Best and Worst Offensive Line in Indy History

[John Hammonds]

Discussing the best Left Tackles in Indy history made me wonder what the best (and worst) Offensive Lines were in Indy history.  I pulled simple stats for each year:  NFL Rush Rank, Yards per Attempt, and Sacks.  Here are my top 4 Offensive Lines and bottom 4 Offensive Lines

 

BEST OL - 2004 - 15th in Rushing, 4.3 Y/A, 14 Sacks - Tarik Glenn (pro bowl), Ryan Lilja, Jeff Saturday, Rick DeMulling, Ryan Diem

2ND BEST - 1987 - 6th in Rushing, 4.3 Y/A, 24 Sacks - Chris Hinton (pro bowl), Ben Utt, Ray Donaldson (pro bowl), Ron Solt (pro bowl), Kevin Call (rookie)

3RD BEST - 1985 - 5th in Rushing, 5.0 Y/A, 35 Sacks - Chris Hinton (pro bowl), Ben Utt, Ray Donaldson, Ron Solt, Karl Baldischweiler

4TH BEST - 2019 - 7th in Rushing, 4.5 Y/A, 32 Sacks - Anthony Castonzo, Quenton Nelson (pro bowl), Ryan Kelly (pro bowl), Mark Glowinski, Braden Smith

 

WORST OL - 1991 - 28th in Rushing, 3.3 Y/A, 57 Sacks - Zefross Moss, Randy Dixon, Brian Baldinger, Chris Conlin, Kevin Call (Ray Donaldson and Ron Solt were injured)

2ND WORST - 1992 - 28th in Rushing, 2.9 Y/A, 44 Sacks - Zefross Moss, Randy Dixon, Ray Donaldson, Ron Solt, Kevin Call (amazing that 3 of these were on 2nd best OL as well)

3RD WORST - 1997 - 17th in Rushing, 3.8 Y/A, 62 Sacks - Tarik Glenn (rookie), Eugene Chung, Jay Leeuwenberg, Tony Mandarich, Jason Matthews

4TH WORST - 2017 - 22nd in Rushing, 3.7 Y/A, 56 Sacks - Anthony Castonzo, Joe Haeg, Anthony Fabiano, Mark Glowinski, Denzelle Good (Jack Mewhort and Ryan Kelly were injured)

 

Interesting that two of our worst OL's were situations where multiple starters were injured.  And we have a situation where one of the best and one of the worst both have 3 players in common.  Our best performing OL only had one pro bowler.  Shows just how important teamwork and cooperation is for an OL to perform well.

[HectorRoberts]

In 2017 glow wasn’t on the team until until December, and never started a game until 2018.  Matt slausen got hurt week 6 and glow has been starting ever since.

[John Waylon]

Oh man. I still have nightmares about that sack Peyton took on Sunday night against the Chargers. Was that Linkenbach? 2010 I’m pretty sure... Just got manhandled right back into Peyton like he wasn’t even there. It was horrifying, even still to this day. 

[2006Coltsbestever]

The 1987 O.Line was beastly! Only 24 sacks with the putrid QB play we had is a miracle and our run blocking was among the best. Hinton, Solt, and Donaldson were monsters. Kevin Call was known as the 'Creature'! We won the division that season because of our O.Line and Dickerson. 

[holeymoley99]

I loved Chris Hinton--7x Pro Bowler, 2X First team All Pro...1st O Line rookie to make Pro Bowl a shame he is often just mentioned as being on wrong side of all time trade....

 

If you polled people and asked with #1 overall pick would you take this player and included a Pro Bowl Guard (Ron Solt) very few would hesitate to say no, just turns out the other side got an all time great QB.

[Superman]

Where's 2012? 

 

Castonzo (before he was really good), Joe Reitz, Samson Satele, Mike McGlynn, Winston Justice.

[The Fish]

1 hour ago, Superman said:

Where's 2012? 

 

Castonzo (before he was really good), Joe Reitz, Samson Satele, Mike McGlynn, Winston Justice.

I was actually going to say the same thing.

The center situation at the start of Luck's run was stunningly bad for a few years. That meme of Satele pointing at some guy saying "I'm not blocking him" still rings in my head.

[Four2itus]

Hard to rate. Soooo subjective to QB, play calling, schedule, skill positions...etc.