Warrior General Games

Just curious. No idea if my guy is a great build or not. But the only stat he has to see is Pancakes, he gets one every 4.83 plays.

Is that good? Bad? Irrelevant?

Your opinion is sought for discussion.

Best way to gauge any player's performance is to watch their game film, especially so for linemen because there's not much in the way of stats to give you an idea of how they did at a glance. Can he hold his block long enough to let the rusher past, how well does he pick up defenders after pancaking his man or another lineman loses his, how long can he hold the pocket?

Pancakes / Play is only useful if...

1) You remove special teams plays from the "play count" you're dividing by
2) You only compare against other players in your conference
3) Your team is "average" - if you're a gutjob, other guys will destroy you... or if you're the best team, your d-line is stealing pancakes from competition

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Best way is to watch. How many potential blocks are there for the C to make? Does he see them? Make them? Hold them?

Originally posted by yello1
Just curious. No idea if my guy is a great build or not. But the only stat he has to see is Pancakes, he gets one every 4.83 plays.

Is that good? Bad? Irrelevant?

Well...plays per pancake is about the only stat we have...it doesn't mean a lot but I would say higher is better than low but it's very dependent. A team that has a runner than can break off 20 yard plays their line is gonna see more cakes because they have more blocking. A team that has a runner that is 4 yards and a cloud of dust won't often have enough time to pancake someone since the play is over so quick.

In the end, the past way to judge is the scoreboard and game film.

My C averaged 3.73 plays to pancake in CPL last season which was considerably better than the rest of the folks who were in the low 4s. Of course, he also played for a team that went 20-0 and rattled off lots of long runs that would give him 2-3 cakes on some plays.

Pancakes are useless as a stat. You should watch the film and work out his success rate as a blocker. I.e. how often he completes his initial assignment. If he gets a lot of pancakes, look for how often a pancake actually makes a difference on a play (like if your guy can then block a second defender, or if the guy on the floor could have made a covering tackle later on a long play)

I really wish they'd give us a sacks allowed stat, and sacks allowed per pass play. And put the average Line rushing yardage for plays where your player is in the game.