During his weekly media availability, Green Bay Packers offensive coordinator Adam Stenavich was asked about potentially making changes on the offensive line, including replacing center Josh Myers with Zach Tom.
“Josh Myers is playing the best he’s played in his career,” Stenavich replied. “I think he’s playing really well. So, I don’t think right now that is the best move for us because he is one of our best five players.”
The comments from fans on X were predictable.
More on that in a moment.
Myers ranks 26th out 35 centers to play at least 200 snaps at Pro Football Focus. No doubt that number factored into the fans’ backlash, though it’s important to note there aren’t many people employed by the 32 NFL teams who take PFF’s player grades with a bit of seriousness. PFF’s data, such as sacks allowed, is viewed as valuable. The grades have little or no value.
Where Myers does shine at PFF is in pass protection. That is a metric that can be measured statistically, and PFF does it through its pass-blocking efficiency, which measures sacks, hits and hurries allowed per pass-protecting snap. Myers ranks eighth in that metric with one sack, one hit and four hurries allowed in 226 passing plays, which is good for an efficiency score of 98.4.
Myers run blocking hasn’t been as strong, a fact for which there is video evidence. However, for a lineman who plays 60 snaps, a few good plays or a few bad plays tend to get magnified. As the adage goes, a lineman only gets noticed when he screws up.
There aren’t many truly reliable run-blocking stats. Sports Info Solutions has a stat called a “blown block,” which is “any time a blocker does not successfully block the defender they attempted to engage with and, as a result, gives the defender an opportunity to negatively affect the play.”
On running plays, Myers has four blown blocks and a blown-block rate of 3.1 percent. Of 28 centers with 100 run-blocking snaps, that ranks 20th.
Last year, Myers’ blown-block rate on runs was 4.4 percent at Sports Info Solutions. His pass-blocking efficiency of 98.7 at PFF ranked sixth.
A second-round pick in the 2021 NFL Draft, Myers was the first center off the board. Selected No. 62 overall, Myers hasn’t made his mark as a consistently strong performer. Taken No. 63 overall by the Kansas City Chiefs, Creed Humphrey was the all-rookie center in 2021 and a second-team All-Pro in 2022.
Now, onto the reaction.
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