Through last weekend’s games, five of the league’s seven lightest lines played for offenses ranked in the top half of the yards-per-game category, including Atlanta — which had the No. 1 offense and, also, the sveltest men in the trenches.
“If you can find someone who is 360 and runs like a gazelle, then sure, take him,” said Alex Mack, Atlanta’s 305-pound center. “But in most cases, that player doesn’t exist. So if you want to do a particular thing with your offense, you need to go light.”
For the Falcons, lighter linemen fit their offensive scheme. As Mack described it, Atlanta is always trying to “get, or threaten, the edge” of the field, as opposed to simply bulling through manufactured spaces in the middle.
That means the offensive line — two tackles, two guards and a center — is often asked to move side to side, shifting into different areas or sprinting to get in front of a quick-developing play and an even quicker ball carrier.
In the first quarter of a game, that can be challenging enough for a man carrying a lot of weight. By the fourth quarter, particularly if a team has been playing a hurry-up offense, it can be nearly impossible.
“I honestly think part of it comes from the number of college teams who are playing fast,” said Jeremiah Sirles, a guard for the Vikings who weighs, he said, “just under 315.”
Sirles continued: “You have to be in good shape just to keep up with the number of plays. If you’re dragging, you can’t block anyone.”
The drawback, of course, is that lighter offensive linemen can more often get bowled over — trucked, in the vernacular — by heavier defensive rushers. But by using plays that are often run to the edge, an offense forces the defensive players to hesitate for a moment at the snap to make sure they don’t overrun the play, giving the offensive linemen a chance to “get off the ball” first, or make the initial blocking move that gives them an advantage.
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Offensive Lines Are Shrinking In Size
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