The Dave Gettleman Review: Offensive Line
The offensive line play was a consistent disaster towards the end of the Reese era. It’s was the weakest link on the 2011 Super Bowl team, and it continually got worse year after year, likely causing the Giants any chance of winning again during Manning’s prime. Fixing it was one of the top priorities on Gettleman’s agenda, and one that he consistently said they have to get right.
The 2017 offensive linemen that Gettleman inherited were not only poor performers, but more often than not unavailable. The fragility of the entire offensive line that year resulted in ten (10!) linemen playing meaningful snaps. Three of those players, Chad Wheeler, Adam Bisnowaty, and Brett Jones, are no longer in the league, and two of them, Ereck Flowers and Jon Halapio, now play different positions. Yuck.
The 2017 starting tackles for the Giants are both playing a lot of snaps in the NFL, and combined for a PFF rating of 60.6 in 2019. However, Ereck Flowers (64.0) is doing that at guard instead of the much more valuable left tackle position he manned in New York. Bobby Hart continues to play right tackle in Cincinnati and he registered a PFF rating of 57.7. Meanwhile, the combination of Nate Solder, Mike Remmers, and Nick Gates combined to for a PFF rating of 65.9, good for a 5.3 improvement over the two guys they replaced.
At the guard positions, four linemen from the 2017 team still play a significant amount of snaps for their current team, however Jon Halapio now takes his snaps at center. Justin Pugh, D.J. Fluker, and John Jerry combined for a PFF rating of 62.3 over their 2331 offensive snaps with their respective teams in 2019. In New York, Kevin Zeitler and Will Hernandez handled 2058 snaps between them with a combined PFF rating of 67.6.
Brett Jones, not Weston Richburg, played the majority of snaps at center for the Giant in 2017. Jones is no longer in the league while Richburg signed a big deal with the 49ers and scored a 62.5 PFF rating over 838 offensive snaps with San Francisco this year. His counterpart with the Giants, Jon Halipio, registered a 56.3 rating over 979 offensive snaps in 2019. Center is a position that Gettleman obviously has to do better at, as Halapio has not played well, and is at the tail end of his career.
While the tackle and guard positions appear to have improved significantly, the numbers are a bit misleading. Nate Solder’s 64.7 rating is serviceable, however the declining trend in his performance is concerning with two more years left on his deal. At guard, the Giants have a strong presence on the right side with Zeitler (76.8), but the regression in play at left guard from Hernandez (59.0) resulted in worse performances than both Pugh (66.8) and Fluker (60.4). On a brighter note, Nick Gates, and his 75.1 PFF rating across a few spots on the right side of the line could be a real nice utility lineman, if not a potential starter at right tackle when the Giants move on from Remmers.
Gettleman has improved the offensive line, but that’s mostly because the floor was so incredibly low to begin with. The cap difference is surprising in Gettleman’s favor as well, as even with Solder’s bloated deal, the cap hit for the starting offensive line was ~$22M versus ~27M for the players he let walk away in free agency. Perhaps the biggest advantage with Gettleman’s line is their durability as each member of the starting five played at least 80% of the offensive snaps in 2019. Availability matters, especially in the NFL, where every dollar sitting on the bench lowers y
Offensive Line Situation: Improved. (Barely)
Skills positions next week.
