Duke and I selecting our first, second and third-team All-Pro teams with detailed discussions on each player and landscape of the position

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Hjalte & I discuss his unique journey, breakout season in 2023, facing Dexter Lawrence, DJ Reader, the Cardinals scheme, expectations moving forward and more

Oregon O-Line coach A'lique Terry joins Brandon to have a wide-ranging discussion on his football journey from playing center at Wake Forest before focusing on his path into coaching as a graduate assistant at Oregon in 2019-2020 when Penei Sewell and other future NFL draft picks were there. We then get into his one year of coaching D-Line with the Minnesota Vikings before circling back to being hired as the head OL coach at Oregon prior to last season.A'lique shares details and insight into his rapid rise and success as a coach, what he looks for in O-Line recruits and how he identifies, moving into the Big Ten this season and much more.

Welcome everyone to the second annual offensive line fantasy draft with myself, Andrew Whitworth and Geoff Schwartz sitting down to each select our starting five units with one special ‘25 & under’ addition as our top backup. These units were picked for the next three seasons and with salaries as a consideration.

As we begin to approach training camp for the 2024 NFL season each off-season I have found value in taking a big picture look at the offensive line position from a few different vantage points. From my annual top 75 overall O-linemen, OL Almanac (both coming over the next few weeks) to a fantasy draft, these exercises offer fun, insightful and unique ways of gauging the position group as a whole entering the season while also allowing room for deep dives into the nuances of players and units.

In the first ever Trench Warfare D-Line fantasy draft, myself, Nate Tice from Yahoo! Sports and NFL defensive end Carl Lawson selected our front four unit with two additional ‘rotational’ players to build out our ideal D-Line room. The goal was to draft a unit for the next three seasons while taking contracts into consideration. We dove into the best defensive linemen in the NFL and some up-and-coming guys that provide surplus value due to their age and/or contracts.

Brandon Thorn and Duke Manyweather discuss OL current events before selecting the top 5 OL at each position for 2024.

Larry Allen's death

Corey Linsley's retirement

Eagles RG competition + expectations for Cam Jurgens first year at center

Addressing a recent PFF top 10 OG list before selecting each of our Top 5 LTs, LGs, Cs, RGs, & RTs for the 2024 season, including our top 10 overall OGs

For more Trench Warfare and OL/DL analysis:

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Brandon sorts through each team in alphabetical order and discusses every OL that he evaluated and was drafted. He shares his thoughts, takeaways and expectations for the player.

In addition to the deep dive on the O-line class that Duke and I put together for you here, my first batch of scouting reports from this class were released today over at Bleacher Report as part of our updated top 100 big board. There were 19 total OL in the top 100 with nine blockers inside the top 30.

Reports published so far:

Penn State’s Olu Fashanu

Notre Dame’s Joe Alt

Alabama’s JC Latham

Washington’s Troy Fautanu

Duke’s Graham Barton

West Virginia’s Zach Frazier

Georgia’s Amarius Mims

Oregon State’s Teliese Fuaga

Arizona’s Jordan Morgan

Video podcast:

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Geoff Schwartz and Duke Manyweather join Brandon Thorn to draft their O-line units for the next three seasons. The considerations are simple: Age & contract of the player + performance. They each provide background and rationale behind each selection while incorporating bigger picture topics all centered around line play.

Topics covered this week

Eagles OL with multiple backups dominating (a bad Giants run defense) in the run game

Frank Ragnow dominating Harrison Phillips

Terron Armstead & Aaron Brewer as run blockers

The Chiefs elite, tier one interior trio

Arizona’s dynamic run game

Amarius Mims

Tristan Wirfs brilliance

Graham Barton putting on a show against very good competition

Spencer Brown’s developmental journey

Jared Verse is a menace

The Titans problematic right tackle position

49ers concerns on the interior defensive line

Tyron Smith’s over reliance on his outside hand getting him into trouble again

Texans continued issues at center/left guard and potential fixes

The Giants dramatic drop-off at left tackle without Andrew Thomas + a possible answer

Panthers’ bottom-feeder defensive line

Video version:

Brandon shares his notes, observations and key takeaways from the 6th annual OL Masterminds summit. He recaps the Legends panel featuring Andrew Whitworth, Steve Hutchinson, Will Shields, Bruce Matthews, Robbie Tobeck, Damien Woody and Richie Incognito before sharing insight from Lane Johnson, Terron Armstead and more current players.Lastly, he shares stories from dinners, exclusive video and more.

OL Masterminds founder Duke Manyweather and NFL.com's Lance Zierlein join the show to break down our favorite day 3 OL prospects in the 2023 NFL Draft. What does a successful day 3 pick along the OL typically look like? How do you determine what position a guy can/can't play? And what is Duke's 'secret sauce' for developing OL? We cover that and much more during this wide-ranging discussion about OL evaluation with a focus on the 2023 class.Follow Brandon on Twitter: @BrandonThornNFLFollow Duke on Twitter: @BigDuke50

Follow Lance on Twitter: @LanceZierleinSubscriber to the Trench Warfare Newsletter: https://trenchwarfare.substack.com/

Duke and I discuss the most impressive offensive line units in the NFL, which lines are surprising us and letting us down the most and break down many of the players within those groups. We also draw on some metrics such as pass attempts, sacks taken, QB time to throw, play-action percentage and more to help paint a comprehensive vie…

Each year that we get together for OL Masterminds, I think back to the inaugural event in 2018 when we had 27 total people show up to the state of the art Baylor Scott and White Sports Therapy and Research Center at The Star in Frisco, Texas.

We first met in a classroom on the second floor of the facility. Duke Manyweather and I set up chairs and did early morning coffee runs prior to everyone showing up. It required us to adapt as we went over that first weekend and do what we could to make the guys comfortable. We even had to move the classroom portion on the last day to the Lincoln Experience Center down the road. I remember working with the staff there to figure out how we would seat everyone and having to help set up video equipment at the last minute so we could watch film.

This year’s Masterminds featured over 200 people in attendance with a heap of sponsors and the entire ground floor of the Baylor Scott and White facility dedicated to the event. Looking back on that first event to see where it is now makes me realize how much the event has grown and how fortunate I am to have been a part of this since its inception. I am truly grateful for my role at Masterminds, the relationships that I have built and for Duke including me in putting it all together each of these past five years.

This year was the fifth annual event and the first time where we had Hall of Famers like Willie Roaf and Steve Hutchinson join us. We also had Hall of Fame-caliber former players join us for the first time in Mark Schlereth and Willie Anderson, plus returning guest Olin Kreutz. The bulk of the crowd consisted of current NFL linemen, along with some of the game’s top offensive line coaches and dozens of high-quality college prospects mixed in. They were all looking to learn more about the position and pick up something to help them prolong and enhance their careers.

This podcast recaps detailed notes that I took from some of the speakers and my observations before having one of those distinguished guests in Olin Kreutz join me to share his main takeaways.

With the NFL Draft set to kick off in just over a week, I asked The Athletic’s Dane Brugler, one of the premier draft analysts in the business and someone I regularly discuss prospects with, to join me on a podcast. As Dane said in the opening of this podcast, this sort of conversation is one we’ve had almost daily on various prospects and evaluation methods, so it was mostly us peeling back the curtain for everyone else.

Chances are if you are reading this you have heard of Brugler’s tremendous draft guide “The Beast,” but you may not know how highly I regard his eye for evaluating the offensive line. I started reading his work several years ago and was impressed with how detailed yet succinct and accurate he was with identifying what linemen did well in his scouting reports. Since then, we have developed an awesome relationship where we can exchange ideas and share and compare notes.

I wanted to kick off this discussion by talking about Iowa center Tyler Linderbaum, who is the most interesting valuation in the class for a variety of different reasons to me. We dug deep into our personal evaluations of Linderbaum, how we project him, where we see his value being highest and other pertinent layers of what seems to be one of the most polarizing players in the class.

From there we branched off in a few different directions before getting to an exercise I dubbed ‘Building an O-line” where we alternated picking one lineman from round 1, two from rounds 2-3, and four from rounds 4-7 and the UDFA pool to give us a starting five with a key backup.

Here are some additional topics we covered:

* How much should age factor into an evaluation of a player and how do we each view that question?

* Why it is important to not let past misses cloud our perception of current players, specifically when there are some surface-level similarities. Two examples are Linderbaum/Garrett Bradbury and Charles Cross/Andre Dillard.

* Dane gives me several of his favorite day two and three targets from the O-line class and we each give an overview of how we view those players.

* Why both Dane and I like Cole Strange, where we differ on his outlook and specific insight I was able to obtain during my film room with Strange earlier in the week.

* Why UTSA OL Spencer Burford is one of my favorite day three prospects in the class.

* A couple prospects we are most heavily split on and why.

* When we built our O-line’s, what factors were most important to us and why?

Look out for another podcast dropping later this week for subscribers only; my second and final pre-draft podcast with Duke Manyweather. If you missed our first discussion, we covered well over a dozen prospects in this class here. We will dive deeper into some day two and three prospects on this next podcast, revisit the Linderbaum discussion, conduct our own 'Build the O-line’ experiment, and cover many other topics.

Topics covered this week

Trent Williams unmatched physical prowess

Rashawn Slater’s dominant return to the lineup

Tristan Wirfs’ dominant performance against the Saints

Patrick Mekari/Daniel Faalele

Jackson Powers-Johnson’s aggressive demeanor and flashes of power continue to be notable

Sam Cosmi’s ascension and standout game against Nnamdi Madubuike

Andrew Thomas vs. Trey Hendrickson

Dion Dawkins vs. Michael Clemons

Seattle’s disastrous right side

Nick Allegretti

Roger Rosengarten

Blake Fisher, Juice Scruggs & Kenyon Green struggles

Taliese Fuaga’s repeated struggles in pass protection

Adding context to Joel Bitonio and Zack Martin’s struggles in Week 6

Adding context to the Cowboys struggles on the OL

Amarius Mims’ underwhelming start

Tyron Smith’s struggles

Players discussed:LSU OTs Will Campbell & Emery Jones Jr.

Texas OTs Kelvin Banks Jr. & Cameron Williams

Ohio State LT Josh Simmons

Ohio State LG Donovan Jackson

Minnesota LT Aireontae Ersery

Arizona RT Jonah Savaiinaea

Alabama LG Tyler Booker

Georgia RG Tate Ratledge

Oregon OTs Josh Conerly Jr. & Ajani Cornelius

A rundown of my weekly film study with a focus on the best/worst performances and adding context to each selection, including level of competition, outside factors & more

Topics covered this week

Cam Heyward

Zach Frazier vs Grover Stewart

Quinn Meinerz on double-teams

Vikings pass protection plan

Cody Mauch vs Jalen Carter

Jackson Powers-Johnson first start

Ronnie Stanley

JC Latham

Bears pass protection plan vs Rams

Adding much-needed context to the performance of the Commanders O-line

Jared Verse

Wanya Morris

Amarius Mims

Kenyon Green

Eagles O-line without Lane Johnson

Saints interior OL

Topics covered this week

Chris Lindstrom vs. Chris Jones

Quenton Nelson

Will Fries

Zach Frazier

Zion Johnson

Broncos DL

JC Latham

Dion Dawkins

Spencer Brown

Rams rookie DL Verse/Fiske

Brandon Coleman

Saints OL moving forward

Browns OL

Chargers OL/Slater (pec) & Alt (MCL) getting hurt

Bucs OGs

Titans right side of OL

Cody Whitehair

Bengals IDL

Andrew Thomas

True Pressure Rate introduction/methodology/overview

A rundown of my weekly film study with a focus on the best/worst performances and adding context to each selection, including level of competition, outside factors & more

A rundown of my weekly film study with a focus on the best/worst performances and adding context to each selection, including level of competition, outside factors & more

Andrew and I sit down to discuss his journey from a former top five pick to experiencing rookie struggles to becoming an All-Pro. We go into how he overcame a lack of confidence in a chaotic environment, having five line coaches in his first five seasons as a pro, how he watches film, which tackles he studies, pass-rushers and more.

Each year, Duke Manyweather and I put together our NFL Offensive Line All-Pro teams — 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Team — and for the first time in 2025, our Protector of the Year Award selections.

This show represents the culmination of another season spent studying the position full-time: grinding film, trading daily notes, and working to quantify what actually shows up on Sundays.

Our goal is simple — do right by the offensive line. Put in the work, shine a light on the position, and elevate the players who truly define it.

We take the process seriously. And we still have a lot of fun doing it.Episode Timestamps

00:00 – Welcome + framing the annual OL All-Pro show01:00 – All-Pro criteria: snaps, starts, and why thresholds matter03:40 – Why this year’s OL evaluations were tighter than usual

05:20 – 1st Team All-Pro: Left Tackle08:35 – 2nd & 3rd Team: Left Tackle

14:50 – Left Guard All-Pro Teams (1st–3rd Team)

25:35 – Center All-Pro Teams (1st–3rd Team)

36:20 – Right Guard All-Pro Teams (1st–3rd Team)

44:50 – Right Tackle All-Pro Teams (1st–3rd Team)

~58:00 – Protector of the Year Award (Top 3)~64:30 – Final thoughts + season wrap-up

Former Saints and Dolphins LT Terron Armstead has a new YouTube channel and show titled ‘The Set’ airing every Monday and Thursday this season. Terron asked me to join him for a segment every Monday to recap key trench matchups of the week which I am very excited for. You can find this segment in video form airing every Monday on Terron’s channel beginning in Week 2.

Here’s the backstory on why the Week 1 edition is airing here: After Week 1 we hit a snag in scheduling so I wound up recording the video for Terron to give his producer to edit and get up on his channel. Unfortunately, the audio did not match up with the video and since Terron only does video (for now) the file became unusable, until now. After realizing that the audio itself was uncorrupted and full of valuable insight and analysis, I asked Terron if I could post it on my channels which he graciously agreed to.

That brings me to this episode. Terron is the host speaking as if this will be airing on his channel before we get into the good stuff:The three Tyler’s in Dallas (Guyton, Smith and Booker) against the Eagles front

Commanders LT Laremy Tunsil vs. Giants edge-rushers Brian Burns, Kayvon Thibodeaux and Abdul Carter

Lions RT Penei Sewell vs. Packers edge-rusher Micah Parsons

Titans LT Dan Moore vs. Broncos edge-rusher Nik Bonitto

If you want to hear Terron and I break down key trench matchups all season make sure to go check out his channel here.

Commanders OL coach Bobby Johnson has spent the last 15 years coaching the tight end and offensive line positions in the NFL. He is coming off of a stellar season in Washington where he, along with head coach Dan Quinn and offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury, joined forces as recently fired coaches who had never worked together to assemble a stunningly impressive 2024 campaign. The Commanders posted a 12-5 record and appeared in the NFC Championship against the eventual Super Bowl champion Eagles.

Overview - Topics covered

The legacy of NFL coaches from Ohio

The value of being able to coach the defensive line early in his coaching career at Akron

Understanding fronts, coverages, rotations and how to think like a defensive lineman

How coaching tight ends at the collegiate and pro level furthered an understanding of coverages as it relates to blocking schemes

Unpacking the unique skill-sets of Marcedes Lewis and Lee Smith

What “tough and smart” means in a practical sense and why it is vital for the offensive line

Some epic examples of these traits from Lee Smith, Dominic Raiola, Jon Feliciana and Matt Slauson

Unpacking “Making it easy for us and difficult for them” as a coaching philosophy

Evolving as a coach and the constant pursuit of improvement

Leadership 101: Accentuating the strengths of your players and minimizing the weaknesses

Specific examples of how coach Johnson has done that during his career

Diving into coach Johnson’s affinity and proximity to players with legendary toughness and their value to the room

Coach Johnson’s strategy for communication to the players in Washington that helped lead to them developing cohesion and chemistry throughout the season

Drawing on prior experiences and relationships to coach each playe

Offensive line play has gotten more attention and credit over the last few seasons than anytime I can remember over the last decade of studying the position due to the unit’s repeated and undeniable impact on team success in the NFL. Naturally, getting to sit down and learn from Aaron Kromer, who has been one of the architects of great line play for ove…