Well, the two areas that I personally felt had to be dealt with by Pat Narduzzi over this offseason have been addressed with the firing of Defensive Coordinator Josh Conklin (and he was being let go) and now the same (mutual agreement!) with Offensive Line coach John Peterson.
We have discussed Conklin’s work and his shortcomings on here often so that’s old news, but what are we losing with Peterson departing?
Not much I believe and the play on the field by the last season’s OL proves that. Here is a chart that breaks down the two main jobs of the OL – QB protection and the running game. I included the last three years as that is Peterson’s tenure at Pitt.
As you can see I highlighted in red the very poor play by the OL last season. That is a very dramatic drop in play.
We understand that OL play also depends on who is running the ball and who the QB is behind them – for instance in 2016 we had both Peterman who had a quick release and great field awareness at QB and James Conner running the ball and who was able to bull his way through the LOS even if his OL wasn’t blocking well.
pittpov.com 