NFL lineman stats

So I'm redesigning our weekly NFL roundup page, and one thing I'm doing is a breakout showing how the six players that played high school football in the area performed. Two of them are offensive linemen. What I want to know is if there's somewhere I can look on Sundays to get stats for linemen or at least find out if they played. Any ideas where I could find that info?

 

Weekly stats for linemen? I don't think the league recognizes any, do they?

To find out if they played, just check each week's gamebook for that team. Find 'em here, or here.

 

Are these released the same day of the game on the NFL's Web site?

 

Yes, shortly after the game ends.

 

Awesome. Thanks for the help.

 

You can always mention the team's rushing average. If the backs are getting 5 and 6 yards a pop, that's a good indication the linemen were doing a good job. Same with sacks allowed.

 

I had thought of that, but if I didn't know whether or not the guy got in the game, it wouldn't have mattered.

 

And if you're talking about a backup lineman, that could be dangerous territory. The gamebook will tell you whether or not he appeared, but he might have played solely on special teams.

 

One is a starter, but one is a backup. Should be fun to figure this out all season.

 

A lot of our prep teams track a lineman's blocking percentage. That is to say a 90-percent grade means the player was effective or didn't screw up 90-percent of the time. I have to think the NFL tracks this stuff in a similar fashion. Also, a measure of a lineman's skill can be recorded by number of sacks surrendered. I don't know where to find this info, but I'm sure it's out there.

 

The NFL gamebooks won't track the kind of stuff editorhoo mentioned, because those are not official stats. Teams will track performances for their own purposes, but it's not really information that would be available for newspaper roundup.

You also have to be wary of team-tracked statistics, as they can be very much subjective. Grading out on linemen, or even tracking a defensive stat like tackles, can get very skewed. I think it was Rick Gosselin who did a piece recently that showed how out of whack team tabulated stats can be for categories not officially tracked by the league.

 

Hell, I think we've all seen that in the prep ranks. Things like tackles, where anyone on the pile (or within 5 yards of the pile, in some cases) gets credit. We have one private school that consistently has three or four guys over 100 tackles every season. All our other schools are lucky to have one.