FanPost

Breaking Down the Chiefs and Broncos Tape - O-Line


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Greetings from south Florida...oh, I forgot...I'm back in Kansas City.  There seems to be little temperature difference between south Florida and old KC...not.

I did not get to see the last two Kansas City games so I was interested to see how the offensive line was doing.

Kansas City really went out with a bang on the final 2009-2010 NFL season.  Charles had a tremendous day rushing the ball.  So did the line have a great day as well?

This post will again attempt to flush out the answers to all the questions about the offensive line.  The film never lies.

Observations after reviewing the film:

  1. Cassel had a lot of time to throw the ball during the Denver game.
  2. The o-line continues to gel and looks more like one cohesive unit.  All the lineman demonstrate better technique than when I first started evaluating them.
  3. The Chiefs continued to use additional blocking schemes.  During the Denver game the chiefs used a lot of "dummy" run blocking looks when throwing the ball.  This froze the Bronco defenders a little more so Chiefs receivers could get open.
  4. O'Connell is progressing as a TE.  Looked solid.
  5. Albert has found his balance as a blocker, less lunging.  His athleticism really shows when he run blocks in space.  Has not reached the pinnacle yet...but nice.
  6. Waters shows his first signs of age, IMO.  He has trouble with reach blocks and blocks in space more than in the middle of the season.  The season might be wearing on him.
  7. Waters makes up for his lose of a step by veteran type blocking tricks.  He leads the team in "throw downs".  Which is the number of times he threw a defender to the ground by using their momentum against them.
  8. Cassel looks at his screen receiver way to early.  The d-lineman pick up on that.
  9. Next week I will look over my notes and put out a review and observations of the o-line's progress this season.      

Here are the grades from the first three quarters against the Denver Broncos:

 

                              DENVER BRONCOS


PLAYER RB SOLO Reach Block Pull Block SECOND LEVEL PB SOLO Driven
Albert 87% -- -- 66%
98%
--
Waters 87% 33% 60% 53% 90% 3
Niswanger 87% 50% 57%
57%
98% 1
Smith 80% 66% 50% 50% 95% 1
O'Callaghan 91% -- -- 60% 85% 1
Pope 78% -- -- -- 75% --
O'Connell 90% -- -- -- 100% 2

 

 No lineman topped the 90% mark in both run blocking and pass blocking this week.  That means no Top Lineman awards.

 

TOP GRADE TOP GRADE
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Is it age?  Just one bad game?  Waters was driven 3 times in three quarters this week.  That means he gets the Driven by Miss Daisy Award. 

 MISS DAISY DRIVEN BY MISS DAISY AWARD
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 Previous grades for Broncos, Chargers 2nd gameSteelers gameRaiders gameJaguars gameChargers 1st game, Broncos 2nd game for those of you that would like to track progress.

 

EIGHT GAMES OF STATS
GP Player Top Grade Award
# of Drivens
7 Albert 1 5
8 Waters 4 8
8 Niswanger 0 15
5 Smith 0 9
8 O'Callaghan 3 9
5 Pope 1 3
3 Cottom 0 4
2 Alleman 0 4

 

 

  

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Here's how the grading works:

  • Each offensive lineman was given a "+" for doing their job or a "-" for failing to do their job on each play.
  • These pluses and minuses were grouped into the type of block they were asked to do, e.g., a run block solo (RB Solo), a run block double team (RB Double), or a pass block solo (PB Solo), etc.
  • A "D", for "driven", was assigned every time a player was manhandled during a pass or run play.
  • The quality of the lineman's play is represented as a percentage above.  The higher the percentage the better the lineman did.
  • I tried to be very strict...I think Haley would want it that way.
  • One important note, some plays were unclear as to who exactly did not do their job, e.g., a defensive tackle going unblocked at the line of scrimmage.  Was it the centers fault?  The guards fault?  In these cases it was clear that a mistake was made and the player that looked to be most at fault was assigned the blame.


 

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