Slow and steady, the Buffalo Bills’ offensive line is improving, a trend the club would like to see continue moving forward.
With no hard stats to base offensive line play off of, Pro Football Focus is a go-to for analyzing play in the trenches. While sometimes subjective, the football analytics outlet’s most recent offensive line rankings saw some more improvement for the Bills.
Heading into the 2020 NFL season, PFF’s latest O-line rankings see the Bills move up in comparison to their most recent ones. Buffalo currently sits at the No. 18 spot overall.
Here’s part of the breakdown on the Bills’ offensive line:
Left tackle Dion Dawkins is the anchor after grading at 73.1 overall last season, good for 24th among 82 qualifying tackles. Dawkins has been an above-average option in his three years in the league and doesn’t make many mistakes in the run game, posting the seventh-lowest percentage of negatively graded plays last season. On the other side, Cody Ford had common rookie struggles, finishing just 78th out of 89 qualifying tackles with a 52.4 grade. He must improve in all areas.
On the interior, it’s a solid group with center Mitch Morse and right guard Jon Feliciano ranking right in the middle of their respective position groups, while left guard Quinton Spain has been an average guard over the last three years.
The Bills have mid-tier options across the board on the offensive line but strong depth — they’re a couple of rebound seasons away from cracking the top 12 lines in the league.
At the end of last season, the Bills finished in PFF’s rankings as the 21st best unit in the NFL. Again, slowly but surely, Buffalo’s group in getting their dues.
In their analysis, PFF goes on to call tackle Ty Nsekhe one of the “better swing tackles” in the NFL, who has an overall grade of 72.0 overall since 2015. In addition, recently added lineman Daryl Williams is mentioned to have an “excellent 2017 season to hang is hat on” which saw him finish as the 15th best tackle in the league.
While PFF is to be taken with a grain of salt, their analysis of Buffalo’s offensive line is a fair one. The Bills’ current offensive line is often viewed through the lens of the grouping prior to that. That makes them appear much better than it might actually be.
In 2018, the Bills surprisingly lost Eric Wood and Richie Incognito on their line, two Pro Bowl pieces, due to retirements. Because of those losses, the unit was brutal and among one of the worst in the league for that campaign. That makes the current group seem a ton better, which they are, but that does not mean they’re among the league’s best.
What the Bills are currently banking on is something that’s rarely the case in the NFL, in regard to potential future improved play. It’s hard for teams to keep rosters together in the salary cap era. From 2019 to 2020, the Bills managed to do that better than any team in the NFL. A big part of that is the Bills returning their five starters in the trenches.
If the group can build on the chemistry that was established in 2019, there’s no reason a few steps forward can’t be taken again in 2020. By this time next year, the ultimate goal for the club is to see the offensive line approach that top-12 area, if not land squarely in it.
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