joe Thomas, and Mack are both rated in the Top 15 of their respective positions (Thomas No. 4 overall tackle, Mack No. 14 overall center) by PFF's ratings system. They have given up a total of three sacks, two quarterback hits and 11 quarterback pressures, combined.

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3) How do you know exactly what a player’s job is on any given play and whether negatives were his fault?

This question obviously changes depending on the position and the specific play. Much of our methodology can be found in our explanation of our grading, but we will go into a quick summary:

Pass Protection
This is a measure of how much total pressure a player gives away during a game. It isn’t a simple formula like -1.5 for a sack, -1 for a hit, as time taken to get the pressure is also very important. This is then normalized by adding a small positive factor for every drop-back he played. It is usually simple enough to determine what a player’s assignment is in pass protection, as we have the benefit of being able to watch one player closely and specifically multiple times. It is possible that a blocker is directed by the quarterback to take a specific man, resulting in a pass rusher that appears to be his responsibility getting a pressure and us grading that blocker down. This is an inherent inaccuracy in the grading, but despite this potential inaccuracy we have had NFL sources, including Bengals OG Evan Mathis, confirm that our grades are accurate, and reflect closely what they receive as internal feedback. There may be an inherent margin of error in what we do, but it is still more accurate than anything outside of a team meeting room.

Run Blocking
Again, it is rare not to be able to determine where a run was supposed to go, and what a blocker’s assignment was on a particular play. Players don’t make the kind of mental lapses often that would see them going to a totally different place than where they should have been. If they did they wouldn’t be in the league long. If a player attempts a block on somebody, whether they win the encounter or lose it, it was almost certainly their assignment on the play. This is obviously not easy to pick up live and in real time, but again we have the benefit of being able to go back retrospectively and watch multiple replays of a play developing to get the information.

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