PFF ranks Buffalo Bills offensive line in bottom half of NFL

Pro Football Focus recently released their rankings for every offensive line in the NFL and the Buffalo Bills found themselves at 18th.

Last offseason, the Buffalo Bills front office took a major risk as they almost completely overhauled their offensive line. The team signed free agents like Mitch Morse, Jon Feliciano, Quinton Spain, as well as used a second round pick on Cody Ford.

Those four players would join Dion Dawkins, the only starter returning from 2018, to form the new offensive line. The returns last year were largely positive as this starting five showed significant improvement over the performance the year prior.

The good news for the Bills is that entering this year all five of their starters are returning but they have added competition, like the signing of Daryl Williams who at best earns a starting job and at worst provides some really good depth.

However, with all the positives, it wasn’t enough to move the Buffalo Bills offensive line out of the bottom half of the league in Pro Football Focus’ recent rankings of the offensive lines. The Bills would end up being ranked 18th in the league.

"Buffalo has attacked the offensive line with volume over the last two years and the team has made strides back toward the middle of the league. Last year, they finished 21st in our final rankings, as the pass-blocking grade was almost identical to 2018 while the run blocking improved dramatically (ranked 31st in 2018, 17th last season).Left tackle Dion Dawkins is the anchor after grading at 73.1 overall last season, good for 24th among 82 qualifying tackles. Dawkins has been an above-average option in his three years in the league and doesn’t make many mistakes in the run game, posting the seventh-lowest percentage of negatively graded plays last season. On the other side, Cody Ford had common rookie struggles, finishing just 78th out of 89 qualifying tackles with a 52.4 grade. He must improve in all areas."

Should the Buffalo Bills be ranked higher?

It was certainly surprising to see the Bills’ offensive line be ranked as low as they were. Their performance a season ago was pretty good and PFF does note that while the pass blocking, in their grading system, didn’t improve the run blocking took a significant jump.

The interesting part about this is while the offensive line in all facets ranked 18th, Pro Football Focus did recently rank this group in the Top 10 in pass blocking on longer-developing pass plays.

This is one area that should really be beneficial in an offense that is likely going to look to develop the deep passing attack with the offseason addition of Stefon Diggs.