In recent days, Pro Football Focus noted that there were four guards in the NFL who hadn’t given up a sack this season and two of them are the Raiders tandem of Kelechi Osemele and Gabe Jackson. But what of the tackle position?
Donald Penn’s season ended about as devastatingly as possible as his man got into the backfield and put the sack on Derek Carr that broke his ankle and essentially ended the Raiders’ chances of making a playoff run. Then Penn himself was lost to injury.
But prior to that, he was as good a tackle as there was in the league. How good? This good:
T Donald Penn was 1-of-4 tackles to allow just 1 sack with 350+ pass block snaps. He did it w/ nearly 200 more snaps than No. 2 Duane Brown. pic.twitter.com/TWEhv8Zfev
— Pro Football Focus (@PFF) May 15, 2017
As the stat notes, Penn was one of just four tackles last season to allow only one sack. And he did it while playing nearly 200 more snaps (621) than the next most (428).
To be fair, much of the credit for the lack of sacks surrendered by the Raiders goes to Derek Carr whose elusiveness and pocket presence. He and the line complement each other well.
With the right tackle being a revolving door last season, the only Raiders offensive lineman not yet mentioned is Rodney Hudson, who PFF had tied for the number one rated pass blocking center in the NFL in 2015. He Osemele and Penn were all named to the Pro Bowl while Jackson was an alternate.
This is to say nothing of the Raiding line helping block for the Raiders’ 6th ranked rushing attack last season.
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