Brandon Manumaleuna Was Worst Pass Blocking Tight End in League

A huge part of last season’s free agent spending spree – after the big bucks doled out to Julius Peppers – was tight end Brandon Manumaleuna.  Mike Martz made no bones about the fact the in his offense the tight end needed to put his hand on the ground and block.  You know, the exact opposite of incumbent starter Greg Olsen.

It was believed the 300 pound Manumaleuna would serve as another tackle to help protect Jay Cutler.  According to the fine folks at Pro Football Focus, Manumaleuna was THE WORST BLOCKING TIGHT END IN THE NFL.  I know that’s fairly obvious, but it’s interesting to see the badness actually quantified.

Hit the jump for their formula for calculating pass blocking efficiency and how Manumale-useless earned his dubious distinction.

First, Pro Football Focus broke down the pass blocking attempts that each tight end had in the 2010 season.  Manu had 194 snaps in pass blocking, second only behind Denver’s Daniel Graham and his 241 chances.  Not a big surprise, given Martz’s offense.  Here’s where it gets interesting.

Rather than me bumbling it up, here’s PFF’s explanation and formula:

"Moving on to the juicy part about giving up pressure, we’ve limited the study to those tight ends who stayed in at least 60 times, leaving us with 37 players. Now, it’s important to remember our Pass Blocking Efficiency formula looks at sacks, hits, and hurries, weighing those hurries and hits as three quarters the worth of a sack (as our grading reflects). So the formula looks like this:((Sacks + (0.75 * Hits) + (0.75 * Hurries)) / Pass Pro Snaps) * 100"

My formula would be much simpler – (quarterback concussions + knee injuries)* detergent used to clean uniforms –  but that’s just me.   The best pass blocking tight end was Seattle’s Chris Baker who scored a 1.09, giving up one QB pressure in the 69 snaps that he played in passing situations.

Manumaleuna scored a league worst 9.92 in pass blocking efficiency.  Check out the full post here to see the Top 15 and Bottom 15.  What really struck me is none of the other guys in the Bottom 15 had nearly as many attempts as Manu, which tells me that coaches for other teams didn’t bother putting such awful pass blocking tight ends out there nearly as much as the Bears.  I hope that with the extended offseason, Mike Martz figures that out.