2014 NFL Draft: Corey Linsley Top Rookie Center
By Rick Stavig
@rickstavig
Brad Barr-USA TODAY Sports
Centers don’t get much love in the game of football, at any level, despite their vital importance to running an effective offense. It’s also reflected on draft weekend, as just 9 of the 256 picks of the 2014 NFL Draft were centers. Even when you do have a rookie center who gets a lot of snaps, it’s a brutally hard adjustment from the college game, generally dealing with smaller DT’s in even fronts, to the NFL, where they’re going against absolute monsters, especially NT’s in odd fronts. Despite that, Green Bay Packers rookie Corey Linsley (161st overall) had a very strong season and runs away with my top rookie center award.
Of the nine centers taken in the ’14 draft, 5 were called before Linsley in the latter part of the fifth round. When the Packers took him, they were really just taking a flyer on some competition for JC Tretter, a fourth rounder taken in ’13. Thanks to Tretter injuring his knee in week 3 of the preseason, Linsley got a chance for some playing time and never looked back, becoming a building block in the middle of their offensive line.
The 6-foot 3, 300-pound product of Ohio State was strong in pass pro and out on the move for screens, but was especially effective drive blocking. Compared to other rookie centers who were eligible for grading on ProFootballFocus, Linsley was the only one to grade out positively with a +10.0 (San Diego Chargers‘ Chris Watt was second at -0.4, for comparison’s sake). When looking at how Linsley graded against the veteran centers of the league, he’s rated 5th, a very impressive measure.
Gems can be found all throughout the draft, and even afterwards, but they’re incredibly hard to find. Finding a rock solid building block for the middle of your line at the end of round five? That should be considered a steal, at least in my humble eyes. Behind maybe only RG T.J. Lang, Linsley is already the best drive blocker on the team, and has shown he can block efficiently out in space and on the move, a crucial aspect of playing in the Packers versatile offense.
Rick Stavig is an NFL Draft Columnist for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @rickstavig or add him to your network on Google+.
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