Best 15 Offensive Linemen of All Time

The offensive playmakers get all the glory in the media, award shows, and even in conversations around the water coolers and barber shops. But the quarterbacks, running backs, and receivers could only do their jobs with the help of their gigantic teammates in the trenches: the offensive linemen. Our objective in this post is to find the greatest linemen of all time, using the statistics of Pro Football Reference and Stathead. We will only look at numbers from the regular season as criteria to keep it fair. Still, we may consider championships and post-season awards to determine the NFL offensive linemen rankings.

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The Offensive Linemen with the most snaps in NFL history

Stats are few and far between to judge the big fellows up front. One, though, is longevity and activeness. The old saying by football coaches is that the best ability of an athlete is availability. Let’s face it: linemen on both sides of the ball are experiencing highly combative contact in almost every gameplay. The following players have shown the endurance to return for more over a long period. They are the only four since 2012, the first year that PFRef has snap counts, to have reached the milestone of 10,000 plays on the O-line.

Jones is the longtime center of the Tennessee Titans. Until his eleventh season in 2022, when he suffered an injury, Ben had been a rock in the middle of the Titans’ O-line. The man logged 10,200 NFL snaps so far in his career.

There is a reason that this Philadelphia Eagle lineman got a lot of face time along with his mother and brother before Super Bowl LVII. He is a darn good player and has experienced many a hand fight at the line of scrimmage. The 6 foot – 3 inches 295, pound center, has been seen in action in 10,894 career NFL snaps through the 2022 season.

Mr. Brown, a left tackle by trade, has been an active and willing participant in keeping defenders at bay. His count of 10,088 plays in his NFL career shows why he has been a pivotal member of the Houston Texans, Seattle Seahawks, and New York Jets blocking experts.

Zeitler is a true iron man of the “Big Uglies,” as he has been on the field for an amazing 11,054 regular season snaps in his illustrious NFL tenure. His career so far has spanned eleven seasons as a guard with the Cincinnati Bengals, Cleveland Browns, New York Giants, and Baltimore Ravens.

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Offensive linemen with the most Pro Bowls

Four men in history have been selected to the Pro Bowl at least a dozen times during their careers. This is a true testament to their consistently high level of play, staying healthy and surviving the rigors of an NFL season year after year. Perhaps this category guides us to the best offensive linemen in NFL history.

Ol’ “00” played center for the Oakland Raiders in the NFL and for much of the AFL existence and is known as one of the best offensive linemen ever. When you add the AFL accolades with the NFL, Jim Otto played in 12 Pro Bowls and was a 10-time All-Pro. It is no wonder that his bust is displayed in Canton.

McDaniel had a Hall of Fame career at the position of guard with the Minnesota Vikings, as well as a short stint in Tampa Bay. There were twelve seasons where Randall was honored as being a Pro Bowl selection and seven times as an All-Pro.

Matthews received Pro Bowl honors fourteen times during his NFL tenure and seven All-Pro selections. He played with the Houston Oilers/Tennessee Titans organization for his entire amazing 19-year career.

This big man wore a Kansas City Chiefs jersey bearing the number 68 for fourteen seasons. Shields donned the Pro Bowl jersey 12 of those years and became a two-time All-Pro.

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Linemen with the most First-Team All-Pro selections

There are All-Pro selections, and then there are this distinguished group’s elite First-Team members. We have already mentioned a few of them in other categories above, but here are a handful of others with many First-Team ballots submitted with their names on them.

Hannah was an old-school road grader at the top of his game. John played for thirteen years on the New England Patriots, meeting every challenge with the vigor of a gladiator. He was rewarded for his fine play by receiving seven First-Team All-Pro awards.

Munoz came out as a tackle drafted by the Cincinnati Bengals and produced a stellar thirteen-year career. This Hall of Fame player accumulated nine First-Team varieties of the NFL All-Pro selections. Number 78 was everything good in an offensive tackle that a coach could want.

The Baltimore Colts had a versatile stud of a lineman in Parker. Jim played both the guard and tackle positions for the “Blue Horseshoe” during the late 1950s and 1960s. The powers that be chose Jim Parker eight times to be on their NFL First-Team All-Pro team, and he eventually found himself enshrined in a certain museum in Canton, Ohio.

A list of the best offensive linemen of all time would only be complete if Ron Mix weren’t mentioned. This man made a living and earned a gold jacket by playing tackle and guard in an eleven-year career playing for both the Chargers and the Raiders organizations in the AFL and NFL. Mix’s name shows up as a First-Team All-Pro nine times. Yes, this guy was good.

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The Wild Card Selections

Here are two more deserving candidates that may not jump off the stat sheets, or lead in awards, but were instrumental in making their offense hum. Their names so show up the AV leaderboards of Stathead and in the memories of those who saw them play.

The Hall of Fame center helped the Pittsburgh Steelers win four Super Bowl Titles by anchoring a solid line. Webbie was selected nine times to the Pro Bowl, was a five-time All-Pro, and even made the “All 1980s Decade” team.

Upshaw was a pivotal member of the great Raiders teams of the 1970s. Number 63 in silver and black, was voted a seven-time Pro Bowler and five-time All-Pro, and played on two Super Bowl Championship teams.

Many names could have been on this list as well. Honorable mentions are Willie Roaf, who is in the Hall of Fame with 11 Pro Bowls to his credit. Jeff Saturday, Kevin Muwae, and so many more worthy candidates. The list can go on and on.

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This entry was posted on Friday, March 31st, 2023 at 4:45 pm and is filed under Top Lists. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.