8. Richie Incognito, Las Vegas Raiders
There few better examples of the divide between what NFL coaches want and what the general public would find tolerable than Incognito, whose list of behavioral mis-steps (we’re putting this mildly at a New York Times level) both on and off the field would find a lot of guys out of the league forever. But coaches seem to universally love Incognito, because he’s a tough, smart guy who can bring an offensive line together when he’s not tearing a locker room apart. One could imagine that the combination of Incognito and Raiders offensive line coach Tom Cable (who has his own, ahem, history) would be a recipe for disaster, but it worked well enough in 2019. Incognito allowed just one sack, no quarterback hits, and eight quarterback hurries on 432 pass-blocking snaps, and per Pro Football Focus, no guard that played at least 50% of his team’s total snaps allowed fewer total pressures.
Incognito has never been the most technically precise blocker in the NFL, and he can be a mess when asked to block upfield, but he does bring a serious sense of power to his position.
I wouldn't call Richie Incognito a precise run-blocker, especially to the second and third levels. But Andrew Billings is carrying about 330 here, and dude just got bulldozed. pic.twitter.com/VNWflPPmCw
— Doug Farrar (@NFL_DougFarrar) July 19, 2020