Rarely do NFL fans focus on the offensive line, except perhaps when they see their quarterback flat on his back.
By the looks of how things went for the Cincinnati Bengals, Houston Texans, New York Giants and San Francisco 49ers in particular, one must wonder if the coaching staffs were ignoring their blockers this summer, too.
It was ugly to watch in Week 1, and painful for the likes of Tom Savage and Deshaun Watson, who shared 10 sacks as the Texans flopped against Jacksonville. It had to hurt Andy Dalton as he went down five times when Baltimore blanked Cincinnati.
It was a bit better for the Texans and Bengals when they faced off Thursday night, but not much. Each team allowed three sacks and the offenses were mediocre or worse in a 13-9 Houston victory.
Giants quarterback Eli Manning felt the Dallas Cowboys' pass-rush wrath three times, but the issue for the Giants was that its O-line was more of a 0-line, as in zero production.
Brian Hoyer could get virtually nothing going for San Francisco against Carolina, and the run game truly failed with 51 yards.
"I knew that game was going to be rough," first-year 49ers Coach Kyle Shanahan said. "I've played against Carolina a lot, so you go in expecting that. You know it's not all going to be pretty. It's going to be ugly. I've never played Carolina when it hasn't been that way. But, you've got to come up with those plays and that's what gives you a chance to win and if you don't it's real tough to."
It was far worse in Houston. At least New York, Cincinnati and, to a lesser extent, San Francisco have proven quarterbacks who can reduce the damage of a leaky offensive line by making some adjustments.
Savage and Watson are both basically rookies.
"What we talk to quarterbacks about all the time is put us in the play that you can," Texans QBs coach Sean Ryan said before Houston's victory Thursday night, when Watson's weaving 49-yard run provided the only touchdown.
"We preach that all the time to those guys," Ryan said. "They always do their best to see what's going on defensively and get that done for us. And then the next thing for the quarterbacks is let's have that clock in your head. Know when it's time to get the ball out of your hands or know when it's time to tuck and go. It's something that you're constantly working with the quarterbacks on and we still work on it and always will."
Oddly, the Giants and Bengals didn't do much work to improve their blocking units in the offseason.
New York's main weakness on offense in 2016, when the defense carried it into the playoffs, was the production up front. The running game stagnated because there were few, if any, lanes to run through. True, the Giants didn't and still don't have a stud running back. But a running game by committee can work, especially with an Odell Beckham Jr. on the outside as the main threat who demands double-teams on virtually every snap.
Yet the Giants barely addressed the offensive line, and they paid for it in the opener.
The Bengals were even more careless in the trenches. They let not just their best blocker, Kevin Zeitler, but their second best -- the accomplished veteran Andrew Whitworth -- leave in free agency. While the Browns are smiling about having Zeitler at guard and the Rams are grinning with Whitworth at tackle, Dalton is getting punished. And the rushing attack gained 77 yards in the opener before managing 82 on Thursday night.
Sports on 09/17/2017