A report on Vince Manuwai

Earlier we looked at Uche Nwaneri and was surprised to find at right guard his pass blocking improved incredibly well. He went from a bottom of the league guy to knocking on the door of top ten pass blocking guard. He was credited with ONE QB sack in 2009. Given how many time David was on his back, that was impressive. Uche struggles in run blocking but not in pass blocking!  So let’s visit the left side and see how Vince Manuwai is performing.

Since we are talking about pass blocking, let’s take a look at his 2007 – 2009 performance. Well that isn’t fair, he was out all of 2008 with a nasty ACL tear. To those that don’t know, when the leg twists, first your meniscus in the knee rips. This is called “a little cleanup” surgery and they repair the frayed edges. More twisting and your MCL tears. These are the ligaments on the outside of the leg. Deep inside your leg is the ACL and when that tears, you twisted so hard that the interior portion of the leg was affected. An ACL tear is the worst and takes almost two years to recover from. Vince played this year on a repairing ACL. Thank God he is ok.

Pass blocking, sorry I digressed, pass blocking, yeah, I am sorry to report Vince was 68th out of 84 guards in the pass blocking performance of 2009. He was credited with 5 QB sacks. In 2007, he was 35th out of 62 rated guards in pass blocking with 2 QB sacks.  Clearly, Vince Manuwai either missed assignments or can be beat.  When I look at it, I see both, but I see an opportunity for improvement. When you look at the details, 4 of the 5 sacks came after week 13 in the season. Without three bad games late in the year, Vince would have been back in the mid 30’s. I wonder if the leg got to him late?

OK, time to get happy. Let’s talk about run blocking.  Ready? Are you sitting down?  If you look at left guards who took over 1,000 snaps, Vince Manuwai is considered the fourth best run blocking left guard in the NFL. Want to know why the Jaguars ran to the left? Eugene Monroe and Vince Manuwai showed the way. Overall, among all guards in run blocking regardless of snaps, Vince Manuwai was 13th out of 84.  In 2007, Vince was 33 out of 64 in run blocking. Surprisingly he was 35 out of 64 in pass blocking.

Let’s sum up where the Jaguars are at the guard position.  Uche Nwaneri is a dramatically improving pass blocking guard on the right side. He has not shown elite skills at run blocking, but he has shown a good improvement.  Vince Manuwai is a bulldozer of a run blocker on a repairing ACL.  Very few are better. He was better at pass blocking in the past and I expect him to improve this year.  I think some of the issues with sacks and QB hits is the result of assignments and confusion. Vince was just returning this year, Uche moved to the right side, Eben and Eugene were new and Meester was struggling.  The overall season wasn’t good, but some of the individual performances were getting much better. Let’s look at Brad Meester next. Until then, have a great weekend!

– Terry O’Brien