Packers Add Size to Offensive Line

According to Player Agent Craig Domann, The Green Bay Packers have come to terms with their first unrestricted free agent of 2009, former Buffalo Bills offensive lineman Duke Preston.

Although Preston is a very large man at 6’5” and 325 lbs, Packer Head Coach Mike McCarthy denies that there has been a philosophy change with the offensive line.  "He's got a nice frame.  He's more of an athlete. We see him as an athletic frame. Once again, he’s young, too. He has a lot of football in front of him," McCarthy said of Preston.

The Packers have been struggling to get consistent performance from the zone blocking scheme that McCarthy has been trying to implement since his arrival in 2006.

Preston was drafted in the fourth round of 2005 from the University of Illinois.  He has appeared in 59 games in his career with 20 starts.  In 2008, Preston took over at center for the injured Melvin Fowler and started the last 11 games. 

Tom Silverstein noted that Preston struggled with some of the better tackles in the league such as Vince Wilfork, Kris Jenkins, and Shaun Rogers. Although it is a valid point, I wonder who didn't struggle with these guys.

According to conventional statistics, the Bills were 25th in the league in yards gained last season with 38 sacks allowed.

According to the interesting statistics at Football Outsiders, Buffalo had the 11th best offensive line for rushing in the NFL with 4.26 Adjusted Line Yards in 2008.  Unfortunately, they had a Stuff Rate of 25% and a Sack Rate of 8.1%. (Follow the link for more details.)

Not only does Preston add some much needed bulk to the Packers offensive line, he also offers some flexibility as he has the ability to play any of the interior positions. Some are saying that he can play Tackle as well.

Sources: JSOnline.com, FootballOutsiders.com

RawbeezeitzMajor Leaguer

230 days ago

Score 2

Excellent point about struggling with the monster DTs of the League. I know Wilfork was double-teamed about 98% of the time, and that other 2% was a sack or a tackle for a loss.

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JuTMSY4Legend

230 days ago

Score 1

Bit of a misnomer with Zone blocking is that you can be too big. That's pretty false...Ryan Diem of the Colts is 6-6, 330. All that really counts is athleticism, so in reality, if you could build a zone scheme out of 325+ dudes, you'd maybe be better because they can also push (assumably) people around... of course, they're few and far between and go by the alternate title of "studs"

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CheezerAll-Star

230 days ago

Score 0

That is McCarthy's point. He likes the fact that Preston is a big guy, but even more important is that he's highly athletic. From what I am hearing, Preston is especially good in space.

If nothing else, Preston offers that Packers the flexibility of a guy who can back-up any position. That means they won't have to play musical chairs every time some one goes down for a week or two like last season.

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JuTMSY4Legend

230 days ago

Score 0

You always need one of those guys...

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