FanPost

Comparing the ATL and SF Offensive Lines.


The Falcons are coming to town and it appears that the performance of the offensive lines for both teams will be key factors. Atlanta is depending on their high-octane offense to overcome the 49ers' smothering defense to win the game. The 9ers will be depending on their offense to put up enough points to win the game while the defense stops Atlanta's offense. The Falcons are depending on their anemic defense to match up well with the 9er's anemic offense. So it may boil down to which OL performs the best on Sunday, and if that's the case it would be interesting to compare their OL to ours.

I went to the ProFootballFocus website to get the subjective grading results on players of both teams. They grade every player on every play, with about 63% of grades being either +0.5 or -0.5 and the highest and lowest grades on each play being +2.0 and -2.0, respectively. One can argue whether or not subjective grading is all that useful, but it is how every NFL team evaluates their players. As a general guide, positive numbers are good and negative numbers are bad, and the higher the magnitude the better, or worse, the player is. These numbers include all four 9ers games but only three Falcons games.

The following table displays the following PFF information on each player:

1. Rank At Position = that player's ranking compared to other NFL players at that position.

2. His position and name

3. The player's PFF overall score, his pass blocking score, and his run blocking score

FALCONS
64. LT Sam Baker (-4.6, 1.3, -4.9)
73. LG Justin Blalock (-4.8, -0.7, -1.1)
4. C Todd McClure (5.7, 1.4, 4.3)
61. RG Harvey Dahl (-1.8, -1.7, 0.4)
35. RT Tyson Clabo (-0.6, 2.3, -1.9)

49ERS
64. LT Joe Staley (-4.6, 0.3, -4.9)
80. LG David Bass (-6.9, -0.6, -6.8)
23. C Eric Heitmann (1.6, 0.5, -1.7)
74. RG Chilo Rachal (-4.9, -1.1, -3.8)
75. RT RT Adam Snyder (-7.8, -4.9, -2.9)

Interestingly, LTs Joe Staley and Sam Baker are tied at #64 in rank with overall grades of -4.8 and -4.6, respectively. Neither of them is very good at run blocking while Baker holds a small edge in pass blocking. At RT, Atlanta's Tyson Clabo far outranks Adam Snyder, with Snyder's very bad run blocking grade comparing badly to Clabo's.

At OG, Atlanta's LG Justin Blalock and RG Harvey Dahl outclass both Baas and Rachal, but still aren't highly ranked compared to other NFL guards. Neither has a positive grade in run blocking and only Dahl has a marginally positive grade in pass blocking.

At Center, Atlanta's Todd McClure is Atlanta's best O-lineman and is ranked #4 in the NFL compared to all other NFL Centers. NT A. Franklin will have his work cut out for him. Eric Heitmann is the 9er's best O-lineman but still ranks only 23rd and has a negative grade in pass blocking.

Conclusions: Neither of these offensive lines is all that good, which is a little surprising given Atlanta's dependence on their offense. I don't think Atlanta can dominate the 49er's defensive front seven given their relative performances so far. On the other hand, the 49er's OL is pretty sad and will have to improve if the team expects the offense to improve.

Note: After the BYE week I intend to do a complete PFF workup on the 9er's players and units to compare with FloridaDanny's presentation of the FO statistics. A confirmation of FO's objective analysis with PFF's subjective grades should improve our confidence level in whatever conclusions are reached and give us something to argue about over a long two weeks. The PFF grades usually aren't completed until well into the week (it's Friday and only four games are done), so I won't complete this until the leadup to the Texans game.

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of Niners Nation's writers or editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of Niners Nation's writers or editors.