Matt Light doesn’t suck and Logan Mankins isn’t a superstar
A not uncommon opinion among fans and observers of the New England Patriots is that Matt Light is a dog of a left tackle while left guard Logan Mankins is Pro Bowl material. I’m not convinced that either is correct.
As left tackle, Light generally faces the best pass rusher the opposing team has, week after week. Playing on the inside, Mankins faces less formidable pass rushers in a less visible environment.
On top of that, Mankins gets to execute highlight plays more often than Light does, especially on screen passes and on running plays where the guard pulls or at least traps. Blindsiding a linebacker while pulling is a heck of lot easier than blocking a defensive lineman head on. Since a pulling guard will usually find himself at the point of attack - although occasionally the pull is merely a decoy - he’s more likely to be spotted and praised by play-by-play callers and color analysts. For added effect, when the left guard pulls to glory the left tackle is often left with the decidedly unglamorous task of cut blocking the backside inside linebacker or, even worse, the backside outside linebacker. Offensive tackles, tonight we dine in obscurity, to paraphrase a popular movie.
I think both Light and Mankins are good, and, yes, Mankins might even be a bit better than than the man to his left, but I’m not convinced that he is that much better and I certainly don’t think Light is a liability. It strikes me as unrealistic to believe that it would be reasonably cheap and easy to replace Light with a better tackle.
The strength of the New England Patriots offensive line is that all of its starters and most of its backups are pretty even in talent and ability. When they get their technique and timing right, and execute plays correctly, they can be devastatingly effective even though they aren’t a bunch of particularly big players (although with behemoth backups Ryan O’Callaghan and Wesley Britt they are starting to get big).
