Stats Show the Chiefs are About Average at Pass Protection

After watching 2007's travesty of an offense piddle down the field, the 2008 Kansas City Chiefs were a welcome relief from ineptitude.

One of the most notable improvements came on the offensive line. Branden Albert's addition at left tackle proved to be best move of the '08 draft. After only four 100+ yard rushing games in '07, the Chiefs produced nine of them in '08.

There was a big difference from 2007 to 2008 in pass protection as well. The Chiefs allowed 55 sacks two years ago and only 37 last year. Yes, I know. Tyler Thigpen's scrambling ability was a big part of that improvement but I have to say on an anecdotal level the line was much improved in the amount of time they allowed Thigpen to throw the ball.

So the line did pretty well as a unit last year combined with Tyler Thigpen. How did they do individually?

shanyes41 over at Bolts from the Blue posted a fascinating set of statistics a few days ago on individual linemen rankings in pass protection. The result is a ton of information covering virtually every offensive linemen in the NFL.

Here's how he did it:

So I found the total "Pass Plays" run by every team. This is the number of pass attempts, plus the number of total sacks for the team for the whole year. It doesn't account for pass plays that ended up in a QB scramble for positive yards. I couldn't figure out how to count those or even whether it was a positive or negative thing (since it is basically a sack, without the actual sack, if that makes sense)

I knew how many games each guy started, so I could figure out roughly how many pass plays a guy was involved in by taking games started and multiplying it by pass plays per game for the team. If you take the number of sacks given up and divide by number of pass plays a player is involved in, you get sacks per pass play for a given player.

Sounds easy enough. How did the Chiefs linemen fare? Pretty average overall with some nice surprises. And that average label is not a knock.

Branden Albert came in ranked #13 overall for left tackles in sacks per pass play.

Showing his Pro Bowl form, Brian Waters came in ranked 6th best at the left guard position.

Rudy Niswanger ranks #23 out of the centers. The Chiefs' center last year, Casey Wiegmann, finished #8 and was named to the Pro Bowl as a Denver Bronco.

Kansas grad Adrian Jones just crept into the top ten for right guards. New Chief and former Charger Mike Goff was ranked 23rd. You don't hear people talk much about Adrian Jones. He's a free agent now.

Damion McIntosh, who tied for the 5th most sacks given up by a right tackle, ranked #21.

And now that I'm looking at these again, the Chiefs are little better than average according to these numbers. I know it's been the prevailing wisdom that the addition of veteran Mike Goff will further bolster the line but there are no guarantees. I believe Thigpen's scrambling ability and just athleticism had a lot to do with the statistical improvement of the Chiefs' offensive line. With Cassel, a much more "traditional" quarterback, under center I think this could expose our offensive line as still not quite ready to consistently protect the quarterback.

Thoughts on these numbers?

Click over for the entire table.