Turf Show Times
If you love to talk about offensive line play, it’s been a banner week of NFL content for you.
ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler is publishing his annual lists of the top 10 players at each position in the NFL, as voted on by coaches, scouts and front-office personnel. That includes the lists of best tackles and interior offensive linemen, which have been revealed this weekend. And earlier this week, Mike Clay, also of ESPN, published his updated offensive line rankings, which are actually an aggregation of grades from different sources, not his raw opinion.
How do these different sources view the Rams’ talent on the offensive line? It’s a mixed bag.
The rosier picture comes from the grading/charting/advanced metrics department, which ranks the Rams as the fourth-best (starting) offensive line in the league. They only trail the Broncos, Eagles and Bears in this particular analysis. On an individual level, Clay’s compilation shows Los Angeles with all five starters grading out above average, or above a 5 out of 10 on a normalized scale. Alaric Jackson is tied for the fifth-highest graded starting left tackle in the NFL, while Kevin Dotson is fourth among right guards and Coleman Shelton is tied in seventh for centers.
Suffice it to say, that’s an encouraging list.
Then we get to the opinions of league personnel, where things change dramatically.
Two Rams received votes for Fowler’s offensive line rankings, with Dotson and Steve Avila both coming up short of even making the “honorable mentions” section for interior players. Jackson, meanwhile, was nowhere to be found on the list of offensive tackles.
Obviously, these are all just grades on paper, we won’t know what these players will look like in 2026 until they take the field, etc. But it is interesting to note that there is such a disparity between the grades and the front offices around the league.
If you wanted to hitch your wagon to one particular set of data/opinions, it feels like the advanced charting would be the safer bet, and that’s not just because it has a higher opinion of the Rams. You’re getting more data points that inform the final score for all these players, and you’re getting them either from objective computers or from people that chart the tape. It’s not perfect, but there’s a little less subjectivity involved.
Meanwhile, when you inject the human element into anything, you’re going to get more variability and volatility. And when you work for a team and only see opposing players once, maybe twice during the year and you can’t watch a ton of other games, your sample size to grade from is relatively tiny.
The interior linemen list is particularly wonky and it’s obvious to see where the blindspots are. For example, Elgton Jenkins took a slight step back two years ago in Green Bay, played downright poorly last season after switching from guard to center, but still was an honorable mention because of his name recognition. Then there’s the absolute debacle that...
