One of the big trends in football over the last couple of decades has been an increasing focus on the importance of the left tackle, resulting in massive salaries and high draft picks expended on those who play it well. Famed Moneyball author Michael Lewis explored this phenomenon in his 2006 book, The Blind Side, which is set to be released as a movie later this year. The book took a historical look at the position and then followed the development of Michael Oher, the star Mississipi left tackle who became a first-round draft pick this year.
The historical section suggested that specialized left tackles became important in the late 1980s when San Francisco 49ers coaching legend Bill Walsh drafted Harris Barton in the first round to protect his quarterbacks' blind side from dominant pass-rushers such as Lawrence Taylor. Other teams saw the value in this and followed suit, increasing the importance placed on the position and thus the money and draft picks allocated to it.
Since The Blind Side was published, it appears that focus on left tackles has only increased. The 2006 NFL draft saw only one offensive tackle (D'Brickashaw Ferguson, chosen fourth overall by the New York Jets) selected in the first round. By contrast, the 2007 draft featured first-round tackle choices Joe Thomas (third overall), Levi Brown (fifth) and Joe Staley (28th), and the 2008 draft saw the Miami Dolphins take tackle Jake Long first overall and make him the highest-paid offensive lineman in the NFL immediately thereafter.
After Long, an incredible seven other offensive tackles were drafted in the first round, making tackles over 25 percent of all first-round draft picks that year (there were 31 picks in total, as the New England Patriots forfeited theirs thanks to their involvement in the Spygate scandal). This year's draft saw a continued focus on the left tackle, with Jason Smith chosen second overall, Andre Smith selected sixth, Eugene Monroe picked eighth and Oher drafted 23rd overall.
Exactly how valuable the left tackle is is still up for debate, though. ESPN.com writer KC Joyner, who also writes for the New York Times' Fifth Down blog and is the author of the forthcoming Scientific Football 2009, is one of the key voices against overrating left tackles. Joyner, also known as "The Football Scientist" for his analytical approach to the game, famously wrote the book Blindsided: Why The Left Tackle Is Overrated in 2008. He suggested that left tackles were important, but their relative value compared to the other offensive line positions had been somewhat exaggerated.
In the book, he wrote that "Today's defenses don't rely as much on getting the edge linebacker in a one-on-one matchup against a left tackle, but instead try to get a matchup anywhere they can on the line. That makes building a solid offensive line across the board much more important than just having one great left tackle."
In an interview with The Good Point this past week, Joyner said having the league's best left tackle won't help much if the rest of your offensive line is weak.
"It all comes down to the idea that there are two ways to approach attacking offenses - you can either attack the scheme or attack personnel weaknesses," he said. "The gist of attacking a scheme is to find a set/formation weakness and that normally involves trying to get more rushers than blockers at a given area. In that case, it doesn't matter how good the LT is because you are going to occupy him with a rusher and get someone unblocked around him. If a team is more personnel than scheme oriented, they are going to try to find the weakest link on the line and go after that player. Again, if the LT is strong and there is a weaker link on the line, this type of team will go after the weaker player and thus avoid the LT."
Joyner said the change in the historical importance of the position has perhaps also been exaggerated.
"I also don't think teams have necessarily changed the way they approach things," he said. "Bill Walsh loved to talk about how he made the left tackle position so important but it is also worth pointing out that his first Super Bowl win came with a guard playing LT and his second came with a fat, underachieving LT (Bubba Paris). If the LT position was so important, how was it that Walsh put up two championship wins with a subpar player at that position? The answer, in my estimation, is that it isn't as important as he said it was but he wanted to make the case about Harris Barton's value to help promote himself as a football genius. I'm not saying he wasn't a genius but he had a lot of Carl Sagan in him - his brilliance was obvious but so was his penchant for self-promotion."
However, Lewis also postulated that part of the demand for good left tackles was due to the unusual mix of size and speed required to play the position in today's NFL, making it so there were far less potential candidates to fill the left tackle role than any other position on the offensive line and thus increasing the value of the capable left tackles out there. Joyner said this line of thought has some merit, especially in the passing game.
"I believe one justifiable reason for a team to pursue the size/speed attributes for the left tackle position is because that is the position where those traits can have the greatest value in pass blocking," he said. "Guards and centers need size and a certain amount of speed, but they are not going to be tested at the corner the way that left tackles are. Another way to put it is that there is a limited amount of pass blocking upside potential for guards and centers because of the nature of their position. Right tackles are also in a similar boat because the tight end typically lines up on their side. Teams will always pay big dollars for upside physical potential and since the left tackle spot has more of that than the other line spots, it will tend to draw more financial interest."
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