Laremy Tunsil was one of the best left tackles in the NFL last season. But most people seem to think that, while he is good, he’s not an elite player (assuming they’ve heard of him at all). Obviously, Tunsil is underrated primarily because he plays for the Miami Dolphins, a mediocre team whose offensive line has ranged from “inconsistent” to “downright awful” over the last several years.

But whether it’s the Dolphins or any team for that matter, poor team play shouldn’t influence your perception of individual players. Any player, even offensive linemen, can quietly excel even on the worst of teams (just ask Joe Thomas about that). And in the third year of his career, Tunsil absolutely excelled.

You might ask what I am basing this claim on. After all, it can often be difficult to analyze offensive line play, since linemen do not produce individual statistics. So, in order to create a metric that can adequately measure how well an offensive lineman is playing, Pro Football Network’s Data Lab researchers have been painstakingly examining every snap of every offensive tackle that saw significant playing time in 2018. The exact process is pretty complicated, but here is a basic explanation of how it works:

As a starting point, it is impossible to know precisely which responsibilities a tackle had on a given play, so we can only examine what takes place after the snap actually happens. And the result of the play isn’t what matters either. If a tackle does their job perfectly, completely shutting down the player in front of them, then they will receive a high grade for that play even if the quarterback ends up getting sacked anyway.

On the other hand, if a tackle gets thrown to the ground by a defensive end, they will receive a poor grade for the play even if their quarterback manages to escape the pressure. This method of analysis allows us to ignore certain mitigating factors, such as a particularly nimble quarterback, or poor play from fellow offensive linemen. We examine only what the tackle does, from the snap of the ball to the referee’s whistle blowing the play dead.

Laremy Tunsil is one of the highest-graded tackles in the NFL

PFN’s analysts are still in the process of analyzing players, but Tunsil has been one of the early standouts, with an overall grade of 77 (out of 100). Of the tackles graded by the Data Lab thus far this season, only three had a higher overall grade than he did, and only one of them played in more than three games.

That player was Taylor Lewan, who currently has a grade of 79, although not all of his games have been analyzed yet. This grade places Tunsil ahead of many better-known offensive tackles, such as David Bakhtiari and Tyron Smith, who both had overall grades of 72. Again, the grading database is still under construction, so definitive comparisons cannot be drawn just yet. The reason Tunsil’s overall grade was so high is that he excels in just about every area that our analysts measured. He has phenomenal upper body strength and excellent footwork, allowing him to maintain his position even against the leagues best pass-rushers.

Perhaps the only weakness that our analysts noticed in Tunsil’s technique was his hand placement. He has a tendency to leave his hands low, which occasionally allows defensive players to gain the upper hand. However, his hands are also deceptively quick, which means that defensive players can have a difficult time getting their hands on his chest, even if he is holding his arms lower than he should.

Tunsil’s overall success is also a product of his consistency. Against the Indianapolis Colts in Week 12, he received his worst overall score of the season, a 68. His poor hand positioning really hurt his performance in this game and led to an abysmal grade of 52 in the second quarter. All of his other games received grades between 70 and 82, with one exception.

The other outlier occurred in the Dolphins’ Week 3 opponent, the Oakland Raiders, where he received an overall grade of 86. This was a game in which he was able to keep his hands up, which led to him receiving a perfect 100 in the first quarter and a 93 in the fourth. If he can do that more consistently, he might go from an elite tackle to being the best in the NFL.

Laremy Tunsil deserves more national respect

According to our metrics and analysis, Tunsil was consistently excellent last season. Tunsil was snubbed from a Pro Bowl invite in 2018, and it’s possible that’s because he’s on a bad Miami Dolphins team.

He may be stuck on a bad team, but he still deserves far more respect than he gets. And who knows? If the Dolphins new coaching staff can finally turn the franchise around, maybe Tunsil will finally step into the national spotlight.

And if they can’t, he might end up just like Joe Thomas did: a great player who spent his entire career stuck on a terrible team. And that would be a real shame for a player of his caliber. Hopefully, Tunsil won’t suffer that fate, but in the meantime, we could all do him a favor and recognize him as the elite player that he is.

Lucas Ellinas is a writer for the Pro Football Network covering the PFN Data Lab. You can follow him @Lucas_Ellinas on Twitter.