Just how good is the New Orleans Saints offense line? After re-signing left guard Andrus Peat (a two-time Pro Bowl alternate), they’re set to return all five starters from lats year’s unit. That’s an impressive feat in itself, but it means a lot more after you dig into what the analytics have to say about offensive line performance around the league.
Fortunately, analysts like the crew at Football Outsiders are on the cutting edge of quantifying how well the big blockers up front play. The Football Outsiders staff contextualizes their main grades well with a number of different factors, but we’ll be focusing on two key categories to determine how the Saints perform: adjusted sack rate (reflecting performance in pass protection) and adjusted line yards (which demonstrates run blocking efficiency), which are each contextualized for factors like down, distance, and opponents.