Charting the offensive line play vs Tampa Bay, week 3 preseason

I've always wanted to do this, yet didn't have the time until now. What I attempted to do here was grade each of the five offensive linemen from their first half and partial second half performance against the Bucs in week 3 of the preseason. My grading was done using the typical PFF grading system. If a lineman holds his block, whether pass or run, then he performed as expected and gets a zero grade for that particular play. Conversely, if he whiffed, gave up a penalty or simply lost his block, he would receive a negative one. I'm going to take you thru each play and then summarize the total for each lineman based on my findings. Please keep in mind this is just one man's opinion who has been watching football for 30 years. I've never coached the game however and do not consider myself an expert by any stretch of the imagination.

First Drive
1st and 10: play result was a coverage sack on Henne. He had a good 4 seconds to get rid of the ball. All of the lineman graded as expected with a zero except Marc Colombo as he ultimately gave up the sack. It should be noted that the player opposite Murtha gets away with illegal use of his hands to Murthas face.

2nd and 16: Henne nice pass to Fasano down the middle. Bush picked up the blitzing lber nicely. All 5 linemen pass the grade here. No negatives

1st and 10: TD pass to Marshall. Lou Polite does an excellent job in picking up the blitzing lber allowing Henne to step up and complete the pass. Again, all five linemen pass, no negatives.

Second Drive
1st and 10: Reggie runs a stretch hand off to the right, 3 yard loss. The big negative here was Carey losing his guy. The other four linemen passed.

2nd and 13: Reggie runs middle, Incognito pulls, Fasano misses his block which messed up the timing of Incog pulling to the right, Reggie still manages a 5 yard gain. All five linemen graded at a zero, no negatives

3rd and 8: Second sack of the game. I estimate Henne had 2.8 seconds to get rid of the ball. That's not enough time. Lots of negatives to dish out here. Murtha, Carey and Colombo get -1.

Third Drive
1st and 10: Bush five yard run, but a flag for holding on Polite. I'm going to count this play for the linemen however as they all graded fairly, no negatives.

1st and 15: Bush run, no gain. Interesting to note that Incognito gets away with a little twisting of the foot on the Tampa defender at the bottom of the pile. Love the scrappiness by Incog. negatives here go to Murtha, Carey and Colombo.

2nd and 15: Quick screen to Bush who drops it, Henne's quick pass doesn't help. Poor blocking on the right side forces Henne to throw quickly as he gets hit as the ball is thrown. Negatives to Carey and Colombo.

3rd and 15: Henne has a good 4 seconds to complete a pass to Fasano. All linemen receive a passing grade here.

Fourth Drive - 16 play monster
1st and 10: Hartline catches and runs for 11 yards, but a penalty on Marshall for lining up and covering the tight end. Ron Winter called six men on the LOS, actually there were 8. Good blocking on this play by all except for Carey, he gets the negative. It's on this play that I notice a trend is developing. Many blocks by Incognito and Pouncey are shared / double team blocks. This is likely a little due to design on our end and also the NT shading to Pouncey's left shoulder.

1st and 15: This was Henne's check at the LOS to Fasano on the six man blitz for a nine yard gainer. All the linemen pass except for Pouncey here. I believe that the first negatve play to #51.

2nd and 6: Pass to Gates is dropped, Bucs bring the CB blitz which was picked up fairly nicely. All 5 linemen pass.

3rd and 6: Pass Interference to Marshall for a big first down. All five linemen pass including a beautiful block by Carey on the Bucs 2nd year standout linemen McCoy.

1st and 10: Shotgun now, and Henne completes to Bush on a nice swing pass for 12 yards. Great blocking by all five linemen up front on this play.

1st and 10: Shotgun pass to Bess for 8 yards, all five linemen pass. Pouncey gets a nice downfield block on Price who has to drop to one knee and the Bucs are forced to take a timeout.

2nd and 2: Bush runs for a one yard loss. Pouncey is the only one that passes the grade on this play. He moves Okam to the left enough but it doesn't matter as the rest of the ol can't hold their blocks. Carey was very slow to the 2nd level on this particular play.

3rd and 3: Pass to Gates for a first down even though he is hit at the time of delivering the ball by Murtha's guy. Murtha is the only one to get a negative on this play.

1st and 10: 12 yard checkdown to Bush as both backs get out into the passing pattern with the Bucs only rushing 4 (they rarely rushed 4 all game). All five linemen pass.

1st and 10: False start Carey. That's -1 for him.

1st and 15: 2 yard run by Thomas. Big negative here on Pouncey as he is beaten badly by Price who gets a little revenge on the rook. Other four guys pass.

2nd and 13: Pass to Bess for 10 yards. Murtha's guy again gets a hit on Henne. I gave negatives here to Murtha and Carey.

3rd and 3: PI to Marshall that gets us down to the 2 yard line. The Bucs rushed six on this one. The blocking up front is good enough albeit ugly. Carey goes low on his guy and undercuts Colombo in the process. I'm surprised Colombo wasn't hurt on this play quite frankly.

1st and G 2: This is just an ugly running play, Incognito pulls, Fasano's guy runs into Incog as he is pulling, it's a mass cluster****. Thomas was the running back. We did manage to get to the 1, not sure how. I gave negatives to all five linemen on this play. Just an ugly play.

2nd and G 1: 4 yard loss by Bush. The huge negative here goes to Pouncey who is just OBLITERATED by Frank Okam. I also gave a negative to Colombo here. The other three guys did enough not to be mentioned.

3rd and G 5. Henne scrambled up the middle for a 2 yard run. He had a good 4 seconds to get rid of the ball here and that's really all you can as for. The Bucs did only rush 4 guys and Henne doesn't force the ball into coverage. No negatives here.

and the next play was the successful field goal.

Fifth Drive:
1st and 10: This is the pass to Marshall that resulted in a nice run by #19, showing some good speed, yet a fumble at the end. The good thing from watching this play is the feistiness by some of our guys along the Bucs sideline. Lots of pushing and shoving. Colombo in the middle of it and he's not backing down one inch. Bush comes in and gets his helmet knocked off by #34. As the fight is broken up Carey is seen gesturing to the Bucs as if to keep on coming closer. Merling is seen grabbing Bush and whisking him away. Murtha doesn't really do much. Pouncey is ready to kill someone. I could watch this 10 seconds all day. Oh yeah, back to the task at hand. The negative for me was Murtha on this play gets pushed back into Henne. All other linemen get a pass.

Sixth Drive (first drive of second half)
1st and 10: All five guys pass here on quick pass to Bess who promptly drops the ball

2nd and 10: Again all five guys pass. This was our best run of the night IIRC, Thomas on a nice nine yard run. Vernon Carey blocks McCoy 10 yards down the field before McCoy tosses him to the ground. Good stuff by VC on this play.

3rd and 1: Ah the Polite run that nets zero, possibly a one yard loss. Everyone gets a negative here except for Colombo. The inside of the Bucs line blows this thing wide open. Again Pouncey has trouble at the POA.

Seventh Drive
1st and 10: Run by Thomas for no gain. Three tight ends in on this play. #88 Mastrud gets called for the hold / tackle. This was a strange looking play with both Murtha and Pouncey pulling to the left. If #33 for the Bucs doesn't make a great play (Murtha does get a piece of him but not enough) this could have been a huge run by Thomas as Pouncey gets to the outside and there's NOBODY there for him to block. This will be an interesting one to watch in the coming weeks. 3 TE's on first and 10. Setup nicely if it's blocked properly. The only guy who passes for me on this play was Incognito. It's a tough play for the rest as even though Pouncey gets outside, I feel like he should have fallen on someone on the way.

1st and 20: False start on Gates

1st and 25: This was the last play I decided to grade, the third sack IIRC on Henne. He had 3.5 seconds roughly. Murtha, Carey and Colombo all with the negatives in my view.

I stopped grading at this point as the next two plays were hand offs designed to save Henne from getting killed. It really feels that when Henne gets backed up, the defense smells blood and really comes after him. Our non existant running game at that point is just fuel to the fire. We can't run. Henne doesn't have enough time to pass. Might as well punt on third down. Anyway. Lets get to the scores shall we?

#76 Lydon Murtha: I counted a total of 31 plays above, give or take one due to penalty. Murtha graded out with 10 negative plays. Which has him 21 out of 31. 68%. D+

#68 Richie Incognito: I only had him with three negative plays. 28/31 or 90% A-

#51 Mike Pouncey: Six negative plays for the rookie. 25/31 or 81% B-

#72 Vernon Carey: 12 negative plays. 19/31 or 61% D-

#71 Marc Colombo: 9 negative plays. 22/31 or 71% for the C-

In summation, it's probably about as we expected here. Pouncey and Incognito were the best. Probably aided by their joint blocks on a multitude of plays. Pouncey has his problems in short yardage situations. He's just a rook. He's not up to snuff in the one on one road grading category just yet. But get him out in space, and he can make some plays for you. Carey's play has declined to the lowest of the five guys based on this game alone. He has some moments of greatness but they are few and far in between. Murtha and Colombo are both struggling. And when Jake Long comes back at LT this group will be MUCH better. It has to be. I suspect Colombo gets the nod as the starter. But wouldn't be surprised to see Murtha get some time. I'm curious if they'd move him inside to guard in place of Carey? I believe he may be our sixth best offensive lineman at the moment. Everyone talks about Garner and what he can do, but he hasn't been subbed in to the starting lineup at all this preaseason IIRC? Hmm... maybe one drive he was put in in place of Murtha at LT, but that didn't last. Anyway, hope you enjoyed the reading.

 

I'm a little younger than you and they must have changed the grading scale at some point to include D's. They also didn't have ADD back then either, which seems more like an excuse than a cause for concern Fair to say anything below a 75% is unacceptable?

 

Stabbing Bobby in the arm wasn't acceptable GIK.