You probably don’t think of the St. Louis Rams as a team that’s built along the offensive line. And for good reason: according to Pro Football Focus, St. Louis ranked 30th in pass blocking and 29th in run blocking in 2014. Football Outsiders also ranked the Rams offensive line in the bottom five in both power rushing and stuffed rates. But the Rams struggles on the offensive line are not for a lack of acquiring highly-drafted linemen.

Let’s put aside the selection of Jason Smith with the second overall pick of 2009, who would presumably be in the prime of his career right now had he not been a bust. Because even without him, no offensive line had as strong a pedigree in 2014 as the Rams.

• At left tackle, Jake Long started 7 games; Long was the first overall pick in the ’08 Draft, albeit by the Dolphins. The other nine games were started by Greg Robinson, taken by St. Louis with the second overall pick in the 2014 Draft.

• The left guard spot generally belonged to Rodger Saffold (who started 16 games), taken by St. Louis with the 33rd overall pick in 2010.

• Center was manned by Scott Wells, the 251st pick by the Packers way back in 2004.

• At right guard was Davin Joseph for 13 games, the 23rd pick in 2006 by the Bucs. The other three games were started by Saffold, and during those games, Robinson moved into the left guard spot during (with Long sticking at left tackle).

• At right tackle was Joe Barksdale for all 16 games. Barksdale was the 92nd pick in the draft in 2011 by the Raiders.

So, how did I conclude that the Rams were the team with the highest-pedigreed offensive line in 2014? ^[1]Note that in 2015, Robinson and Saffold will return on the left side, while the team’s second and third round picks in May (Rob Havenstein and Jamon Brown) are expected to start on the right … Continue reading Here’s what I did:

1) Determine the number of games started by offensive linemen for each team in 2014.

2) Use the draft values here to assign a draft value to each offensive lineman who started a game in 2014.

3) Multiply those values by the percentage of starts by that player compared to all starts by offensive linemen on that team. This way, the draft value of a player who started 10 games counts for ten times as much as the draft value of an offensive lineman who started just one game.

Perform that calculation for every team, and you can create an “average” draft value assigned to each start by an offensive lineman for each team. Here’s how to read the table below: The Rams offensive linemen started 80 games last year, and 32 of those were started by former 1st round picks. On average, the draft value for those starts was 13.6, the highest number in the league.

You might be surprised to see Dallas at “only” number six, given that the Cowboys famously had three Pro Bowl linemen who all were drafted in the first round. But Travis Frederick was the 31st pick and Zack Martin was the 16th pick, so there’s less value there than with the average first round pick. And while Tyron Smith was the 9th overall pick, Ronald Leary wasn’t drafted, and Doug Free was a fourth round selection.

As for the team at the bottom of the list, here’s a case where the pedigree matches up with the results, as Tampa Bay had one of the worst offensive lines in the NFL. Three of Tampa Bay’s main starters on the line — center Evan Dietrich-Smith, right guard Patrick Omameh, and right tackle Demar Dotson — were undrafted. And think, Tampa Bay ranked last even though the Bucs traded for former first round pick Logan Mankins in August!

What do you think of this data? Among the bottom ten teams, there are some excellent offenses (Green Bay, New England, New Orleans) and some not-so-excellent ones. At the top is a pretty mixed bag, too.