Kramer HOF enshrinement great but speaks to a bigger issue

Sometimes watching one thing can trigger thoughts on something that is
indirectly related.

Green Bay Packers legend Jerry Kramer along with Robert Brazile, Bobby
Beathard, Ray Lewis, Terrell Owens, Brian Urlacher, Brian Dawkins, and Randy
Moss were enshrined into the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Saturday. My first
thought on Kramer is, “It’s about time.”

The 82-year old Kramer was a finalist 10 times. With Kramer playing right guard,
the Packers won five NFL titles and the first two Super Bowls. He was also the
team's placekicker in 1962, 1963 and part of 1968.

Kramer was a five-time All-Pro in his 11 seasons despite being often injured.
Kramer’s injuries included but were not limited to having surgery to remove
sizable wood fragments embedded in his abdomen from a teenage accident and
a badly injured ankle suffered in 1961. In all, Kramer played in 129 regular season
games; he also had 22 surgeries in 11 seasons, including a colostomy, which he
described as “a horror movie that hasn't been made yet.”

There is an NFL Films clip that shows iconic Packers head coach Vince Lombardi
drawing up his infamous Power Sweep and uttering in his Brooklyn accent,
“What we wanna get is a seal here and a seal here and run this play in the alley.”
We see Jim Taylor and Paul Hourning run between the seals and in the alley.
However, the ones creating the seals were Kramer and Fred “Fuzzy” Thurston.

There remains several other offensive linemen that deserve a Hall Pass. The
ones that readily come to mind are Bob Kuechenberg, Joe Jacoby, Steve
Wisniewski, Mark Stepnoski, Jay Hilgenberg, Tony Boselli, Randy Cross, Erik
Williams, Jeff Van Note, and Lomas Brown.

The easy answer as to why there is a shortage of offensive linemen in the Hall
of Fame is because though some offensive line coaches have grading systems,
they are never made public and not readily comprehensible by most fans like skill
position stats.

In my years of covering high school football, I heard grovels of how offensive
linemen get little to no recognition. So I employed two different practices. The
first was if a running back scored a touchdown running outside to the left, I would
write “Tony scored on a 47 yard run behind left tackle John and left guard Tom.” I
did not watch the blocks but for all I know John was just looking for someone to
block and Tom didn’t make a very good one. However, it generated a measure of
goodwill. The other approach I took was if the team had a big yardage game, I
would mention the entire starting line and the tight end early in the story. Readers
appreciated the gesture.

Though I was not a lineman when I played high school football, there are two
feature stories I enjoyed writing. The first was when I was a college student at the
University of Nebraska during spring football 1996. The Cornhuskers were coming
off consecutive national championships. In 1995, the offensive line of Aaron
Graham, Aaron Taylor, Eric Anderson, Steve Ott and Chris Dishman paved the
way for 399.8 yards per game, did not allow a sack and did not commit a holding
penalty all season. I found it fascinating how Nebraska offensive line coach Milt
Tenipor had the letters “O LINE” enblazened on the license plate of his Chevy
pickup.

In 2003, for the Napa Valley Register, I talked to catch up all five Napa Valley high
school offensive line coaches to pick their brain on their evaluation process. Their
eyes lit up over the opportunity to engage: Jon Conner (Vintage), Tim Mulligan
(Napa), Brenden Shanks and Jason Guiducci (Justin-Siena), Tom Shirmang
(St. Helena) and Larry Hoburg (Calistoga). In 2007, also for NVR, I caught with
then St. Helena head coach Dave Collinsworth for a similar feature. The
Collinsworth era was an ill-fated 2-8 season, lasting only one year, but given that
he was an offensive tackle for the University of Oregon, I respected his acumen
for that position group.

With these discussions, I learned that evaluating an offensive line’s individual or
group performance is not as simple as looking at yardage or sack totals. Teams
can design plays for quarterbacks to get rid of the ball quicker to mask a subpar
line. Sometimes, an offensive line can make the right blocks but running backs
hit the wrong hole and the play gets stuffed. Conversely, a lineman can miss his
block but the running back either makes a defender miss or breaks a tackle to
overcome the missed block.

The problem with evaluating an offensive line is that unless you know the
playbook, how can you tell if a lineman executed his assignment?

The "pancake" block stat has been popularized within the last 30 years or so --
and not talking the ones you eat at Black Bear Diner. That block is defined as an
offensive lineman putting a defender on his back.

Mulligan, Conner and the Guiducci/Shenks tandem had the most informative
evaluations. Though the feature ran 15 years ago and some elements of football
have changed, as in you had huddles and fullbacks in 2003, there are enough
factors of offensive line evaluation that are portable by decade.

Mulligan bypassed individual grading systems because he felt it led to too much
individualism and if the offense scored a touchdown, the entire line received
helmet stickers. Instead, his focus was about are you either moving on the snap
of the ball or even slightly ahead, as long as there is no penalty. From there,
Mulligan would look at making the right step and completing assignments.  

Conner used a detailed grading system for each lineman in order to accumulate
an individual percentage by dividing their successful attempts by their total
attempts.

For example, grades of 50 percent ensured that a player will get an opportunity
to start the next game, while 55 percent could earn the player one helmet sticker
and one more if he achieves 60 percent or greater. The player can receive
positive points for pancake blocks and negative points for penalties.

Conner prefered individual grades because it forced him to evaluate every player
on every snap. Conner looked for several things: 1) Is the player executing his
assignment? 2) Does he play with aggressiveness and passion? 3) Is he getting
off the ball on the snap count? 4) Is the line working on the opponent's side of the
line of scrimmage? 5) Is the player fundamentally sound and staying with his
assignment?

Guiducci and Shenks used a grading system as well that resembled a golf format
of 1-3. That method means the lower the score, the better the grade. Two means
you did your job. Three means something was lacking, such as you missed your
block. One means an outstanding performance."

Justin's coaching staff has four sets of eyes watching each play to speed up the
evaluation. The coaches focused on footwork and shoulder contact. The main
focus is whether or not the player is taking two steps before making contact with
his opponent.

The pancake block, however, is not heavily emphasized because the Braves
blocking scheme was not dependent blowup shots.

Though evaluating linemen is not an easy task, the legendary ones shouldn’t have
their 82nd birthday before enshrinement in the Hall of Fame.