🏈 Word of Muth...

[planomateo]

Picked this up on twitter a few days ago, Ben Muth played at Stanford from 2004-2009 and has been writing for Football Outsiders for about 3 years or so.

http://www.footballoutsiders.com/author/ben-muth

The reason I'm posting this is due to the article he wrote about Cooper vs Warmack > http://www.footballoutsiders.com/word-muth/2013/word-muth-jonathan-cooper-and-chance-warmack

The Warmack/Cooper duo has a lot in common with the Eric Fisher/Luke Joeckel duo. Warmack and Joeckel were both seen as the clear-cut top guys at their positions during the season and immediately following it, but as the draft process went along a few people started arguing for Cooper and Fisher, and by the time the draft came around the non-SEC guys were almost unanimously seen as the top guys at their position. While I agreed with Fisher over Joeckel, I think I’d prefer Warmack over Cooper.

I think both Cooper and Warmack will be good, but ultimately it comes down to what I would want from my guards, and there’s nothing I like more than a guard who can physically move someone to create to hole for the running back. I think most people are aware that Chance Warmack made his name as a drive blocker in college, but I actually think Warmack was a very effective puller as well. A better one than Cooper, in fact.


My biggest pet peeve with people who "grade" offensive linemen for the draft is that they put far too much emphasis on how a guy looks when he’s pulling and not enough on what he does when he gets there. People end up judging a 325-pound guy’s running form and not whether or not he created space for a back to run through. Cooper was seen as an elite puller because he looked so fluid moving. He was a good one, particularly tracking linebackers over the top, but he could get stood up in the hole by a linebacker that was really ready to thump and plug the hole. That doesn’t happen to Chance Warmack.

............. (read the article for all the pictures and breakdowns that belong in this space.)


The last picture is great because it shows you how little space a really well-blocked play actually creates. This is all you’re looking for as an offensive line. You’ve executed just about perfectly up front and still all you’ve given your running back is a yard-and-a-half hole to run through. Tennessee’s safety does a nice job of filling here and should make a tackle for a five-yard gain, but doesn’t because T.J. Yeldon is good at football. Making a guy miss in a phone booth is what separates the good running backs from the 300 serviceable ones. Yeldon looks to be a good one, but that conversation will have to wait a couple of years.