Charting Sean Harlow’s Wins

Background: Sep 11, 2022; Glendale, Arizona, United States; Arizona Cardinals guard Sean Harlow (64) blocks for quarterback Kyler Murray (1) during the first quarter against the Kansas City Chiefs at State Farm Stadium. Credit: Michael Chow/The Republic / USA TODAY NETWORK

On Monday’s Red Rain Podcast, I expressed my opinion that Sean Harlow “played tough and very physical”. After the taping I was astonished to learn that Harlow’s PFF grade was the lowest on the offense at 27.3. They gave him a 0.0 pass blocking grade and a 42.9 run blocking grade.

No possible way, I thought.

Thus, I went to NFL Game Pass and graded every one of Sean Harlow’s 65 snaps. The way I grade offensive lineman is by their number of WINS over his defender. I call a poor block a LOSS.

In 65 snaps, Sean Harlow had 61 WINS.

I am going to contact PFF this week to challenge their grade. I have no idea what they were seeing other than perhaps an over-reaction to the second snap of the game where Chris Jones roller skated Harlow backward toward Kyler. That was Harlow’s worst block of the game, but, he still managed to keep his feet and did not let Jones get a hand on Kyler.

It has been a pattern for Cardinals’ guards to get rocked back in pass pro on the first or second snaps of the game, which suggests that they are not getting this type of jolting, power rush from their own DTs in practice and therefore have to quickly adjust in the game.

Sean Harlow quickly adjusted. And from that point on, he had 60 WINS in 63 blocks.

That’s saying something, considering the switch he had to make on Thursday from backup center to starting left guard.

It’s easy to over-react to one bad block —- but to be fair to the player, it takes going back to the tape and grading the player on his full body of work.

In my estimation, getting 61 WINS in 65 blocks warrants a good, solid B.

Give credit, where credit is due.

See and evaluate #64 at LG on these plays: