High on Bulaga

I don't know if it's possible to completely grade the performance of an offensive lineman.

I know it happens and you can pick it out of the general stats of things, first downs, total yards and points (nothing too terribly specific).

Here's a Wall Street Journal post that tells the story of a man who tries to get granular with O-linemen.

Here's an excerpt:

This season, Ben Alamar, a former high school offensive lineman who founded the Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, decided to try his hand at something few people outside NFL front offices (and insomnia treatment centers) have ever attempted: grading the performances of offensive linemen.

Mr. Alamar spent a good portion of this fall (102.5 hours, to be exact) watching tapes of offensive linemen. Because the camera angles used in NFL broadcasts don't show enough of the field to allow a layman to see what happens with the line on every play, Mr. Alamar decided to ignore running plays to focus on passing plays.

Going off this, his scoring system shows the Green Bay Packers Bryan Bulaga, former Hawkeye, might be the best pass blocker in the playoffs.

For that score, click on the "view full image" on the "Protecting the pocket" graphic.

As a Packers fan (many of you know that), I think Bulaga has been fantastic. He had a few penalties in the Bears game a couple weeks ago, but hey, he's a rookie and that was Julius Peppers. I'm willing to cut slack for that.