When you’ve been around sports analytics long enough, you learn that as wonderful as the tools can be, stats can be misleading. By themselves, they don’t provide necessary context. Like most observers, I had certain preconceived notions about the New Orleans Saints offensive line’s play going into my film review of their 12-10 victory on Sunday over the Dallas Cowboys. I was quickly reminded why we wait to evaluate players with cool heads and keen eyes.



Here, we’ll break down film from all five of the Saints’ starting offensive linemen. The charting we’ll use has all plays, including penalties, so they won’t match up perfectly with the box score. For players, correction doesn’t come only on plays that led to big gains. Just because a penalty negated a missed block, odds are he’s still going to hear about it in the film room.



For this article, players will be listed from best to worst performances. Not every play is...