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Interesting discovery about drafting O-Linemen...

S

Scribe

Practice Squad
Knowing the Texans need to shore up the O-Line, I became curious about in what rounds starting o-linemen for other teams had been drafted. So I picked a few teams at random and did some research. I looked into the Colts (undefeated), Broncos (strong record and known for zone blocking), Pats (Super Bowl champs) and Falcons (winning record and happened to be on tv today) first team o-lines to see how their current starters entered the league. Here's what I found:

Broncos: one first round pick, two fourth round picks, one 7th round pick and one rookie undrafted free agent.

Colts: one first rounder, one fourth rounder, one fifth rounder and two undrafted rookie free agents.

Pats: one first rounder, one second rounder, one third rounder, one fifth rounder and two rookie undrafted free agents. There's six here, because I include Matt Light, who is injured.

Falcons: one second rounder, one fifth rounder and three seventh rounders.

What does all this prove? I suppose a couple of things. One, that you can find quality offensive linemen later in the draft and even pluck a find from the ranks of the undrafted. Two, that other teams must have better scouting and player development than we do.
 
Scribe said:
Knowing the Texans need to shore up the O-Line, I became curious about in what rounds starting o-linemen for other teams had been drafted. So I picked a few teams at random and did some research. I looked into the Colts (undefeated), Broncos (strong record and known for zone blocking), Pats (Super Bowl champs) and Falcons (winning record and happened to be on tv today) first team o-lines to see how their current starters entered the league. Here's what I found:

Broncos: one first round pick, two fourth round picks, one 7th round pick and one rookie undrafted free agent.

Colts: one first rounder, one fourth rounder, one fifth rounder and two undrafted rookie free agents.

Pats: one first rounder, one second rounder, one third rounder, one fifth rounder and two rookie undrafted free agents. There's six here, because I include Matt Light, who is injured.

Falcons: one second rounder, one fifth rounder and three seventh rounders.

What does all this prove? I suppose a couple of things. One, that you can find quality offensive linemen later in the draft and even pluck a find from the ranks of the undrafted. Two, that other teams must have better scouting and player development than we do.
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IIRC, the Bronco's line was mostly the Brown's cast offs. Kind of weird how that worked out and says a lot about the Bronco's organization.

Any analysis of how much of successful team's cap money go to the O-line? I know we spend a lot on ours partially because of the difficulty of getting FA to want to come here.

Lots of different philsophies out there on O lines. They are hard to grow because you need talent but you also need guys used to playing together.
 
Texans_Chick said:
IIRC, the Bronco's line was mostly the Brown's cast offs. Kind of weird how that worked out and says a lot about the Bronco's organization.
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I thought that was their defensive line that was made of Browns castoffs.
 
Hervoyel said:
I thought that was their defensive line that was made of Browns castoffs.
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You're right.

Turkey makes you slow. I think it is the tryptophan, though I heard that was a myth.
 
You named off a lot of player stats as far as draft position, But who is coaching those teams? All are good coaches and have been around the NFL a while. When did those teams become good? When they drafted the O-linemen in the first rnd? No. Colts when they got Wr,Rb,Qb, and last year shored up the D., The Broncos have been decent since Elway left, but have gotten alot better with the trade for Plummer. The Falcons were pretty bad without Vick the last couple years, and have been pretty good with him this year. The Patriots have been real good because of their Defense and Tom Brady's clutch efforts. Our team has very little firepower behind our line and we got rid of some of our defense that kept us in alot of games. Remember the Pitt. game a year or two ago when we won with 40 something yards of offense. We have not had a great line the last four years , but our team was built to keep it close on Defense until the fourth quarter and then squeeze out a win because we do/did not have the Offensive firepower neccessary to compete at this level. We need sound linemen and great playmakers. No lineman is going to give a QB,RB,WR all day in the NFL. You need great skill position players and technically sound linemen.
 
i'm having trouble finding the post, maybe someone else can. of the top 10 or so LT's in the league, only 2 were drafted outside of the first round (one being an immediate second). i like the way pitts has played, but personnally i'd prefer to see him on the right side as a bookend with a better LT anchoring the line. with wand backing those two up (and something resembling a coaching staff of course), i think we'd be ok for a long time on the ends.

and like texplayer mentioned, look at the coaching staff that these teams boast. exclude the falcons though since they're a terrible team to use because vick skews their stats. they rank very high in sacks and high in rushing avg because of his feet.
 
Scribe said:
Knowing the Texans need to shore up the O-Line, I became curious about in what rounds starting o-linemen for other teams had been drafted. So I picked a few teams at random and did some research. I looked into the Colts (undefeated), Broncos (strong record and known for zone blocking), Pats (Super Bowl champs) and Falcons (winning record and happened to be on tv today) first team o-lines to see how their current starters entered the league. Here's what I found:

Broncos: one first round pick, two fourth round picks, one 7th round pick and one rookie undrafted free agent.

Colts: one first rounder, one fourth rounder, one fifth rounder and two undrafted rookie free agents.

Pats: one first rounder, one second rounder, one third rounder, one fifth rounder and two rookie undrafted free agents. There's six here, because I include Matt Light, who is injured.

Falcons: one second rounder, one fifth rounder and three seventh rounders.

What does all this prove? I suppose a couple of things. One, that you can find quality offensive linemen later in the draft and even pluck a find from the ranks of the undrafted. Two, that other teams must have better scouting and player development than we do.
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Falcon's O line uses zone blocking and is not great in pass protection. They have given up 24 sacks this season and last season gave up 50 sacks, 1 more than our offensive line did last season. I'll agree with the other teams posted and IMO the difference between us and them is either in talent scouts or coaching or both. I mean you cannot even compare Pendry and Palmer to Tom Moore, Gary Kubiak, or Charlie Weis.
 
Of the 32 teams, the starting LT's consist of:

16) 1st round picks
6) 2nd round picks
5) 3rd round picks
1) 4th round pick
4) Undrafted FA's

AFC

Baltimore: Jonathan Ogden- 1st round (#4)
Buffalo: Mike Gandy- 3rd round (#68)- Drafted as a guard
Cinncinati: Levi Jones- 1st round (#10)
Cleveland: L.J. Shelton- 1st round (#21)
Denver: Matt Lepsis- Undrafted FA
Houston: Chester Pitts- 2nd round (#50)- Drafted as a guard
Indianapolis: Tarik Glenn- 1st round (#19)
Jacksonville: Khalif Barnes- 2nd round (#52)
Kansas City: Willie Roaf- 1st round (#8)
Miami: Damion McIntosh- 3rd round (#83)
New England: Matt Light- 2nd round (#48) & Nick Kaczur- 3rd round (#100)
New York Jets: Adrian Jones- 4th round (#132)
Oakland: Barry Sims- Undrafted FA
Pittsburgh: Marvel Smith- 2nd round (#38)
San Diego: Roman Oben- 3rd round (#66)
Tennessee: Brad Hopkins- 1st round (#13)

NFC

Arizona: Leonard Davis- 1st round (#2)
Atlanta: Todd Weiner (RT)- 2nd round (#47)
Carolina: Travelle Wharton- 3rd round (#94)
Chicago: John Tait- 1st round (#14)
Dallas: Torrin Tucker- Undrafted FA
Detroit: Jeff Backus- 1st round (#18)
Green Bay: Chad Clifton- 2nd round (#44)
Minnesota: Bryant McKinnie- 1st round (#7)
New Orleans: Wayne Gandy- 1st round (#15)
New York Giants: Luke Petitgout- 1st round (#19)
Philadelphia: Tra Thomas- 1st round (#11)
San Francisco: Jonas Jennings- 3rd round (#95) & Adam Snyder- 3rd round (#94)
Seattle: Walter Jones- 1st round (#6)
St. Louis: Orlando Pace- 1st round (#1)
Tampa Bay: Anthony Davis- Undrafted FA
Washington: Chris Samuels- 1st round (#3)
 
Good post Hottoddie. I was going to do the same research of LT but you beat me to it. Your research proves that 50% of the starting LT in the nfl were taken in the first round. Do we need more proof as to why we should take a LT in the first round? 12 out of the 16 starting LT taken in the first round were taken in the first half.
 
We need to hire the top OL coach in the business. Yes you need talent but coaching is very important to help develop the talent.
 
What you need is an understanding that any scheme needs players capable of playing in that scheme. Did the coaching staff here even consider that when they decided to move to the zone blocking scheme?
 
bckey said:
Good post Hottoddie. I was going to do the same research of LT but you beat me to it. Your research proves that 50% of the starting LT in the nfl were taken in the first round. Do we need more proof as to why we should take a LT in the first round? 12 out of the 16 starting LT taken in the first round were taken in the first half.
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Thanks.

Minnesota: Bryant McKinnie- 1st round (#7) (2002)
Cinncinati: Levi Jones- 1st round (#10) (2002)

Arizona: Leonard Davis- 1st round (#2) (2001)
Detroit: Jeff Backus- 1st round (#18) (2001)

Washington: Chris Samuels- 1st round (#3) (2000)

Chicago: John Tait- 1st round (#14) (1999)
New York Giants: Luke Petitgout- 1st round (#19) (1999)
Cleveland: L.J. Shelton- 1st round (#21) (1999)

Philadelphia: Tra Thomas- 1st round (#11) (1998)

St. Louis: Orlando Pace- 1st round (#1) (1997)
Seattle: Walter Jones- 1st round (#6) (1997)
Indianapolis: Tarik Glenn- 1st round (#19) (1997)

Baltimore: Jonathan Ogden- 1st round (#4) (1996)

New Orleans: Wayne Gandy- 1st round (#15) (1994)

Kansas City: Willie Roaf- 1st round (#8) (1993)
Tennessee: Brad Hopkins- 1st round (#13) (1993)

I've been dead set against trading down, because there's no way that I can see "Da'Brick" falling beyond the 2nd pick, & I believe you have to take a franchise LT when you have the chance. However, if history is any indicator & as deep as this year's draft is in LT's (D'Brick, Winston, McNeil, Scott, Colledge, Whitworth, & that's not even counting underclassmen), we should be able to trade down for extra picks & still pick up a very good starting LT. Hello, Denver.

Let's hope that Arizona(Leinart), New Orleans(Leinart), San Francisco(Bush), NY Jets(Leinart or Bush?), Miami(Leinart), Green Bay(Bush), & Denver(Bush?) are in a trading mood for the #1 overall pick.
 
Hottoddie said:
Thanks.

Minnesota: Bryant McKinnie- 1st round (#7) (2002)
Cinncinati: Levi Jones- 1st round (#10) (2002)

Arizona: Leonard Davis- 1st round (#2) (2001)
Detroit: Jeff Backus- 1st round (#18) (2001)

Washington: Chris Samuels- 1st round (#3) (2000)

Chicago: John Tait- 1st round (#14) (1999)
New York Giants: Luke Petitgout- 1st round (#19) (1999)
Cleveland: L.J. Shelton- 1st round (#21) (1999)

Philadelphia: Tra Thomas- 1st round (#11) (1998)

St. Louis: Orlando Pace- 1st round (#1) (1997)
Seattle: Walter Jones- 1st round (#6) (1997)
Indianapolis: Tarik Glenn- 1st round (#19) (1997)

Baltimore: Jonathan Ogden- 1st round (#4) (1996)

New Orleans: Wayne Gandy- 1st round (#15) (1994)

Kansas City: Willie Roaf- 1st round (#8) (1993)
Tennessee: Brad Hopkins- 1st round (#13) (1993)

I've been dead set against trading down, because there's no way that I can see "Da'Brick" falling beyond the 2nd pick, & I believe you have to take a franchise LT when you have the chance. However, if history is any indicator & as deep as this year's draft is in LT's (D'Brick, Winston, McNeil, Scott, Colledge, Whitworth, & that's not even counting underclassmen), we should be able to trade down for extra picks & still pick up a very good starting LT. Hello, Denver.

Let's hope that Arizona(Leinart), New Orleans(Leinart), San Francisco(Bush), NY Jets(Leinart or Bush?), Miami(Leinart), Green Bay(Bush), & Denver(Bush?) are in a trading mood for the #1 overall pick.
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excelent research. much appreciated. D'brick is going to be a stud, but there is not much drop off in Winston, who actually has more upside for me. Winston aslo can play RT for a year, where D'brick is only a LT.

the only reason i hope reggie bush declares is so we can trade down.
 
I think it will come down to whether the Texans new staff wants a great run blocker (mauler) or a great pass blocker (more athletic). Whatever direction the new coaching staff takes the LT that fits their scheme should be available this draft. It doesn't mean they can't do both well but usually a tackle is better at one or the other. The rare elite ones are just plain great at both.
 
barzilla said:
What you need is an understanding that any scheme needs players capable of playing in that scheme. Did the coaching staff here even consider that when they decided to move to the zone blocking scheme?
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Problem is not the zone blocking, problem is our offensive line is no good in pass protection.
 
I'm stuck on this idea that the Texans take Bush if he's there, then turn around and trade Davis plus a 3 (or their 2, or if necessary their 2 and a 3) to get back up into the first round and grab the LT they need.

If we draft Bush we don't need Davis and Wells backs up just fine. We still have a 3 left and whether it's ours or New Orleans pick it's going to be pretty high in the third round. We'd end the day with a franchise running back, a franchise LT, and we could grab a TE in the 3rd.

I just have this weird idea that I'd try and do that if I was Casserly. Of course he won't and I can never predict what he's going to do but that's what I'd try to do.
 
I'm thinking Detroit trade up to get Leinart - maybe throw in a wr to be our no.2 guy?!:ok: :woot2:fans:

maybe a little wishful............................................
 
While Reggie Bush is going to be a great player, it would be hard for him to do anything with defenders in his face in the backfield. D'Brick would finally solidify the LT spot on the o line. And with that happening Carr will seem like a new player since he can finally go deep and have time. So it would be like drafting two players in the first round.
 
TheIz said:
I'm thinking Detroit trade up to get Leinart - maybe throw in a wr to be our no.2 guy?!:ok: :woot2:fans:

maybe a little wishful............................................
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detroit is supposedly releasing carlos rogers at seasons end. he was drafted ahead of AJ and has the skills to make it. (he didnt have a great game thursday afternoon)
 
TheIz said:
I'm thinking Detroit trade up to get Leinart - maybe throw in a wr to be our no.2 guy?!..
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Surely not Charles Rodgers, he's already been suspended for drugs. We don't need a druggy on this team!

Roy Williams has missed 3 games this year due to injuries, can he stand the poounding?

bobby 119C:brickwall
 
Scribe said:
Knowing the Texans need to shore up the O-Line, I became curious about in what rounds starting o-linemen for other teams had been drafted. So I picked a few teams at random and did some research. I looked into the Colts (undefeated), Broncos (strong record and known for zone blocking), Pats (Super Bowl champs) and Falcons (winning record and happened to be on tv today) first team o-lines to see how their current starters entered the league. Here's what I found:

Broncos: one first round pick, two fourth round picks, one 7th round pick and one rookie undrafted free agent.

Colts: one first rounder, one fourth rounder, one fifth rounder and two undrafted rookie free agents.

Pats: one first rounder, one second rounder, one third rounder, one fifth rounder and two rookie undrafted free agents. There's six here, because I include Matt Light, who is injured.

Falcons: one second rounder, one fifth rounder and three seventh rounders.

What does all this prove? I suppose a couple of things. One, that you can find quality offensive linemen later in the draft and even pluck a find from the ranks of the undrafted. Two, that other teams must have better scouting and player development than we do.
Click to expand...
Interesting. It's always fun to look at these things. Wondering though...how many of these guys were drafted by the teams they are playing for now
 
Soupafly said:
Interesting. It's always fun to look at these things. Wondering though...how many of these guys were drafted by the teams they are playing for now
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Ask, & 'Ye shall receive. I've included the undrafted FA's, if they weren't signed & released by another team first.

23 of 32 starting LT's (includes RT for Atlanta) were originally drafted, or signed as a FA, by the team that they are currently with. I did not include Adam Snyder who is starting for San Francisco, since Jonas Jennings is their regular starter. I guess this goes to show the value of a solid LT. Teams just don't let them get away. All the teams in bold are their original teams.

AFC

Baltimore: Jonathan Ogden- 1st round (#4)
Buffalo: Mike Gandy- 3rd round (#68)- Drafted as a guard (Chicago)
Cinncinati: Levi Jones- 1st round (#10)
Cleveland: L.J. Shelton- 1st round (#21) (Arizona)
Denver: Matt Lepsis- (Undrafted FA)
Houston: Chester Pitts- 2nd round (#50)- Drafted as a guard
Indianapolis: Tarik Glenn- 1st round (#19)
Jacksonville: Khalif Barnes- 2nd round (#52)
Kansas City: Willie Roaf- 1st round (#8) (New Orleans)
Miami: Damion McIntosh- 3rd round (#83) (San Diego)
New England: Matt Light- 2nd round (#48) & Nick Kaczur- 3rd round (#100)
New York Jets: Adrian Jones- 4th round (#132)
Oakland: Barry Sims- (Undrafted FA)
Pittsburgh: Marvel Smith- 2nd round (#38)
San Diego: Roman Oben- 3rd round (#66) (NY Giants)
Tennessee: Brad Hopkins- 1st round (#13)

NFC

Arizona: Leonard Davis- 1st round (#2)
Atlanta: Todd Weiner (RT)- 2nd round (#47) (Seattle)
Carolina: Travelle Wharton- 3rd round (#94)
Chicago: John Tait- 1st round (#14) (Kansas City)
Dallas: Torrin Tucker- (Undrafted FA)
Detroit: Jeff Backus- 1st round (#18)
Green Bay: Chad Clifton- 2nd round (#44)
Minnesota: Bryant McKinnie- 1st round (#7)
New Orleans: Wayne Gandy- 1st round (#15) (St Louis)
New York Giants: Luke Petitgout- 1st round (#19)
Philadelphia: Tra Thomas- 1st round (#11)
San Francisco:Jonas Jennings- 3rd round (#95) (Buffalo) & Adam Snyder- 3rd round (#94)
Seattle: Walter Jones- 1st round (#6)
St. Louis: Orlando Pace- 1st round (#1)
Tampa Bay: Anthony Davis- (Undrafted FA)
Washington: Chris Samuels- 1st round (#3)
 
Scribe said:
What does all this prove? I suppose a couple of things. One, that you can find quality offensive linemen later in the draft and even pluck a find from the ranks of the undrafted.
Click to expand...
You can find quality OLineman later in the Draft (Day 2) and even in the FA market at most positions, but you'd better be prepared to step up and pay the price for a quality LT. Goes to show the special demands placed on a player and the abilities/skills he must have to effectively play LT that sets him apart from the rest of the OL position players. The LT position has really
evolved into a quasi-skilled position, unique for the offensive line.
 
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