Explanation of Offensive LIneman Ratings

Offensive linemen generate few, if any statistics.  They might have the odd fumble, fumble recovery or tackle, but nothing that can be used to rate and compare them.  This feature proposes two methods for doing this.

OL Points
Players are assigned OL Points according to the following system:

This system works fine for the years since 1974 when the Outstanding Offensive Lineman Award was started.  Prior to that, t here was an OUtstanding Lineman Award which could go to eithre an offensive or a defeensive lineman, but most often to a defensive lineman.

Also, the CFL All-Stars only started in 1962.  Prior to that t here were only divisinal All-Stars.

 

Rather than ignore the years prior to 1974, a formula was developed to rate those years.

For the years 1962 to 1973, eah player who was a CFL All-Star was given additional points based on the fac ttat one of those five people would have been chosen the Outstanding Offensive Lineman. Winning the award was sworth 4 points, so each player was awarded 1/5 * 4 = .8 points extra.  This was rounded up to 1 point.  A good example of this would be Jack Abendshan who had 5 CFL All-Stars between 1962 and 1963, so he would be given 1 point extra for each for another 5 points.  Since he was a CFL All-Star 5 times, it is quite likely he would have been either a winner of the Outstanding Offensive Lineman Award once in thos years which is worth 4 points, the extra 5 points seems like a good approximation.

Before 1962, with no CFL All-Stars, each division all-star would have a 50% chance of being a CFL All-Star, so is awarded 1 / 2  * 3 = 1.5 points extra.  Also, he would have a 1/ 10 chance of being the Outstandng Offensive Lineman so is given 1 / 10 * 4 = .4 points, rounded up to .5.   Thus each division all-star gets an extgra 2 points above the normal 2.

Finally, adustments were made for a ffew players who won the Outstanding Lineman Award while playing on the offensive line in the years between 1955 and 1973.  For example, Kaye Vaughn won twice and was a runner up once.  He was given 4 points for each win and 2 for being a finalist for a total of 10 points.  This was adjusted to 8.5 since he had already been given the .5 point boost for those three years.

View Excel Spreadsheet With All Calculations

Tercentage
OL Point totals are impacted by the lengh of a career.  To try and come up with a rating that reflect qualityas much as quantity, the percentage ratings are calculated.  The maximum number of points a player can achieve in a year would be 10 (1 for playing, 2 for divisonal all-star, 3 for CFL all-star and 4 for Outstanding Offensive Lineman).  The percent rating is the OL Point total divided by (years X 10).  The highest possible rating a player could get would be 1.000.  A player who just played but won no All-Star awards or Outstanding Offensive Lineman award would score .100.  Since playing only a few years can badly distort the percentage ratings, a minimum of 7 years is the standard for compairing values.  Why 7 years?  That is pretty much the shortest career that tends to get consideration for voting in the Hall of Fame.