Okay, interesting. What is it about the OL role that requires special smarts? What do they have to do that’s more complex than what, say, a defensive lineman has to do?
At that level of play, you have to determine just what the defense is going to do.
Are the linebackers in pass defense or are they going to swarm you and the QB?
It happens really quick in the NFL, much quicker than in college and a meathead offensive tackle in high school ball would never be able to read it in time.
And you pay physically for your failure...
I would guess knowing all the complete playbook almost as well as the QB. What special blocking schemes were in every play.
Run blocking and pass protection, etc. DL have mostly just to read run vs. pass and adjust what they do best.
“What is it about the OL role that requires special smarts?”
complex run-blocking schemes - e.g., if you pay attention to line play, you’ll see numerous schemes where OLs from one side pull to the other; screen pass schemes; trap and delay running plays; play action pass schemes, and pass blocking where they have to pick up different defensive blitzing schemes - and ALL of this has to be on the same page as what the QB has called. DLs mostly have to just figure out run or pass.
OLs are the unsung heroes of football - without them doing their jobs WELL all the time, the offense can never get going. A QB can have all the talent in the world, but if he doesn’t get a couple of seconds to do his thing and instead gets crushed under a mountain of defense men, then it’s all she wrote.
the great book, “The Blind Side”, by Michael Lewis, which is a biography of OL Micheal Orr, opens with a good example of what happens to a QB without a good O-Line.