Interior linemen don’t receive enough praise around the NFL, unless it’s the lowlight where they give up a sack or don’t make a block. The guard and center positions are hard to judge already, especially since most blocking situations are between the A and B-gap and not necessarily limited to 1-on-1 situations.
Thanks to advanced statistics, the league has better ways to evaluate how good interior offensive linemen are — along with how valuable they are for the offensive system they’re in. Of course, other factors are in play.
How are tackles graded? Does run-blocking matter more than pressure rate? Are great interior offensive linemen the ones who protect the quarterback? Can they make their teammates they line up next to every week better?
The qualification for these interior linemen rankings is how good the player was in 2023. We’ll use success over the past few seasons to help weigh the ranking, but 2023 performance is the key equation in the formula. This is a ranking of the best interior offensive linemen right now, not entirely based on past or future success.
In prior years, guards and centers were lumped together. Since this is a top 20 list, the top 15 guards were ranked along with the top 5 centers. These were the rankings from last year, even though the criteria has changed (benefit of having a top 20 instead of a top 10).
Zack Martin (Dallas Cowboys)Jason Kelce (Philadelphia Eagles)Joel Bitonio (Cleveland Browns)Quenton Nelson (Indianapolis Colts)Creed Humphrey (Kansas City Chiefs)Joe Thuney (Kansas City Chiefs)Chris Lindstrom (Atlanta Falcons)Elgton Jenkins (Green Bay Packers)Landon Dickerson (Philadelphia Eagles)Corey Linsley (Los Angeles Chargers)
Without further adieu, here are the top 20 interior offensive linemen in the NFL (15 guards and five centers compile the list).
Top 15 guards
1. Chris Lindstrom (Falcons)
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Source link : https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/ranking-top-20-interior-linemen-in-2024-zack-martin-unseated-as-top-guard-jason-kelce-replaced-as-top-center/
Author : Jeff Kerr
Publish date : 2024-07-02 16:09:59
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