Saints with mid-tier offensive line per ESPN’s Next Gen stats

But still tops in the NFC South.

If you’re into baseball sabermetrics, you probably enjoy statistics like ESPN’s “pass block win rate” (“PBWR”), that supposedly measures “how often individual players and teams sustained their pass blocks for at least 2.5 seconds.”

Instead of simply reviewing a team’s previous snaps and grading out its players, ESPN recently decided to look at projections for the upcoming season and rank the quality of the offensive line according to its PBWR (Insider required). For the New Orleans Saints, they came in in the top of the league:

Projected offensive line: Terron Armstead (24th), Andrus Peat (11th), Erik McCoy (21st), Cesar Ruiz (26th), Ryan Ramczyk (27th)

PBWR always seems to be lower on the Saints relative to perception. It’s possible that’s because Drew Brees kept sack and pressure rates low with his quick passing game, while PBWR awards no points to an offensive lineman who sustains his block when the ball is thrown before 2.5 seconds. Nonetheless, there’s no major weak point in New Orleans’ line.

Of note, the Saints were the top-ranked offensive line in the NFC South. The Saints came in four spots above the reigning Super Bowl champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers (16th), while the Atlanta Falcons (25th) and the Carolina Panthers (27th) were at the bottom of the pack.

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