Football Outsiders: Arizona Cardinals offensive line surprisingly effective for David Johnson in 2016

Every year Football Outsiders produces one of the must buy analytics and information based books of the year. The 2017 Football Outsiders Almanac is available for purchase now and Football Outsiders was kind enough to provide us some answers on the 2016 Arizona Cardinals and look forward to the 2017.

How good was David Johnson despite a poor offensive line?

From Football Outsiders Bryan Knowles

Believe it or not, Arizona's offensive line did just fine in the running game, despite the 10 different starters and the eight line changes. They ended up seventh in Adjusted Line Yards; a drop-off from third in 2015 but nothing to be ashamed of considering the constant reshuffling. Only Mike Iupati had more than four blown run blocks by our charting (he had eight), and only John Wetzel and Earl Watford really struck me as struggling in the run game when I was watching them for the book. The issue came in the passing game, where everyone but Jared Veldheer left something to be desired, to put it politely. We charted the line with just 19 blown run blocks, but 55 blown pass blocks.

Of course, getting to block for David Johnson will make anyone look pretty good. When the offensive line did miss a block, Johnson just zipped around them; his 80 broken tackles were 11 more than Ezekiel Elliott in second place.