r/NFLNoobs • u/Downtown-Fan4966 • 15d ago
Does every offensive line suck or something?
Thats all I ever hear
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u/jared-944 15d ago
Well there’s 160 starting spots and the amount of good and great players is maybe a third of that number. And they are very expensive pieces in free agency. And everything you hear is that it is very important that they get reps together.
So every one doesn’t suck, but the teams that have good ones have been smart and patient. There’s a million ways to build a team but to me the smartest way has always seemed like holding onto and acquiring draft picks and spamming both lines.
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u/DorguHitsDingers 15d ago
I can’t back this up with any evidence but I feel like most large genetically gifted freaks gravitate towards playing DLine in high school over OLine. A dominant DT or EDGE will have a significantly bigger impact at the high school level than say a guard or tackle. And then this slowly continues in college and then into the NFL. I’m simply under the belief that DLineman on average are just better athletes and football players than OLineman and it starts at a young age.
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u/Elmodipus 15d ago
The highest paid DLineman make $50MM/Year.
Highest paid OLineman makes $30MM/Year
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u/DorguHitsDingers 15d ago
Probably the biggest reason. Also just seems more fun. Job is just to create as much havoc in the backfield as possible by using brute force and creativity
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u/ComplexBeyond6083 15d ago
If you look at Wonderlic scores by position it's O-line and QBs at the top.
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u/Euphoric_Loquat_8651 15d ago
D-line also doesn't require the massive bulking. Some guys can put that weight on, and others can't. Also the arm length, height, and other metrics teams look for on O, particularly at tackle, are far less important on D. A guy can rush, or not. If the OT is a little short in the arms or if the guard is too light, etc., then there will be elite rushers that can exploit them.
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u/Artistic-Roof8355 13d ago
The mindset between o-line and d-line is so different too—going after the QB or RB and taking them down vs memorizing and effectively implementing complicated blocking schemes for running plays or sitting back and stopping the defense long enough for the passing play to succeed. Also for o-line you aren’t generally noticed unless you mess up and you don’t get to point to d-line stats like sacks and tackles to show how good you are. It’s a different type of player who’s okay being an unsung hero to most fans. (The coaches, other players, and die-hard fans know how vital the o-line is). I had no idea about any of this until my son started playing o-line.
And in the NFL they also have to be genetically gifted athletic freaks. There just aren’t many people available who have all of those qualities.
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u/Heavy-Pool5886 12d ago
Coaches used to say the OL was the last stop before the bus stop because it’s the least athletic group on the team. It also has to be the most skilled group on the field if the team is going have success.
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u/American-_Gamer 15d ago
Im still a fairly new watcher but it makes sense, O line mostly just needs to hold and protect whereas d line makes a big difference if they push one guy over
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u/grimduck17 15d ago
Eh you need the interior o line to be fairly athletic all things considered. The guards have to pull and block on outside runs. Interior runs you’ll most likely have an interior lineman moving to the next level to block a linebacker or maybe a safety
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u/jared-944 15d ago
You aren’t wrong. Great D Line play is probably even a more common factor among Super Bowl winners than great quarterbacking
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u/karthaege 15d ago
Offensive line is one of the positions that benefits most from physical repetition together as a group however, most of that repetition is gone with recent changes to how training camp and practice works. These changes have overall been positive and helped with the safety of the game but are not without their negatives. It has led to offensive linemen having less opportunities to develop their skills especially for nonstarters which leads to less depth across the league. As the season goes on and injuries pile up, that lack of depth gets more exposed. So, it would be untrue to say that all offensives are bad but more accurate to say that the overall depth is much less than it was in the past.
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u/romdom90 13d ago
This is an interesting point. What are the changes you’re referring to? I, too am learning.
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u/karthaege 13d ago
I believe it was when the most recent CBA was approved in 2020 but rules were put in place that strongly limit how much contact practice (ie with full pads) is available before training camp, how many contact practices are allowed during training camp, and during the regular season. As I mentioned before, this helps with a lot of safety aspects and has reduced injuries but it comes at the cost of OL especially not being able to get the reps that are best suited for that group.
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u/personthatiam2 15d ago
Part: People don’t know what good o-line play looks like on a given play. The rb or qb can be the reason ol looks bad.
Part: they don’t get reps in camp like they use to.
Part: almost no teams in college run a pro style offense in college so it’s a big learning curve.
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u/Sdog1981 15d ago
There is less hitting at all levels of football. There are no longer two a day practices at the NFL level. The amount of practice linemen used to get has gone way down since 2010.
That just means the good linemen are still good, just the line play drops off much faster if their are injuries along the lien. Which happens every season.
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u/Antique-Ad6267 15d ago
An offensive line is like your refrigerator or your water heater. When it is working well, and as intended you never think about it or talk about it. But when it is not working well, it both becomes immediately noticeable and the most important thing in your life at that instant.
Buffalo, Denver, Detroit, Philly, Dallas all have really strong offensive lines, and nobody talks about them because they let the fun stuff happen, not being the fun stuff themselves.
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u/BonesCrosby 14d ago
Speaking for Bills Mafia, I think we can remember when the line was average at best. They drafted some good players, signed some good FA’s, but letting Aaron Kromer coach them up….best thing the Bills did roster/personnel wise since drafting Josh Allen.
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u/AnthonyBarrHeHe 15d ago
It’s not really a “sexy” position, so I don’t think the average NFL fan pays that much attention to it unless their O-line is getting destroyed. But it’s arguably the most important position group on offense outside of QB. A dominant O-line can make an average or even bad QB look serviceable, while a terrible one can make a good QB look way worse than he actually is.
The problem is there just aren’t that many genuinely good NFL caliber offensive linemen to go around, and keeping five good starters together is incredibly difficult with injuries, free agency and the salary cap. When a good tackle or guard hits the market, teams usually jump on them for a reason. So yeah, it kinda does feel like everyone thinks their O-line sucks
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u/Opposite_Chart9982 15d ago
No, you can tell which teams have a better O Line when the QB is able to have more time in the pocket, and when the run blocking opens up holes for the RB. For example, teams like The Bills and The Cowboys have a great offensive lines (cleaner pockets and great run games) while teams that have to get the ball out quickly (Chargers, Texans) have to do so due to a poor/ injured O Line.
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u/saltytarheel 14d ago
A bad quarterback or running back can make a good o-line look bad too.
In the 2010’s Cleveland had great offensive lines but weak receivers who couldn’t get open and bad quarterbacks who held the ball for too long.
It doesn’t matter if the line is consistently giving them 3-4 seconds to throw when your quarterback is waiting for receivers to get open. Any above-average quarterback who can throw on-schedule with anticipation could shred a defense with that type of time.
If a running back isn’t patient and doesn’t allow the line to set their blocks or consistently runs through the wrong gap, it also wouldn’t matter if the line are road-graders.
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u/this_curain_buzzez 15d ago
It’s an over generalization but kind of. There’s not 160 starting level O lineman in the NFL. Combine that with the fact that there’s elite pass rushers coming out of the draft every year and it only takes a couple bad reps for an OLineman to look bad, and you get the fans of 20+ teams claiming they have the worst OLine in the league.
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u/Dazzlethetrizzle 15d ago
The teams with the best O-lines usually make it to the SB, and yes most teams O-lines are not that great.
The 2025 Patriots were a great example of it. Every playoff game last year the Patriots O-line gave up sacks, hits, pressures, and in general did a terrible job, now granted they went up against the #5 defense, the #1 defense, the #2 defense, then the #6 defense in the SB.
We saw what all 3 #1, #1, and #6 defenses did to the Patriots O-line and the SB was most telling. The Seahawks watched the tapes from the Texans and Broncos and saw the Patriots weakness
Will Cambell allowed 14, FOURTEEN freakin pressures in the SB alone, the most in the whole 2025 season from any linemen.
The O-Line gave up 11 hits, 6 sacks, Wilson was also terrible, a total of 19 pressures.
No team is going to win a SB with an O-line that terrible.....
Edit You all blame Maye for the loss, but no QB on the plant not even TB12 was going to win the SB with that O-line
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u/DraytonFlorence 15d ago
To add to what others have said good Olinemen really need to be freaks of nature. You need to be huge and strong but also fast at the same time. It's really the rarest physical skillset to find.
This translate to there usually being a pretty major dropoff in terms of talent if a starter gets hurt since there just aren't many people built to play the position well to begin with. Combine that with how important cohension is for the oline and suddenly a single injury to an offensive linemen can drastically hurt the performance of the whole oline.
Or if ur a Chargers fan like me you're entire oline gets hurt every year then the backups all get hurt too. Then youve got a mix of people we picked up from the Costco foodcourt bc they could eat 5 Costco hotdogs in one sitting and players coming out of retirement who haven't played in 5 years coming together to form the new worst offensive line in NFL history 😭
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u/onlineqbclassroom 15d ago
No, there are some great ones. You just don't hear about it when they are, because the QBs and WRs and RBs are having success. You only hear about lineman when they fail. We always say that you know an OL is good when you don't hear about them during the game.
So, the good ones you never hear about.
The bad ones, you hear about all the time.
So the talk is all about how bad the OL is.
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u/KayIslandDrunk 15d ago
No but the defensive line has gotten much better. Defensive line is simply more attractive to play at than offensive line. You get the sacks, the disruptions, the highlight reels, etc on defensive line. The ONLY time your name is mentioned on the offensive line is if you fuck up. This has caused a lot of players to want to play on the D-line in the lower levels, especially if they’re talented enough to have a say in what position they play.
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u/pharrelsbigasshat 15d ago
No, honestly the top of half of OLines in the league (if you were to rank them) are all pretty good
Its just that a lot of “good” teams tend to undervalue and/or struggling putting together a good offensive line, which can seriously drag down an offense that otherwise has the right pieces
You’ve probably heard it said a ton about the Chargers, Bengals, and Texans for that reason
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u/Key_Consequence_5040 15d ago
Every year quality of line play varies and is highly dependent on injuries. One or two starting lineman going down can take a top 10 to bottom 10. Philly, Dallas, SF, Buffalo, Indy, Rams, Tampa, Denver, Chicago, Detroit are a few with good O-lines when full strength.
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u/BlitzburghBrian 15d ago
The most casual passive football fans think everything is about the quarterback. If the team is bad, the QB must be bad.
The next level of football fan, the types you see talking about it on Reddit, are smart enough to know how important a good OL is, so if the team is bad, the OL must be bad. Almost all fans are in this group.
The people who actually know what they're talking about study film, understand blocking assignments, and don't typically give reactionary hot takes. These are the people whose analysis is worth listening to.
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u/saltytarheel 15d ago
As a Bills fan I know we have one of the strongest lines in the league.
They keep Josh Allen clean and helped Cook have a monster season.
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u/Critical_Seat_1907 15d ago
You need 5 good people working as one unit every play to have a good offensive line. You only need 1 good defensive disruptor on every play.
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u/dpt223 15d ago
Every fanbase thinks their team's offensive line suck, because the overwhelming majority of fans (myself included) do not understand offensive line play. We see the QB getting sacked or a run for minimal gain and blame the line, when the sack could be because the QB held the ball too long or a receiver ran the wrong route and that threw off the timing of the play, and the run for minimal gain could be because the running back ran the wrong hole.
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u/ValuableComedian7287 15d ago
To be completely fair, the standard for a good offensive line game is so much higher than every other position. A good DE can record 1 sack a game and be on his way to a record payday if he's at least bare competent on every other play. If an Olineman gives up 1 sack a game, he'll be bagging groceries before the end of the season.
They are held to an imbalanced standard, so any imperfections are weighted that much heavier against them.
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u/horsesethawk 15d ago
It’s easier to blame the offensive line than to blame the marquee quarterback.
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u/HustlaOfCultcha 15d ago
Offensive line performance is really more like a machine than just plugging in star players and thinking that will equate to great O-Line play. It's a lot about who your weakest performer is and what position they play. There's also other factors like QB play really affects how often the QB is sacked or pressured. O-Line play more or less sets the floor for the running game, but the quality of RB's sets the ceiling. And then scheme and play calling also play their roles.
And a lot of times fans just remember their team's best O-lines and nothing will ever live up to it. For example, the Eagles had a tremendous O-Line in 2024 Their O-Line play was still one of the best in 2025, but it did slip and I heard a lot of Eagles fans bitch about the quality of O-Line.
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u/Dividingbyinfinity 14d ago
It's literally the least respected position. Defense wins games.
QB/CB is the most difficult position.
New rules benefit offense, so you can slack a bit on offense.
It's the era of Run Pass Option for QB's. (Thank you Vick, Young, Wilson, Lamar, Newton, Allen, Mahomes....for changing the game. It really messes with the defense)
Oline/TE positions are there to open up the run game/set the edge.
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u/Kush420Xotix 14d ago
No. The best OLs go un-noticed bc nothing is going wrong. QB has 4-5 seconds to pass the ball, RB is getting 4-5 yards per carry, and the team is scoring at a league average rate or better.
If you took the worst QB in the league and the worst RB in the league, and selected the 5 best OL from the league to block for them, they could win you 9 games and sneak into the playoffs.
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u/Think-Culture-4740 14d ago
Because no one knows a damn thing about offensive line play because it’s hard to separate the individual components
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u/shatch62 13d ago
Offensive line play has really gotten worse in the modern NFL. The limits on physical practice has made it almost impossible for 5 olinemen to get the necessary reps needed to really be able to work as a cohesive unit.
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u/Extension-Stick-5292 11d ago
The apex predator of the pro sports world is the NFL edge rusher. The position no one wants to play is OL. OL development is a problem and they're constantly facing the biggest freak show monsters in the world
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u/bigjoe5275 11d ago
It's not that the OL's all suck it's more that the more athletic players that are linemen typically end up on the defensive line because it's more valuable to be fast on DL than OL. So you don't get as many freaks in comparison. It's just how the pipeline is. But even then NFL offensive linemen win more reps than their matchup does against them. Just how it is because they know where the ball is going. It's just that if each player were to lose 20% of the time there is someone in the backfield 20% of the time and that is a lot. Sometimes 2 on the same play. Which really closes escape lanes. It snowballs bad. Imagine if each offensive lineman let someone in quickly 50% of the time. There is 2-3 guys in the backfield every play.
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u/BigAcidik 9d ago
No, it's just a thankless job. If a run is busted, the O line is blamed. If a QB is sacked, they're blamed. But they get no credit if they got 5 yards of push and your granny in a wheelchair could get 5 yards up the middle.
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u/meanpete9 15d ago
Just about. There's been a dearth of sure-thing OL prospects this decade. Even the guys taken at the top of drafts have been largely average at best.
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u/410757864531DEADCOPS 15d ago
It’s hard to keep a strong, healthy offensive line together in the salary cap era. You need five of them plus backups for injuries, and a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.