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Are Left Guards being
Overvalued?
by
Bill
Chuang
Head
Columnist
4/19/08
Archive
I read a very thought provoking
article written by Ross Tucker in CNNSI.com. Tucker is a former NFL
offensive lineman who had played all five positions along the
line. The article addresses the relative importance of each
position along the offensive line. He used his own experiences as
well as a poll of a small number of offensive linemen and GM’s to write
the article. As expected, he ranked left tackle as the most
important position, but not by as high a margin as you might
expect. Next came right tackle, right guard, left guard, and then
center. What surprised me most is his ranking of right guard over
left. Considering the big money contracts given to the likes of
Steve Hutchison and Alan Faneca, both left guards, recently, it would
be natural to think that left guard should rank just behind left tackle
in importance. His argument is that the left guard usually slides
over to help the left tackle on passing downs, and the center slides
over to help the left guard, so it is more difficult to play right
guard who does not get as much help. I’m sure this if Hutchison
or Faneca read his article, they would have a few rebuttals, but this
argument makes sense to me, so I’ll assume it is the truth.
Two
things come to my mind when reading this. First of
all, we are all so influenced by the money that these players make that
we begin to think that the players who make more money are better than
those that make less. I think the salaries are probably
more a
function of the market conditions at the time the player was signed,
and the idiocy of the owner or GM who paid that player rather than a
measure of the player’s true value or talent. For example, this
year,
with a fairly weak free agent class, and a surplus of salary cap space,
teams went on spending sprees. Alan Faneca who I consider past
his
prime, just got the most lucrative deal ever for an offensive
lineman.
As stated above, Faneca plays the overvalued left guard position.
Offensive linemen tend to have long careers so Faneca probably has a
few very productive years left in him, but the Jets paid him 40 million
dollars over 5 years with 21 million guaranteed.
Undoubtedly, the
Jets must have been thinking that Faneca would fit in nicely between
their two young offensive linemen D’Brickashaw Ferguson and Nick
Mangold, so he would make their whole line function better. This
might
actually work, but the Jets probably could have gotten more value for
their money by obtaining a mid level guard, and then throwing the big
money at Randy Moss. Even though Moss had stated he wanted to
stay in
New England, he probably would have left if he got an offer which blew
him away.
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Just taking the money they gave to Faneca
would probably
have been enough. Moss resigned with New England at a relatively
bargain rate of 27 million over 3 years, but with only 12 million
guaranteed. That’s 9 million less than Faneca got. Moss
would have
made a much bigger difference in New York than Faneca, and obtaining
him would have weakened their arch enemy, the Patriots. You might
argue that without a strong offensive line, the QB in NY, no matter who
it is, would not have time to throw to Moss. This is true, but
the
responsibility for protecting the QB primarily goes to the left tackle,
not the guard. In addition, Faneca was never a great pass
blocker. He
gained his formidable reputation mainly in run blocking. Moss on
the
other hand would have forced defenses to take a safety “out of the box”
which would have strengthened the Jets’ run game and eliminated a
potential pass rusher. In the annals of pro football history,
Faneca
will go to the Hall as a very good guard, but Moss is a one of a kind
talent, and if it weren’t for his off the field indiscretions, would be
considered the best WR of all time. I don’t want to make this an
article comparing Faneca to Moss, but I wanted to illustrate how a
position in the NFL can become overvalued.
We’ve
all heard that the NFL is a copycat league. That seems to apply
to players as well as systems. The past two years, left guards
and
cornerbacks have been the trendy item on every team’s shopping
list.
This year, the big winners in free agency were the cornerbacks with big
contracts handed out to Asante Samuel and DeAngelo Hall, as well as an
exclusive franchise tag on Nnamdi Asomugha. This all started with
the
signing of Nate Clements by the 49ers last year, and continued this
year, even though Clements really did not make any statistical
difference for the 49ers’ defense. I wrote about overpaid corners
in
my last article. For guards, the Vikings got the ball rolling 2
years
ago by stealing Steve Hutchinson from the Seahawks. That
continued
last year with the signings of Leonard Davis, Kris Dielman, Derrick
Dockery, Eric Steinbach, and Pete Kendall. They all play left
guard
and can all thank Steve Hutchison for their
contracts. This year,
Faneca was the only guard who got a huge contract, but his deal
surpassed them all. Each of these guards played for teams with
excellent running games, so possibly the left guard is the one that
makes the running game go, but according to Tucker, in another
article
he wrote about offensive linemen,
he makes the argument that there is not much separation amongst
offensive linemen with respect to run blocking. The big
difference is
in pass blocking. It’s ironic that teams are willing
to spend so
much on free agent guards, yet the position is still very undervalued
in the draft. Brandon Albert is the only guard projected to go in
the
first round, and that’s primarily because he can also play
tackle.
Don’t get me wrong, I think the offensive line makes an offense
go. In
an article I wrote last year about how to build a team, I stated that
any expansion team should start by building the offensive
line. I
just question the wisdom of spending so much of a limited budget on a
single lineman. Instead, that money would be better spent on a
good
offensive line coach. He would come a lot cheaper than a star
lineman,
and would probably make the entire unit function better as a whole.
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