Metrics Prove Offensive Line for Gladiators Creating Wins
Adam Markowitz
Tuesday August 19, 2014
By now, we all know that the mantra of the Cleveland Gladiators is the concept of going 1-0. It isn't just winning every individual game. It's about winning every individual play. It's about doing your job. It's about keeping your assignment. It's about making sure that you're not the guy who lets your brothers and teammates down on a play. Perhaps the least talked about members of the Gladiators are Kitt O'Brien, Shannon Breen, and CJ Cobb, the three big guys protecting QB Shane Austin.
Of course, the big guys don't mind if their names don't get called all that often. Generally speaking, if you hear the numbers 79, 51, or 71, you're talking about holding penalties or false starts. In the case of the Gladiators' offensive line though, the biggest number that we have to discuss is 0. That's the number of sacks that they have allowed over the course of the last four games, and it's the number of times that Austin hopes he gets hit at ArenaBowl XXVII against the Arizona Rattlers.
Every time I watch the Gladiators, I'm amazed at how much more physical they look than the other team. Granted, I'm not the guy out there getting his body knocked around, so I might be off base just a bit, but the Glads just look meaner and nastier than most others, and it starts with their three men up front.
Continuity always helps, and the fact of the matter is that O'Brien, Breen, and Cobb have started each of the last eight games the Gladiators have played together, and they have composed the starting offensive line in 15 of Cleveland's last 22 games. In a league where players come and go all the time, that's about as good as it gets, and the growth of this group is really starting to show.
"It has been expected to come in and play your best and go 1-0 each week," said Breen. "This team has the tightest bond I have ever seen. When things are not going well, everyone picks each other up, and we just expect each other to finish the game with a win."
Unfortunately, the only metric that we have to measure an offensive line is by sacks, and that's an incredibly unfair metric to go by. Though offensive linemen are ultimate the culprits when the quarterback goes down, often times, the QB will hold onto the football too long or wide receivers will just fail to get open down the field. No matter how good of a lineman you are, you aren't blocking in this league for five or six seconds with regularity.
That said, even by that base metric, it's clear to see just how good this unit is. In 2013, the Gladiators allowed 39 sacks, an average of 2.2 per game. In the three games that O'Brien, Breen, and Cobb played together at the end of the year, the club allowed just one sack in each game.
This season, the Gladiators have conceded just 19 sacks in 20 total games. As stated earlier, they haven't allowed a sack in four straight duels, and they have allowed just a total of two sacks since June 21st.
The rest is about the eye test. The pocket which Austin has had to stand in this year has, for the most part, been a remarkable one. He has had all the time in the world to take his drop, step forward if need be, and throw, and the end result has been significantly fewer third and fourth downs needed than most teams in the league. The Gladiators have only had to face 43 fourth downs this year in 20 games, 2.15 per game. The league average was 2.88 fourth downs per game. The average team also faced 6.86 third downs per game. Cleveland is at just 6.05 per game.
You might think that this isn't that big of a deal, but in a league where stops are at a premium, putting any opponent into a position where it has to face nearly a full play per game full of pressure more than you, you're going to see solid results. It isn't an accident that this team is 19-1 and is on the verge of completing the best season in AFL history.
Teams only converted on 45 percent of all fourth downs this year. If you look at the advantage of 0.73 fourth downs per game and figure that 55 percent of all fourth downs will end in stops (and assume that a stop is worth around 6.8 points when you factor in PATs), just the simple creation of fourth downs defensively and avoiding fourth downs on offense is worth nearly three points per game for Cleveland.
Of course, the test is about to get a whole heck of a lot harder for the Cleveland offensive line. Marcus Pittman, Tyre Glasper, Cliff Dukes, and Anttaj Hawthorne have been together for quite some time as well, and few will argue the point with you that the Rattlers have one of the, if not the most talented defensive lines in the league. Sure, only 28 sacks for the season doesn't necessarily suggest that Arizona had its way with opposing offensive lines. However, if you ask any offensive lineman in the league who the last team is he wants to go up against to protect his quarterback, the Rattlers will have to be up there on the list.
In spite of the fact the Gladiators clearly had one of the best offensive lines in the league, only Breen made second-team All-Arena of the three. However, Breen, O'Brien, and Cobb clearly don't mind if you don't know their names or their numbers. All that matters is that on Saturday, they all go 1-0. If that's what happens, you don't have to know what to call them.
You can just call them champions.
