I emailed Football Outsiders asking if they could explain why
they have the Rams OL 9th in run blocking and 3rd in pass protection while most of us view the OL (currently) as a bottom tier unit, other sites like PFF have them 31st, etc. For whet it's worth, they responded:
"First of all, the offensive line rankings are not based on DVOA. That's a different stat, adjusted line yards. Adjusted line yards takes runs and cuts them off at different lengths to get a better idea of the run blocking vs. what the running backs do on their own. Then it adjusts those numbers for down, distance, and opponent. What's going on in part with the Rams is that a high percentage of their runs are coming in the red zone, so we're adjusting those numbers upwards because the average run in the red zone naturally gains fewer yards. When you adjust based on that, our numbers suggest that the run blocking has been better than the standard stats would otherwise indicate. The biggest problem with the Rams' running game has been the lack of breakaway long runs."
