I was digging to find some info on starting tackles and came across some interesting info that I thought i'd pass along.  Some interesting but pretty common knowledge trends that you see in these stats that help you understand how GM's build their offensive lines - from the tackle position at least.

**Disclaimer**

This list is of the tackles that started the 2010 season as either a starting RT or LT.  This is not a comprehensive list of players that played as a result of injury or suckage at the positiion - just players that their respective teams felt could start week 1 in 2010.  This means that those teams were most comfortable with those players for whatever reason.  I wanted to see where those guys were drafted in order to see if any trends stood out. 

It takes a lot of time to put these things together - so if anyone wants to do a more comprehensive list you can use this as a base - then go have some fun!

**End Disclaimer**

As you can see from this list - the number of starting left tackles in 2010 that were drafted in the 1st round was 16.  That's a pretty big number - exactly half of the league

Contrast that to the 8 1st round draft picks that started at RT and you can see that NFL clubs spend about half of their picks on RT - or do they? Those numbers drop even further when you look at guys like Damien Woody who was drafted as a center in the 1st and Marc Colombo who was drafted, if I remember correctly, as a LT.  Jason Smith was drafted as LT but was beaten by Saffold.  Jammal Brown was also a LT that was traded to the Saints and plays RT while Vernon Carey was suppose to be a LT but couldn't cut it and moved to RT.  It's amazing that there really aren't many 1st round RT's drafted to play strictly RT.

There are, again by this list, exactly 2 NFL RT's that were drafted in the 1st round to play RT and that is Brian Bulaga and Gosder Cherilus.  This just goes to show you that NFL clubs do not put a premium on right tackles in the 1st round.  So when Buddy Nix passed on Brian Bulaga for CJ Spiller you can see that most GM's would probably have done the same thing.  Again - this is circumstantial evidence because of the data I pulled - but it gives you an idea on what GMs are thinking on the tackle position.

Obviously drafting left tackles in the 1st round is what your club wants to do in order to get a solid tackle.  Usually if they bust at LT you can move them over to RT or to an interior position - so there's value there.  Which is probably why you don't see many clubs drafting RTs in the 1st.

The Bills are still finding out what they have in Bell and certainly didn't have any left tackles that were #3 worthy (or should I say better than Dareus) in this past draft so you cannot fault them for that logic.  If Bell pans out then we are ahead of the game.  If not then he would be a solid swing tackle and we should go after a 1st round tackle if we want a solid starter.  When half of the NFL has their starting LTs as 1st round picks then you know how important those guys are and how important it is to grab them when you can. 

The caveat is having those guys available when you pick or when you have better players on your board - see Marcell Dareus.

I'm hopeful that Bell will pan out and i'm going to give him this year - but if he falters then the Bills will have to invest in that position at some point. Especially if they end up with a Franchise QB at some point - you need to protect those guys.

Let me know if I made any mistakes too - but that was my look at 2010 starting tackles in week 1.  If nothing else to give you a good idea on how NFL clubs value draft picks at the tackle position.