Roman Harper, Zach Strief among New Orleans Saints players who might be elsewhere next season

Utah_Saint · 01-23-2014, 01:10 AM

Originally Posted by burningmetal

I can't tell you how much I don't care about pro football focus. I'd much rather see an actual scout's grade. But thanks for making the effort unlike most people who just say "he's good cause this guy or that guy said so". Just looking at those stats, 26 hurries is a lot. It's not all about how many sacks you give up. Right tackle is by far the easiest of the two tackle positions. Drew ran for his life all season long, and why do we suppose that is? And how many holding calls did both of our tackles get? A lot. They could not give drew any time when we played any kind of decent defensive line.

How does anyone watch this team and how far the offense dropped, and turn around and defend this offensive line. People need to get off their googled metrics scaling BS and get back to watching the game. We all saw what happened out there, and it was not pretty.

This team for years has had to devise blocking schemes to mask deficiencies at tackle and run a ton of screens (to the point of becoming predictable at times) to slow down the rush a little. Those things never show up in stat sheets.

I think we keep Strief simply because we can't replace two tackles at the same time. Armstead may or may not round into form, but in the meantime Brown has to go. So for the time being I expect Strief to stay. I'm just going by what I'd like to see, and I'd like to see a lot of upgrading on the line. I am well aware of the fact that not much is likely to change.

One of the reasons I like to check out PFF is that I, as a fan, am not able to see things in perspective. I see things the way I want to see them. I think most fans do. We invest a lot of emotion into our teams and it's only natural to see things with black and gold colored glasses. Anyway, that's why I refer to a stat site, to see the facts. And how they compare to other players and teams around the league.

For example, 26 hurries seems like a lot for one guy to allow. But when you compare it to all the other tackles in the NFL, 26 is about the middle of the road, it's tied for 40th out of 75 tackles (25% of offensive snaps). And if we dig a little deeper, and consider how many passing plays Strief was in, 647, we see that it is only 4.8% of the time. That's the third best percentage of all tackles, left or right, in the league in 2013. So we may think we saw Strief give up a lot of hurries, maybe because we were ticked off that Drew had to scramble again, but the fact of the matter is, he really did do a great job in pass protection.

As far as holding penalties, Strief had 3 for the season. He also had 1 false start and 1 unsportsmanlike conduct. 5 penalties is right in the middle of the number of penalties for offensive linemen.

Off Topic:
While looking for penalties I saw this little fun fact. Drew Brees led the league in penalties, actually he was in a 3 way tie, with 12. Drew had 8 delay of game, 3 false starts and 1 intentional grounding.

Back on topic:
I agree with you, if the Saints decide to upgrade on the O-Line, I hope they do it one player at a time. I believe the longer a O-Line plays together, they better they play together. I would worry that wholesale change, even for better players, would hurt the chemistry.

But that last part is just my opinion.

01-23-2014, 01:10 AM	#20
Utah_Saint Site Donor 2019 Join Date: Jan 2012 Location: Salt Lake City, Utah Posts: 3,521	Re: Roman Harper, Zach Strief among New Orleans Saints players who might be elsewhere next season Originally Posted by burningmetal I can't tell you how much I don't care about pro football focus. I'd much rather see an actual scout's grade. But thanks for making the effort unlike most people who just say "he's good cause this guy or that guy said so". Just looking at those stats, 26 hurries is a lot. It's not all about how many sacks you give up. Right tackle is by far the easiest of the two tackle positions. Drew ran for his life all season long, and why do we suppose that is? And how many holding calls did both of our tackles get? A lot. They could not give drew any time when we played any kind of decent defensive line. How does anyone watch this team and how far the offense dropped, and turn around and defend this offensive line. People need to get off their googled metrics scaling BS and get back to watching the game. We all saw what happened out there, and it was not pretty. This team for years has had to devise blocking schemes to mask deficiencies at tackle and run a ton of screens (to the point of becoming predictable at times) to slow down the rush a little. Those things never show up in stat sheets. I think we keep Strief simply because we can't replace two tackles at the same time. Armstead may or may not round into form, but in the meantime Brown has to go. So for the time being I expect Strief to stay. I'm just going by what I'd like to see, and I'd like to see a lot of upgrading on the line. I am well aware of the fact that not much is likely to change. One of the reasons I like to check out PFF is that I, as a fan, am not able to see things in perspective. I see things the way I want to see them. I think most fans do. We invest a lot of emotion into our teams and it's only natural to see things with black and gold colored glasses. Anyway, that's why I refer to a stat site, to see the facts. And how they compare to other players and teams around the league. For example, 26 hurries seems like a lot for one guy to allow. But when you compare it to all the other tackles in the NFL, 26 is about the middle of the road, it's tied for 40th out of 75 tackles (25% of offensive snaps). And if we dig a little deeper, and consider how many passing plays Strief was in, 647, we see that it is only 4.8% of the time. That's the third best percentage of all tackles, left or right, in the league in 2013. So we may think we saw Strief give up a lot of hurries, maybe because we were ticked off that Drew had to scramble again, but the fact of the matter is, he really did do a great job in pass protection. As far as holding penalties, Strief had 3 for the season. He also had 1 false start and 1 unsportsmanlike conduct. 5 penalties is right in the middle of the number of penalties for offensive linemen. Off Topic: While looking for penalties I saw this little fun fact. Drew Brees led the league in penalties, actually he was in a 3 way tie, with 12. Drew had 8 delay of game, 3 false starts and 1 intentional grounding. Back on topic: I agree with you, if the Saints decide to upgrade on the O-Line, I hope they do it one player at a time. I believe the longer a O-Line plays together, they better they play together. I would worry that wholesale change, even for better players, would hurt the chemistry. But that last part is just my opinion. Danno likes this.

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