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23 Feb 2010
Study: Niners O-Line Was Worst In The League
Matt Barrows of the Sacramento Bee has an interesting piece about the 49ers' offensive line, based on Adjusted Line Yards and other run-based stats. It's Barrows' contention that it's not just the line -- the predictability of San Francisco's run playbook is an equivalent problem.
24 comments, Last at 26 Feb 2010, 11:31am by Eddo
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Re: Study: Niners O-line Was Worst in the League
Alex Smith has had five offensive coordinators in five years.
The only one he gets to keep for a second year is Jimmy Raye.
Re: Study: Niners O-line Was Worst in the League
So, the question is...
just how great is Frank Gore?
Re: Study: Niners O-line Was Worst in the League
Point.
Re: Study: Niners O-line Was Worst in the League
Nearly as great as Steven Jackson, probably.
Re: Study: Niners O-line Was Worst in the League
Pro Football Focus has SF 8th in worst run blocking with a grade of -27.6, well ahead of the leaders Minnesota (-81), Tampa (-74.2), and Washington (-62.6).
Re: Study: Niners O-line Was Worst in the League
Thank God the Vikings were able to get Hutchinson and pay him all that money.
Re: Study: Niners O-line Was Worst in the League
Hutch was hurt and his run blocking declined dramatically as a result. Coupled with McKinnie's failures at run blocking it made this area, once a strength, a huge liability.
Re: Study: Niners O-line Was Worst in the League
Their numbers says that he was worth the money in 2007 & 2008 (they don't have 2006 data) and that he was still a good pass blocker this year, but his run blocking fell apart.
Re: Study: Niners O-line Was Worst in the League
Hey Doug...I've only been writing about this all season on Niners Nation using your guys' stats! With fancy OL charts based on your guys' stats to boot! C'mon man, give me some love! Just kidding.
Keep up the great work. Thanks for getting a Niner-related XP up...even if it's just another of the "Niners are horrible in (insert roster, coaching, or front office performance here)" variety. Any publicity is good publicity I guess.
p.s. I think Barrows scooped me. My OL review (fancy charts included) is scheduled for Friday.
Re: Study: Niners O-line Was Worst in the League
Hey Danny - long-timer reader over at Niners Nation - your articles are great, keep 'em up
Re: Study: Niners O-line Was Worst in the League
Absolutely. Danny is the man.
Re: Study: Niners O-line Was Worst in the League
SF's line may have been the worst in the league...but not when they played the Cardinals.
Re: Study: Niners O-line Was Worst in the League
SF's play calling was horrible in just how predictable it was. The thing that angered me the most was the ugly win after the Bears game, the coach telling his guys that they can beat anybody if they play their game. They had what, something like 10 points after an ugly 5 turnover game?
The 49ers defense isn't bad, if anything I'd say they are underrated especially at home on that grass... but that offense is putrid and gives fans nothing to root for.
If their head coach is intent on playing for the lowest common denominator football and "winning" ugly games where in reality the other team beat themself... it will be some ugly football and Crabtree might go to waste unless they change their offensive philosophy.
Re: Study: Niners O-line Was Worst in the League
Call me spoiled, but as a 49ers fan I don't really appreciate Mike Ditka football, which is kind of what Singletary plays. Ditka-ball was everything Bill Walsh wasn't. Steve Young does a local radio spot where he complains a lot about this and wants to see the 49ers go back to the WCO.
I wonder if other teams feel this way: do Steelers fans cringe when the Steelers have a bad D and throw the ball all over the place, or do they just want the W? I suspect of the 49ers were 12-4 instead of 8-8 I might not care as much, but right now I hate the way the 49ers play on offense.
Re: Study: Niners O-line Was Worst in the League
My guess is you'd appreciate it a lot more if it were more effective. As a Giants fan, I was perfectly fine with them emphasizing the passing game more this year--it didn't matter to me that it's not "Giants football" since it was working. On the other hand, this year's transition away from tough, hard-nosed defense to letting the other team top 40 points regularly was not such a welcome change.
Re: Study: Niners O-line Was Worst in the League
As a Giants fan first but a football fan second watching the 49ers was terrible. It isn't even about running the ball and playing defense ( like the Jets with their rookie QB), it was about playing ultra conservative offense, and letting the other team beat themselves against your defense. Mike Singeltary wants to play old fashioned Martyball. You can be a running team and mix in play action passes, trick plays, and take the occasional shots downfield to keep the D honest, but Mike wanted to play boring football on offense.
This is the footballoutsiders website anyway, and they laugh at the "run to win" myth in football. The league changed the rules and it's a QB league ( see Manning/Brees super bowl). Roethlisburger/Warner aren't too shabby either, and neither is Tom Brady, Eli Manning or the other guys that won in the last decade.
The outsiders belief in throwing is to the point where Bill Barnwell laughed at some of the comments made by old fashioned and in your face Rex Ryan. Ryan did a pretty darn good job in the playoffs if you ask me, and not just in the games they won ( his game plan vs the Colts was solid but the better team won).
If Singeltary is going to stay stuck in a run to win/ play defense/ hard headed discipline guy big on speeches and not so much on X's and O's/sometimes to the point of alienating players, I think he'll be viewed about the same way Jack Del Rio is around here ( not very good). I see Jack more of a teacher, and he's never had a good QB so he's trying to work with what he has, and I see Mike S. as a poor man's Del Rio.
Re: Study: Niners O-line Was Worst in the League
"If Singeltary is going to stay stuck in a run to win/ play defense/ hard headed discipline guy big on speeches and not so much on X's and O's/sometimes to the point of alienating players..."
To be fair, the Niners did start throwing the ball a lot more in the latter half of the season. But I agree Singletary still deserves at least some of the blame for the offense's lack of effectiveness.
Re: Study: Niners O-line Was Worst in the League
Since you asked, the reaction in Pittsburgh is that if Ben has to throw for 503 yards to beat the Packers 37-36, we're OK with that, although the non-existent pass defense that made 503 yards necessary is rightly criticized. But, there is grumbling that even extends to ownership about the de-emphasis of the running game.
If the Niners win with a power running attack (or the Steelers with a West Coast Offense), fans will be content. If they don't win, the fans will at least want the comfort of the familiar formula for winning.
Re: Study: Niners O-line Was Worst in the League
To me, it makes more sense for 49er fans to be upset than Steeler fans. The Steelers "new look" is mostly a reflection of the current league environment; passing is more important today, and thus emphasized more.
Conversely, I can understand if 49er fans are worried about their team focusing on an offense that is no longer as effective as it was when their head coach was a player. If it works, great; but it's less likely to work, in general (I'm not accounting for personnel in this case).
Re: Study: Niners O-line Was Worst in the League
Barrow's big competitior, Maiocco, posts standard stats about the 49ers line. Interestingly, they're opposite the FO stats in a lot of places:
Left end: 27 runs (4.81 average). League rank: 24th
Left tackle: 23 runs (2.38 average). League rank: 32nd
Left guard: 32 runs (2.0 average). League rank: 32nd
Middle: 171 runs (4.84 average). League rank: 3rd
Right guard: 38 runs (5.45 average). League rank: 2nd
Right tackle: 39 runs (2.95 average). League rank: 29th
Right end: 27 runs (6.07 average). League rank: 6th
Look up the middle. Standard averages put the 49ers at 4.84 with a league rank of #3. ALY puts them at 3.51 with a league rank of #29.
If the 49ers are looking at standard stats, they say, "Hey! Our runs up the middle are working!"
If they look at advanced stats they say, "Hey! Our runs up the middle are killing us!"
I'm hoping for the second, fearing the first.
Re: Study: Niners O-line Was Worst in the League
Sounds like that can be summed up very easily... " The draw play".
3rd and 12, where are the runs going? 49ers QB takes the shotgun snap, and hands it off to Frank Gore, who scampers up the middle for 6 yards.
Great for conventional stats, bad for advanced stats. Predictable for the Mike Singeltary offense trying to "play their game".
Re: Study: Niners O-line Was Worst in the League
ALY versus standard averages just means that the RB is breaking a lot of long runs up the middle which are skewing the average. You'd have to hope that the 49ers weren't so stupid as to look at a simple average instead of looking at the full distribution of runs.
Re: Study: Niners O-line Was Worst in the League
Yes, that's right. Gore was one of the best backs in the league at very long runs, and most of those were up the middle, two huge ones against the Seahawks in one game.
Those will distort your yards/run figure, and it's hard to credit the offensive line with them, especially since our other RBs blew chunks behind that line.
Re: Study: Niners O-Line Was Worst In The League
Jimmy Raye did the same thing while OC in Kansas City. This would not surprise Chiefs fans at all.
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