Giants’ O-line ranked in top 10 for PFF pass-blocking metric

The Giants’ offensive line thrived in one particular area of pass protection in 2019.

While the New York Giants’ offensive line had its issues in 2019, the unit did rank well in one of Pro Football Focus’ pass-blocking metrics.

According to PFF, the Giants ranked No. 9 in the NFL last season in pass protection on “longer developing plays.”

Here’s what PFF bases the ranking on.

Individual performance on plays that are supposed to take longer than other plays. We identify these plays by using the time-to-throw survival analysis I wrote about a few weeks ago. We measure performance on these plays with individual pass-blocking grades, which we can also use to directly account for roster changes.

Collective offensive line performance on plays that take a long time, no matter whether it is intended or the result of a broken play. We set the threshold at 3 seconds, as only 28% of pass plays observe a quarterback holding on to the ball longer. We will measure performance with survival curves and look at 2019 performance, which we will adjust for roster changes.

PFF’ Timo Riske believes that the Giants’ O-line shouldn’t be getting any blame for quarterback Daniel Jones’ fumbling issues, as the group upfront “kept Jones clean longer than average” during his rookie campaign.

The New York Giants’ offensive line got some of the blame for Daniel Jones’fumbling issues, but this wasn’t justified by any means. The Giants’ offensive line kept Jones clean longer than average, and they have a chance to be even better in 2020: Will Hernandez is supposed to improve in Year 3, Kevin Zeitler had his worst season in a long time and is expected to bounce back and rookie Andrew Thomas should be able to replace the non-impressive Mike Remmers. Will Daniel Jones make a sophomore-year jump? If not, don’t blame the offensive line.

This PFF metric indicates that the offensive line gave Jones enough time to let plays develop in the passing game, he just wasn’t able to capitalize and rip off consistent chunk gains through the air.

Among starting quarterbacks, the Duke product was near the bottom of the league in yards per attempt (6.6) and yards per completion (10.7). Of course, a lot more goes into those numbers than just Jones himself, but it’s still something the offense needs to improve in 2020.

With the addition of Andrew Thomas, the No. 4 overall pick in the 2020 NFL Draft, the Giants’ offensive line should be improved this coming season, and if that’s the case Jones should once again find himself with plenty of chances to hit his receivers down the field.

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