Rams O-line ranked among NFL’s 6 best by Gil Brandt

Gil Brandt doesn’t think the Rams’ offensive line was an issue last year, apparently.

The Rams’ offensive line was one of the best in the NFL in 2017 and 2018. Then Rodger Saffold left and the team moved on from John Sullivan, leading to several changes up front last year. The result was a complete mess with starters suffering injuries, veterans regressing and younger players failing to step up.

Gil Brandt of NFL Media didn’t think the offensive line was much of an issue, though. He posted on Twitter Monday asking which team has the best offensive line in the league, and he mentioned the Rams as a team that came to mind, among five others.

Needless to say, Twitter was stunned by his mentioning of the Rams, given the struggles they endured last season.

A good chunk of the 350-plus replies to Brandt’s tweet questioned why the Rams were on the list. Fans questioned why Brandt included them in his top six, which Brandt didn’t give a good explanation for.

Even NFL.com’s own Gregg Rosenthal said including Los Angeles “invalidates the rest of the list.” Brandt did reply to Rosenthal, saying there’s “too much PFF group think,” suggesting everyone is looking at the fact that PFF ranked the Rams O-line so low last year.

One Rams fan even asked Brandt to take their team off the list, admitting how bad the unit was last season.

Others pointed out Brandt’s omission of the Ravens and Eagles, who boasted two elite offensive lines last year. That made his inclusion of the Rams look even worse.

But why exactly did Brandt, who’s a former VP of personnel for the Cowboys and a Hall of Famer, include the Rams? What did he see that so many others didn’t?

Well, it might be that he looked at which team allowed the fewest sacks, and saw the Rams at the top of the list. Stunningly, they only gave up 22 sacks, which were the fewest in the league last year.

That doesn’t account for the amount of pressure Jared Goff faced or the tight running lanes Todd Gurley had, but on the surface, it makes the Rams’ offensive line seem like one of the best.

It was not, however, and it was a huge reason for the Rams’ decline in 2019.