AFCN Unit Comparisons 2017

sdballis

Since there's been some contention about the RB rankings...

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/leveon-bell-david-johnson-ezekiel-elliott-ranking-every-teams-rb-situation-131541695.html

They have the Ravens near the bottom (28), us at 19, then the Bengals and Steelers in the top-10 (7 and 2, respectively). Of course they justify our ranking saying, "Crowell was great, even with a crap O-line and a stacked box, but the Browns suck so we can't rate them too high" (paraphrasing).

Steelers are obviously tops with Bell, and Cincy has a lot of talent, but lost two key guys on the OL, so we'll have to see how they tolerate that. I think that Crowell and Johnson are players and can only look better with a solidified OL and better QB play. Our (hopefully) improved D and a reliable run game could keep us competitive in any game this year.

Tour2ma

While I think our OL is poised to top the Division, we haven't taken the field yet, so the nod still goes to PTG.

Steelers: Villanueva/Foster/Pouncey/DeCastro/Gilbert
Browns: Thomas/Bitonio/Tretter/Zeitler/Shon Coleman
Ravens: Stanley/Alex Lewis/Urschel/Yanda/Hurst
Bengals: Ogbuehi/Boling/Bodine/Smith/Jake Fisher

PTG has a great, inside anchor in the pairing of Pouncey and DeCastro while Foster and Gilbert are solid pros. Villa has been very good, but was pretty ordinary in 2016.

BLT has the best OG in the league and a great LT in Stanley, but they are very uneven everywhere else.

The Bengals' OL was bad last year... and that was before we signed away their best lineman and LAR signed away their second best... who just happened to be their LT. Ogbuehi stepping in? Watch out, Andy...

The Gipper

@tour2ma said:

While I think our OL is poised to top the Division, we haven't taken the field yet, so the nod still goes to PTG.

Steelers: Villanueva/Foster/Pouncey/DeCastro/Gilbert

Browns: Thomas/Bitonio/Tretter/Zeitler/Shon Coleman

Ravens: Stanley/Alex Lewis/Urschel/Yanda/Hurst

Bengals: Ogbuehi/Boling/Bodine/Smith/Jake Fisher

PTG has a great, inside anchor in the pairing of Pouncey and DeCastro while Foster and Gilbert are solid pros. Villa has been very good, but was pretty ordinary in 2016.

BLT has the best OG in the league and a great LT in Stanley, but they are very uneven everywhere else.

The Bengals' OL was bad last year... and that was before we signed away their best lineman and LAR signed away their second best... who just happened to be their LT. Ogbuehi stepping in? Watch out, Andy...

What Pittsburgh has is a great OL coach in Mike Munchak. Before he arrived, even with Pouncey and DeCastro, they were decidedly mediocre at best. Munchak gets the best out of that group.

Orion

@the-gipper said:
What Pittsburgh has is a great OL coach in Mike Munchak.

And we have a magician coaching ours.

Our current OL rankings are silly...without even knowing the playing health of the LG and if the RT position actually gets solidified. It's hypothetical.

The OL is better by subtraction (Erving will not be playing center).

We upgraded the RG position. (wasn't a real problem before...but Greco was injured )

So even if the RT position isn't perfect (remember, Erving is in the mix for that spot)...I'm not as concerned about the OL as I have been in the past.

- Of course there's also the fact that the Ghoul likes to point out (ad nauseum)...if the QB isn't getting the ball out on time (for whatever reason, wr's don't separate...qb doesn't see things fast enough) then the OL WILL fail. And that snowballs because the D crowds the LOS even more, shutting down the run game in the process. Resulting in the 5 guys can't block 8, thing.

Flugel

@orion said:

So even if the RT position isn't perfect (remember, Erving is in the mix for that spot)...I'm not as concerned about the OL as I have been in the past.

- Of course there's also the fact that the Ghoul likes to point out (ad nauseum)...if the QB isn't getting the ball out on time (for whatever reason, wr's don't separate...qb doesn't see things fast enough) then the OL WILL fail. And that snowballs because the D crowds the LOS even more, shutting down the run game in the process. Resulting in the 5 guys can't block 8, thing.

Some good points Orion. When Lindy Infante arrived 1 year after both Mack and Byner rushed for over 1000 yards a piece, he decided the RBs could help his young QB out even more in the short pass game. Why? What do defenses like to do vrs inexperienced QBs the game hasn't fully slowed down for yet? Blitz them. Infante was a step ahead of them exploiting the flats and hook zones with a RB to bury the blitz or prevent it altogether. Our RBs combined for about 123 receptions in 1986. And for those teams that liked to blitz a Safety, we had TE Ozzie Newsome hitting the seams.

Back to our offensive line. When we had both starting OGs healthy in 2016, this is what Crow's numbers looked like:

OPPONENT RUSH ATT YDS AVG LNG TD

Philly L 10-29 12 62 5.2 20 1

Balt L 20-25 18 133 7.4 85 1

Mia L 24-30 (OT) 15 79 5.3 25 0

Was L 20-31 16 120 7.5 19 1

Clearly, a team coming off 3-13 football wasn't equipped to lose 2 starters after losing both Mack & Schwartz to FA. That said, both games Erving didn't play Center, Crow averaged 5.3 ypc vrs Miami and 8.0 ypc vrs Pitt's starting front 7 on New Year's. Both of his replacements in those games (Reiter & Fabiano), are on the roster competing with Tretter at Center. Whoever starts at Center this year is an upgrade just like last year. As I said in the Training Camp thread that asked what 1st or 2nd year guy I want to see most - it's RT Shon Coleman. The next guy I said was Njoku.

The Gipper

Flugel, If your point is that our RBs need to be more involved in the pass game, I agree. Duke Johnson should be a killer at catching the ball out of the backfield. (I even hear he may play some at the slot receiver spot....maybe more than some). Crow does not seem a great pass catcher...but he needs to improve in that area to make himself a more versatile threat. And I think he will. Not sure about our other backup RBs as pass receivers.

Atkinson? Any potential in Dayes? (hopefully he will not be Dayesed and Confused)

Note: in looking up his college stats, Dayes could be pretty good. He had catches of 32, 24, and 32 in his years at NC State...with a 9.6 yard average per catch.

http://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/players/matt-dayes-1.html

Comeonman

@boo-fagley said:

Ranked in order top to bottom. Best first.

QBs:

Steelers: Roethlisberger/L. Jones

Ravens: Flacco/Ryan Mallet

Bengals: Dalton/McCarron

Browns: Kessler/Osweiler

Dalton is 3rd because he has never won a Super Bowl, but if Flacco were to go down Cincinnati moves to 2nd place because Mallet is horrible. McCarron > Mallet too.

RBs:

Steelers: Bell/James Conner

Bengals: Jeremy Hill, Giovanni Bernard

Ravens: Talafierro/Terence West

Browns Crowell/Johnson

Browns and Ravens are tied for 3rd. So much of the run game depends on QB play.

WRs:

Steelers: A. Brown/M. Bryant

Bengals: AJ Green Green/Brandon Lafell.

Ravens: Jeremy Maclin/Mike Wallace

Browns: C. Coleman/Britt

Steeers have always drafted good WRs. LaFell is nothing to write home about and the Ravens could move up to 2 and Cincinnati down to 3. The Browns are somewhat unproven in the position at this moment.

TEs:

Browns: Njoku/Devalve

Bengals: Tyler Eifert/Tyler Croft

Ravens: Crockett Gilmore/Ryan Malleck (not Ryan Mallet!!)

Steelers: Jesse James/David Johnson

None of these TEs jump out at you. Maybe James is #1 only because of Ben,Bell and Brown.

OL:

Browns: Thomas/Bitonio/Tretter/Zeitler/Shon Coleman

Bengals: Ogbuehi/Boling/Bodine/Smith/Jake Fisher

Ravens: Stanley/Alex Lewis/Urschel/Yanda/Hurst

Steelers: Villanueva/Foster/Pouncey/DeCastro/Gilbert

Browns strongest unit.

Actually a pretty decent assessment I think. I'd have the CLE RBs swapped with BAL but that would be my only disagreement

Comeonman

Didn't see the TE clearly. I'd have CIN with the best unit because Eifert (when healthy) is by far the best in the division

Flugel

@the-gipper said:

Flugel, If your point is that our RBs need to be more involved in the pass game, I agree. Duke Johnson should be a killer at catching the ball out of the backfield. (I even hear he may play some at the slot receiver spot....maybe more than some). Crow does not seem a great pass catcher...but he needs to improve in that area to make himself a more versatile threat. And I think he will. Not sure about our other backup RBs as pass receivers.

Atkinson? Any potential in Dayes? (hopefully he will not be Dayesed and Confused)

Note: in looking up his college stats, Dayes could be pretty good. He had catches of 32, 24, and 32 in his years at NC State...with a 9.6 yard average per catch.

http://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/players/matt-dayes-1.html

Good points Gips! Yeah, throwing to RBs in zones defenses like to blitz LBers out of manipulates and dictates the gridiron chess match in favor of the OC in my opinion. And when you add a weapon at the TE position (like Ozzie Newsome was or we hope Njoku becomes) - you prevent even more blitzes from the Safety position.

As helpful as Mack & Byner's 1000+ yards apiece were to Kosar in 1985. Lindy Infante showed up in 1986 with a plan to help his cement shoe'd QB bury the blitz or prevent it altogether in the form of 123 receptions from the RB position (47 of those came from our 3rd down RB Herman Fontenot). I didn't realize this but Crow actually had 40 receptions in 2016, which improved from 19 receptions in 2015 and 9 only receptions in 2014. He's making progress while Duke added 53 receptions. They combined for 93 receptions, which is about 30 receptions shy of what the RBs did to help our young QB in 1986.

Tour2ma

@the-gipper said:
What Pittsburgh has is a great OL coach in Mike Munchak. Before he arrived, even with Pouncey and DeCastro, they were decidedly mediocre at best. Munchak gets the best out of that group.

And yet you think they are the 4th best unit in our division...

Unless you look it up would you even know when Munchak arrived? Here are some clues:

It was not 2010, Pouncey's All-Pro, rookie season.
It was not 2011, Pouncey's All-Pro, sophomore season.
It was not 2012, Pouncey's All-Pro, 3rd season.
It was not 2013, Pouncey's opening-day, major-injury season.

I'll take that kind of "mediocre"...

Now it's time for you to shift the conversation...

The Gipper

@tour2ma said:

And yet you think they are the 4th best unit in our division...

Ah...NO....wtf are you reading? I said they are second behind the Browns. The Bengals were 4th. Hello!

Unless you look it up would you even know when Munchak arrived? Here are some clues:

It was not 2010, Pouncey's All-Pro, rookie season.

It was not 2011, Pouncey's All-Pro, sophomore season.

It was not 2012, Pouncey's All-Pro, 3rd season.

It was not 2013, Pouncey's opening-day, major-injury season.

I'll take that kind of "mediocre"...

Now it's time for you to shift the conversation...

A shift toward reality. You mentioned one guy that was pretty good. An offensive line consists of 5 guys. That would be like saying the Browns have had great overall OLs because we have had Joe Thomas. Pouncey was good while most of the rest of that OL pretty much sucked. They don't now that they have DeCastro coming of age, and Villanueva. Of course they all did that under the guidance of Munchak.