So I get back from Vegas and pull up my favorite Buffalo Bills website (thanks, Brian!) and see a lot of comments about Jason Peters - specifically regarding whether the Bills should trade him away. Most people seem to be irritated by Peters' (irritating) attitude. Some appear to be unimpressed by Peters' abilities and others don't seem to think that LT is really all that important... or that Kirk Chambers is a fine replacement.
After Sunday's game I will have a week off to break down the Denver and New England games. Once I've done that I will have the offensive line stats for the season.
Peters, by virtue of not playing last week and being ruled out for this week, is already finished for the season. Here's how his numbers shake out:
Peters was in for 435 televised (The San Diego game was truncated) pass plays. He had 10 good pass plays, 404 decent ones, 21 bad ones and 14 killed pass plays. That comes out to a respectable 74.5%. Bear in mind that my grading system makes it virtually impossible for a lineman to do much better than 75%. A good pass play is one in which the lineman does more than simply keep a defender away from the QB - throw him down, dwarf toss him out of a passing lane, etc. Many of the good pass plays I record are on screens when the lineman has a chance to get downfield and really take it to a defensive player. Peters was beaten on 21 of 435 (4.8%) pass plays. This led to the killing of 14 of 435 (3.2%) pass plays. There is definitely room for improvement inasmuch as 4.8% is a bigger number than 0.0%. We're talking about 1.6 bad pass plays per game over Peters' (effectively) 13 game season. The Bills, by the way, averaged 33.5 passes in those 13 games.
Peters was in for 305 televised run plays. He had 95 good run plays, 179 decent ones, 31 bad ones and 4 killed run plays. That grades out at a very good 79.2%. I won't put him in the 'elite' category until he crosses the 80% threshold for the season... which I think he would have done with a little room to spare had he not held out. To my mind, what stands out even more than the high grade is the low number of killed plays - 4, or just 1.3% of run plays. Remember, in my grading system it's easier to stand out (or stick out, in the case of Preston/Fowler) while run blocking than pass blocking; run blocking offensive linemen can push defenders off the line, wrestle them down, cut them in space, etc. Run blocking also affords more opportunities to screw up - a quick release by the QB won't save a lineman from a black mark on a missed run block.
For the season, Peters killed 9.5 drives. I don't have the total number of drives yet so I can't give an overall precentage. The Bills ran 141 drives in the 13 games Peters played, meaning he killed 6.7% of those offensive drives. (His season drive killing percentage will be slightly lower as the Bills should have 8-12 drives on Sunday.) By way of comparison, the QBs killed 34.5 (24.5%) drives in those same 13 games. Lynch killed 8.5 (6.0%) drives over that same period. 24 (17%) of the drives in those games were not killed - meaning they ended with a TD.