Has too much praise been given to the 2024 offensive line?

Was the Carolina Panthers 2024 offensive line actually good, or did it just a lot better compared to 2023?

After nearly a decade of offensive line play that peaked at middling but mostly hovered around the bottom of the league, the Carolina Panthers front office finally realized enough was enough heading into the 2024 season. The new regime decided to take an unconventional path forward by investing heavily in free agent offensive guards. A position that not only doesn’t normally draw a high dollar amount in free agency, but one that NFL teams almost never invest heavily in two high-priced free agents.

Though with the duo of a historically undersized quarterback alongside a head coach espousing a desire to power his offense through the running game leading the franchise, the logic to build up a so-called brick wall interior of the offensive line is valid.

There’s no doubt that the changes had an immediate effect, as the Panthers went from being universally considered in the bottom three offensive lines to making an argument for consideration among the top 10 units in the NFL.

A monumental leap forward, one that indicates a successful shift in the franchise’s philosophy. An impressive feat for the first year of Dan Morgan’s tenure, but great care should be taken to not just call the offensive line “good enough” and move on to fixing other positions quite yet.

The improvement of the 2024 line after the 2023 iteration was so vast that by comparison many people have been willing to overlook the faults of the 2024 unit. During the season, it was hard to criticize the offensive line for a handful of reasons, but the foremost of which was that the 2023 performances were still so fresh in the mind that even a stretch of below average play still represented improvement. Criticizing a group after making significant strides forward was not a priority, especially when other position groups on the team – like the entire defense – were more deserving of the ire.

Now that the season is over and there’s time for reflection before a new one begins, we can look back critically on whether or not the 2024 performance was good enough going forward. In this writer’s humble opinion, it was not – at least in one area.

Run blocking was fantastic and another similar performance from the unit would be more than acceptable. However, the unit’s pass protection, especially over the second half of the season, left much to be desired.

According to the Athletic NFL Show, during the second half of the season the Panthers line gave up the 5th highest quick pressure rate in the NFL. They were also graded as the 30th unit in the league in ESPN’s pass block win-rate. ESPN says the metric “conveys the rate linemen can sustain their blocks for 2.5 seconds or longer”.

For a group whose main job is essentially to lose as slowly as possible, being one of the worst in the league in two key pass-blocking metrics about giving up pressure too quickly is a cause for concern. Quarterback Bryce Young’s ability to escape and make play’s while facing pressure helped mitigate these concerns, but the point remains that relying on him to bail out the line time after time isn’t the goal.

The whole unit isn’t exactly to blame, as a few players actually had solid pass blocking grades according to PFF during the second half of the season. Guard Damien Lewis, Center Cade Mays and Tackle Taylor Moton all received “above average” grades over the second half of the season.

Left tackle Ikem Ekwonu earned a “below average” mark from PFF while the $100 million signee Guard Robert Hunt graded out as “poor”. The two lineman combine to give up 52 pressures weeks 8-18 (Bryce Young’s first game back from his benching until the end of the season) while the former group of three gave up only 37 combined.

This is not to say they were bad players overall – after all, Hunt made the pro bowl – but they left a lot to be desire when asked to pass protect. The sky is not falling on these two players either, as Ekwonu is still on his rookie contract and his improvement compared to his 2023 was notable.

Hunt had dealt with some injuries earlier in the year that required him to sit out some games and has recent seasons producing at a level consistent with the better pass protecting lineman in the league. For example, Hunt was the 10th highest graded best pass protecting guard in the league during his 2023 campaign with the Miami Dolphins.

It’s not the intention to dampen any enthusiasm for the Panthers offensive line going forward, but much of the hype around the Panthers this offseason cites this unit as one of the main reasons. If the line is to hold up to the standard that’s being set for them, they’ll need to improve as a pass protecting unit in 2025. Which is not an unreasonable expectation.

Tomorrow, we’ll look at the future of the Panthers offensive line to identify longer term concerns beyond the 2025 season – stay tuned!