New York Jets: Player evaluations, offensive line

Continuing our New York Jets evaluations with the offensive line.

Time to continue our evaluations of the New York Jets to close out 2017. Over the last several days we have been passing out our final letter grades to the 2017 Jets. Today, however, we are going to do it a little bit differently. I decided to change things up as we arrive at the latest position to evaluate, the offensive line.

For the rest of the offense to date, we have been giving out grades for each individual player. For the offensive line, however, we are going to grade them as a group. The line, more than any other group on the team, is looked at as a unit rather than individual players. They are a sum of their parts, not individuals so we are going to grade them as such.

First we take a look at the passing game. How did they do at keeping Josh McCown and friends upright? They allowed 47 sacks on the season , well above the league average (per Football Outsiders). Their adjusted sack rate was 8.7%, ranking the line 27th overall in pass protection. Not a good start to the grading process.

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Here is where we break from the group and look at individual grades for the linemen, via Pro Football Focus. Let’s look at the grades in pass blocking:

Wesley Johnson, 25.5
James Carpenter, 39.1
Brian Winters, 39.4
Dakota Dozier, 48.4
Brandon Shell, 72.9
Kelvin Beachum, 80.6
Ben Ijalana, 48.4
Brent Qvale, 49.4

On the outside, pretty good. On the inside, pretty bad. Carpenter and Winters were particularly disappointing in this scenario, especially since Winters was signed to a big contract. The tackles held up well, but they need a new center and the guards need to protect the quarterback better.

Time for the running attack. We know that by and large, it wasn’t good. Let’s look at the numbers.

The Jets were ranked 19th in the league, averaging 106.4 yards per game. Four yards per carry placed them at 19th as well. Now we go back to Football Outsiders to look at “Adjusted Line Yards”. This stat credits the offensive line with a percentage of the yardage gained in the run game. In this category, the Jets were ranked a lowly 29th.

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As previously, let’s look at the Pro Football Focus Grades, this time in the run blocking phase:

Wesley Johnson, 36.6
James Carpenter, 43.5
Brian Winters, 36.7
Dakota Dozier, 49.9
Brandon Shell, 42.7
Kelvin Beachum, 39.6
Ben Ijalana, 48.4
Brent Qvale, 49.3

They didn’t exactly light the world on fire, did they? The bottom line is that the offensive line needs to get better. If they don’t, it won’t matter who is playing quarterback, or running back.

FINAL GRADE: D+

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