Offensive Line Rankings

Reduce the risk of your key 2009 fantasy football picks

Coming in July 2009

One of the key factors that can really help your decision between two seemingly equal players is reviewing the quality of the offensive line for those players. All things being equal, a player that plays behind a very solid line brings more stability to the table relative to a player that plays behind a suspect line. Coupled with a Strength of Schedule Analysis, you can significantly stack the fantasy odds in your favor for having a very successful draft. At the end of day, it is these subtleties that can help provide a big boost to your fantasy football draft selections, helping you select players with favorable circumstances while avoiding potential duds that can crush your team.

How did the Docs create the FootballDocs 2009 Offensive Line Rankings?
Similar to our other fantasy football projections, a very intense level of detail and analysis has been carefully built into the FootballDocs 2009 offensive line rankings. This provides an extremely comprehensive evaluation of each and every line in the NFL. Every effort has been made to separate the offensive line contribution to its team offensive success in the previous season. The evaluation goes well beyond just looking at total sacks allowed and other traditional, first-level factors. For one, assuming every team in the NFL had exactly the same offensive line, simply the teams that had the most pass attempts would yield the most aggregate sacks allowed. Consequently, although sacks allowed can be an indictor of line quality, it is not a true, accurate reflection of line quality. Similar examples can be made with other first-level pass blocking ratings as well as run blocking ratings. Rather, ratings were normalized between each and every team in the league. Long runs were discarded from rushing yards per carry in an effort to extract line contribution to the success of the play. Several other factors were included to provide a baseline rating in both run and pass blocking based on previous season performance. Next, 2009 run and pass blocking projections were made for each and every offensive line. Factors that were considered include key additions, key losses, changes in offensive line coaches, and other statistically significant considerations. The end result is a very detailed, thorough evaluation and projection for each offensive line.

We have broken down our 2009 offensive line rankings in a very clean, user friendly format. Both projected 2009 run blocking rankings and 2009 pass blocking rankings are given, as well as an in-depth commentary for each team highlighting key additions and losses. These include Pro-Bowl level talent, other experienced talent, significant NFL offensive line rookies, and key offensive line coaches.

Offensive line rankings available in July.