Offensive Lines

Question: Could offensive line rankings be predictors of teams' offensive production?

Answer: Preliminarily, yes.

Explanation: Based on Pro Football Focus's annual offensive line rankings, the worst offensive -lines are consistently at or near the bottom in terms of offensive yards and offensive TDs each season, and their collective average since 2017 is also the lowest for each category. However, the other ranking groupings don't tell us much, as the offensive outputs are pretty similar. But when analyzing the improvement or worsening of offensive lines from one preseason to the next, one can observe a clear downward trend line from the biggest offensive line ranking "jumps" to the biggest offensive line ranking "drops."

Why This Matters: The research suggests that we might be able to apply some positive value to "jumping" teams' QBs, RBs, and receivers, while applying some negative value to "dropping" teams' players. By studying more data across more seasons, one might develop more actionable predictive analytics.