Saints offensive line carrying rare continuity, elite performance into 2020 season

The New Orleans Saints offensive line measured among the best in the NFL by Football Outsiders, but their health and continuity is important

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Just how good is the New Orleans Saints offense line? After re-signing left guard Andrus Peat (a two-time Pro Bowl alternate), they’re set to return all five starters from lats year’s unit. That’s an impressive feat in itself, but it means a lot more after you dig into what the analytics have to say about offensive line performance around the league.

Fortunately, analysts like the crew at Football Outsiders are on the cutting edge of quantifying how well the big blockers up front play. The Football Outsiders staff contextualizes their main grades well with a number of different factors, but we’ll be focusing on two key categories to determine how the Saints perform: adjusted sack rate (reflecting performance in pass protection) and adjusted line yards (which demonstrates run blocking efficiency), which are each contextualized for factors like down, distance, and opponents.

We took things a step further and filtered the list down to the offensive lines that perform at an above-average rate in both categories. Just a dozen teams from around the NFL passed the test in both categories, achieving an adjusted sack rate of lower than 7% as well as an adjusted line yards average higher than 4.26. Here’s how the list shook out (ranked by an average of each team’s placement in the two metrics):

  1. Dallas Cowboys: 4.3% adjusted sack rate, 4.91 adjusted line yards
  2. New Orleans Saints: 4.7% ASR, 4.92 ALY
  3. Oakland/Las Vegas Raiders: 5.9% ASR, 4.63 ALY
  4. Baltimore Ravens: 6.0% ASR, 4.73 ALY
  5. New England Patriots: 5.3% ASR, 4.49 ALY
  6. Los Angeles rams: 3.7% ASR, 4.27 ALY
  7. Green Bay Packers: 6.4% ASR, 4.63 ALY
  8. Indianapolis Colts: 6.0% ASR, 4.41 ALY
  9. Minnesota Vikings: 6.7% ASR, 4.60 ALY
  10. Los Angeles Chargers: 6.2% ASR, 4.37 ALY
  11. San Francisco 49ers: 6.9% ASR, 4.53 ALY
  12. Philadelphia Eagles: 6.4% ASR, 4.34 ALY

That places the Saints right at the top, in a tier of their own with the Cowboys. Behind them are the Ravens and Raiders, with the Patriots, Rams, and Packers clustered together. The rest of the group is fairly evenly matched.

So how do the seven best units compare moving into 2020? Four of them are either replacing starters who retired or left in free agency, or working players back into the starting lineup after their 2019 season ended with injuries. The Saints are one of just three teams (joined by the Raiders and Rams) projected to start the 2020 season with the same starting five that they kicked off with in 2019. Of course that could change for all teams after the draft and once injuries start to take their toll, but at this early stage the Saints should rightfully be seen as the NFL’s best offensive line.

The continuity the Saints enjoy will be important, doubly so in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. With teams expected to have less practice time than usual during the offseason, any offensive lines adding new pieces could have a steeper learning curve once games begin. By keeping the same starters together with the same position coaches, the Saints should have an immediate edge not just on other elite units around the league, but the less-impressive lines already playing catch-up.

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