Mile High Report
If I ask you which QBs had the 10 best seasons 2016-2025, you will get a lot of consensus. This is also true for RBs, WRs and TEs, because most fans tend to pay attention to the stats that these ball carriers put up. Unfortunately, it is much harder for the rest of the players on the offense, i.e. the offensive line.
SISdatahub.com has ten seasons worth of individual performance data for offensive linemen which I have now compiled/scrubbed into my own spreadsheet. I did this for both passing snaps and running snaps which they split out.
This initial post will look at the bottom ten overall in pass blocking and run blocking – the starters who really sucked. I will also call out the worst Broncos from both lists since no Bronco shows up on any of the bottom 10 lists.
All stats will be rate stats (things per snap) as a percentage. I will focus on blown blocks, sacks allowed and holding penalties. For run snaps, stuffs replace sacks. According to SIS a blown block is any time a blocker does not successfully block the defender they attempted to engage with and, as a result, gives the defender an opportunity to negatively affect the play. A stuff is when that blown block leads to a TFL on a running play. Similarly a blown block on a passing play will likely lead to a pressure, but may not lead to a sack. It should be noted that if an OL guy ends up blocking no one, they do NOT get a blown block, since they are not attempting to engage a defender. I should also mention that offensive linemen should block at least one defender on every play, even if it means helping block a defender who is already being blocked (just don’t go low on the defender as that is now a penalty).
There are 1662 instances of an offensive lineman having 250 or more pass blocking snaps in a season over the last 10 seasons. We’ll call these starters. The most passing snaps was Matt Feiler for the Chargers in 2022 with 774 pass blocking snaps. I would guess that is also the most ever since the most dropbacks in a regular season was 762 in by Justin Herbert in 2022. The most snaps over these ten seasons is by Jake Matthews with 5903 pass blocking snaps. He is one of thirteen players who has played for a team in the NFL every year from 2016 to 2025. The others are Kevin Zeitler, Joel Bitonio, Taylor Decker, Rob Havenstein, Ted Karras, Ryan Kelly, Lane Johnson, D.J. Humphries, Jack Conklin, Trent Brown, Andrus Peat, and Lucas Patrick. There are 22 OL players who have averaged 600 or more passing snaps per season over the last 10 seasons (below). None are Broncos.
Garret Bolles has the most of any Bronco with 544 per season.
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