Fantasy Football Strategy: Offensive Line Preview AFC East

RotoBaller Edward Gorelik breaks down the AFC East offensive lines of the NFL to find sleeper value for your fantasy football drafts.

Why an Offensive Line is Key to NFL and Fantasy Football Success

The Offensive Line is one of the most important facets of Football and yet it's usually not accounted for when people talk about fantasy outcome. Shonn Greene managed to run for 1000 yards back to back in 2011/2012 all thanks to an offensive line that gave him the opportunity to. Shaun Alexander had one of the greatest Running Back seasons of all time behind Walter Jones and Steve Hutchinson. QBs with better offensive lines have more time to complete deep passes and generally play better because they're under less pressure.  It's important because sometimes it's not about talent but like in the case of Shonn Greene, it's just about the getting the opportunity and in any non-dynasty league, opportunity is king.

In an effort to better prepare your expectations of RBs and QBs, I'll be taking a look at each offensive line in every Division in both Pass Blocking and Run Blocking based on their latest season to date, and for those who lack playing time in the NFL, some of their college tape. All scores gathered from Profootballfocus.com.

Before we can start though, lets find the average of each position's run blocking and pass blocking in the league according to PFF:

New York Jets

New starters in Italics.

D'Brickashaw Ferguson's previous year was his worst recorded since his 2007 season. His run blocking was very poor and but he was solid in his pass blocking. Ferguson is only 30 and could still return to form this season. Still, the Jets line managed a 4.81 Adjusted Line Yards when running off of the left tackle, 3rd best in the NFL.

Brian Winter's was a rookie last season, finding himself thrown into a sink or swim situation and ended up sinking. It's expected that a rookie would take a step in his following season, but last season Winters had 9 poor games out of the 12 he started.

Like Ferguson, Nick Mangold found himself having one of the worst seasons of his career as well last year. But his career average in the run game might end up being amongst the highest of all players in the league. In fact, last year was the only poor year he's ever had as a run blocker. Just looking at his career average compared to last year, the difference is astounding.

Willie Colon had one of his best years last year, seeing himself finish amongst the best in pass blocking although he had a down year in his run blocking. Colon's consistently been an injury risk in his career however, and his time as the starter could be cut short at any time. The players behind Colon would both be first time starters if were to go down.

The final piece of this line, Breno Giacomini has had a very up and down career so far, having had trouble remaining consistent not just year to year, but game to game. He's a downgrade from last year's starter, Austin Howard.

Final Thoughts: This line should give whichever Jets QB is starting enough time to make the plays he needs, as it only has one incredibly weak piece in comparison to the league average. In fact, last year Geno Smith was amongst the top in the league for Time to Throw and Time until Sack, but was pressured 3rd most in the league. In the run game however, the individual players well underperformed last year especially in comparison to their contemporaries. If the players can improve to their average run blocking expectations, they'll be a much improved unit- but with many of the starters reaching the latter stages of the career that might not be realistic. However, despite their troubles in the run game the Jets managed to be in the top 10 in the league for both Yards Per Carry and Rushing Yards gained which is likely due to Chris Ivory's tackle breaking ability, for which he was ranked 3rd in the league.

New England Patriots

Nate Solder is first on the line and is coming off of a strong season. Although his career average pass blocking is low, it mostly comes from his poor rookie year where played as the right tackle. Since being switched to the left side, his run blocking has only gotten better and he's likely to keep it up as he is only in his fourth year.

Logan Mankin's had a down year in pass blocking, but just like what's expected of him he had another monster run blocking year. Since 2007 he's been consistently amongst the run blocking elite for guards.

Ryan Wendell's 2013 season saw him put up the lowest pass blocking grade amongst all starting centers in the league. His career hasn't been much better in pass blocking and considering the AFC East has some of the best defensive line players in the league his inability to keep up could very well be one of the biggest contributing factors to Brady's 2013 decline, as interior pressure has been found as the most difficult to handle. On the other spectrum though, Wendell put up the highest run blocking grade of all centers a year ago in 2012 and followed it up with a below league average season. In Wendell's short career as a starter, it's hard to tell which of the two is an outlier, but it's worth noting that in week 6 of 2013 Wendall suffered a concussion, which could have had something to do with how poorly he played. However, he was only on the injury report for that one week and missed no games.

Dan Connolly has seen himself moved around very often on the Patriots offensive line although he's always been stuck in the interior positions (LG/C/RG). In 2012 when he had his first full year starting at one position on the offensive line, he saw himself grade out just around average. In 2013 he would have the fifth lowest grade of all guards for pass blocking and find himself right around the average for run blocking. Connolly also found himself listed as having a concussion that he suffered before week 7, but missed no games. Before having been hit with the concussion though, Connolly's pass blocking was already incredibly poor.

Sebastian Vollmer solidifies the right side by being consistently above average in his career and even with last season being cut short by injury still managed to put up an above average grade in both pass and run blocking.

Final Thoughts: It's not hard to see why Tom Brady had such a hard time in 2013. Two of his interior lineman were amongst the league worst in pass blocking and that led to Brady's time in pocket being bottom 3 in both Time to Throw and Time to Sack. With the AFC East having some of the best defensive line talent in the NFL (the Williams of Buffalo, the Three Son's of the Jets, and the duo of Cameron Wake and Oliver Vernon) Brady could be in for another long season. On the other side, the run blocking as a unit was very strong with two of the best run blockers anchoring the left side. The Patriots in fact rank first amongst all OL for runs in between Center and either Guard.  It's crazy to think that the entirety of next years O-line is not only returning starters but their career average for Run Blocking would be twice the regular league wide average of all positions summed up.

Miami Dolphins

New starters in italics. Rookies in Bold.

Brandon Albert was the prize of the Dolphins 2014 Free Agent class and comes in as an immediate improvement over last years LT starter, Bryant McKinnie. Last year he performed better than McKinnie in both pass and run blocking, but Brandon's career has been anything but consistent. In the last two years Albert has seen himself a victim of both knee and back injuries and has missed 5 games. Even so, he's played considerably well in pass protection although his run blocking has been in decline. It still should be better than what McKinnie provided the previous year.

Dallas Thomas will be starting this year for the first time. He was selected in the third round of the 2013 draft. Watching some of his tape, it seemed like Thomas regularly struggled with getting a good push in run blocking but was able to play at least decently in pass blocking. I'm not an O-line tape expert, so i can't comment on much else but it looked like his stance might be an issue. With a year in the league learning from the bench, you have to assume he's improved. Regardless, the drop off from Incognito will likely be felt as Incognito was at least average or better in 2013.

In 2013, Mike Pouncey finished as the best pass blocking center. That might be shocking to hear when you consider that the Dolphins allowed the most sacks in the league last year. Pouncey has gotten better in pass protection with each passing year but his run blocking has taken a hit since his rookie year in 2011, last year being it's absolute worst, 3 points below the average. But Pouncey is likely to miss the first few games this year and have backup Sam Brenner in is place. Brenner, was an UDFA from last year who saw playing time at the guard positions. He graded very poorly in pass protection, and below average in run blocking.

Shelly Smith comes to Miami from the Saint Louis Rams where he played mostly as a backup but managed 371 snaps during the season (a 16 game starter usually has about 1000~). In the two games that Smith started and played fully, he put up an awful -5.0 in pass protection but a strong 4.5 in run blocking. This will be Smith's fifth year in the league after being undrafted and his first year as a full starter, so it's hard to expect much to change. Shelley is a clear upgrade in run blocking over John Jerry, but is a big big downgrade in pass protection. Jerry was the 8th best Guard at pass blocking last year.

Ja'Waun James comes in as the first round pick from the 2014 draft and should be starting immediately. Like fellow first year starter and Tennessee Volunteer grad Dallas Thomas, James makes most of his work in pass blocking. He's a slightly better run blocker than Thomas however, but is still looking somewhat poor. In fact, Tennessee seemed to favor running away from James side than towards. Still, James should be fixing what was the weakest part of the Dolphins line last year. He should be a clear upgrade over the former starter, Jonathan Martin.

Final Thoughts: The Miami Dolphins put together a solid effort in shaping up their offensive line but it's a line with two inexperienced starters and four new parts. Individually, the players should be better than their predecessors (except for John Jerry) but it's hard to tell the outlook of this line based on just numbers. Even with that though, I'd project run blocking to improve.

Buffalo Bills

New starters in italics. Rookies in Bold.

Cordy Glenn had a great rookie year last year, best among all rookie tackles. Great in pass protection and great in the run game, look for Glenn to continue that and maybe even get better.

Chris Williams takes over at LG this year. He's been a bust throughout his career and last year put up the worst ratings of his career, it was also the first time since 2009 that he's started a full season. Williams was a bit of a head scratching pickup during the offseason and is unlikely to improve in his seventh year.

Eric Wood has a career of just about average performance, and this year you can expect an a surprisingly average performance.

Kraig Urbik has been way above the average in pass blocking. In run blocking though, he's been just around the average or even a little below. He's been consistent and will likely keep it up.

Cyrus Koujandjio is a first year rookie in the Bills line. He comes of Alabama who has had the recent history of churning out top level offensive lineman after offensive lineman. Koujandjio's college tape showed a powerful run blocker able to stand up his man at the line, and occasionally maul them over. His pass protection looked pretty good as well.

Final Analysis: Other than guard Chris Williams, this line looks pretty good. But Williams could easily be a huge liability in both the run and passing game. I'd project this line to finish the season well and give whichever Running Back ends up starting plenty of good opportunities. A worthy note, last year the LG position was almost as bad and Buffalo rushed up the middle between either guard and center a league leading 71% of the time, where they averaged 4.08 Adjusted Yard Lines from their offensive line, good for 11th in the league.