Would like to see a complete ranking of players to include the offensive line, defensive line and backfield. For example, you may have a great quarterback but a lousy offensive line. I haven’t seen a complete comparison yet by anyone. Does a complete comparison even exist ???
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Not to my knowledge. PFF has o-line rankings for the previous season, but they are not necessarily a reliable indicator for the upcoming one.
Some QBs can still produce with a porous o-line, others will struggle heavily if they get too much pressure too early.
I don’t think there is a perfect formula to predict how teams will produce. When in doubt, look at the offensive team production. The more passes, yards and TDs an offense produces, the more likely their top players will be top fantasy contributors. And even then, there is no guarantee. Exhibit A: the 2021 Dallas Cowboys. Best o-line in the league, one of the 3 best overall offenses, and the only elite player they produced was TE Dalton Schultz.
I’ve been trying myself to include o-line performance in my season projections, so I do understand your approach. But if there is a way to do it, then I haven’t found it yet.
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Teams don’t generally start the season with everyone on the same page. One of the problems in evaluating offensive lines is even a good one with new players will tend to start slow and improve during the season, even if they were bad last year.
On the other hand, if a team’s o-line has remained mostly in place during the off-season, their performance won’t radically change much, even at the start of the new season (unless there is a head coaching change). A good line will tend to stay good, even at the start of the new season.
There are two ways to evaluate an offensive line: Team rushing yards and sacks allowed. You can get these numbers off NFL.com.
Obviously, one would think running backs are easily judged by their team’s overall rushing yards, but Najee Harris played behind one of the worst and still managed to rack up a good season himself. But the team as a whole was the 4th worst in rushing yards, which shows how bad the line was. Sure, he was good, but nobody else could do anything behind that line.
On the other hand, the best running line? The Eagles, with 2715 yards. No doubt their numbers were helped by QB Jalen Hurts, but a line has to block for a running QB too, and they did. But if you look at the rest of the top 5 team rushing yards, you won’t be surprised: Colts, Ravens, Browns, Titans.
As for sacks allowed, the top 5 teams tell you everything: Bucs, Bills, Patriots, Chiefs, Vikings. Granted, a lot of good o-line play in the passing game is directed by QB quality, and it is present here. But how do you explain the Patriots with rookie QB Mac Jones? There has to be some o-line work here too.
On a side note, the Eagles were tied for 6th best in sacks allowed, even with a scrambling QB and a run-dominated offense. Their line is clearly much better than they are given credit, right? This is where it gets tricky. You have to look at sack percentage. Take the sacks allowed and divide it by the pass attempts, which yields a 6.3% sack rate allowed. By comparison, the Bucs allowed a meager 3.1% rate. Even the Cowboys, tied for 11th in sacks allowed, only gave up 5.1%.
And then there is the Bears, having given up an NFL-leading 58 sacks, with a 10.1% sack rate allowed. Think about that? For 1 out of every ten times Justin Fields drops back and attempts a pass, he is getting sacked. If they don’t improve that offensive line, he’ll need PTSD treatment before he’ll have any kind of success.
Sadly, you will need to generate your own numbers, but I hope this helps.