NFL Draft Profile: OL Peter Skoronski
Taking a closer look at Northwestern offensive lineman Peter Skoronski
Free agency is just around the corner, but with the Washington Commanders ownership situation in limbo, I’m not sure we should expect them to be incredibly active when the market opens next week. So instead, I figured I’d get started looking at some draft prospects and pivot back to free agency if and when the Commanders sign someone.
The two positions the Commanders are most often linked to in mock drafts are offensive line and cornerback. I think offensive line, as things stand, is currently a bigger need than cornerback, so I’m gonna start by looking at some offensive line prospects. One of the consensus top offensive lineman in this draft class is Northwestern’s Peter Skoronski. He measured in at the combine at 6-foot-4, 313 pounds and put in some pretty solid athletic testing numbers there too.
His athletic ability stands out when watching Skoronski. He’s pretty fluid and smooth when he moves, which is most evident when watching him in the run game.
Here are two examples of the exact same play call where Skoronski is asked to work up from his starting spot at left tackle and block a linebacker on the second level. There are plenty of lineman that struggle to work up to the second level and get their hands on defenders, but not Skoronski. In both plays he smoothly works up to the linebacker and lands a strong punch to shove him inside. Both times his efforts are critical to the success of the play, opening up a huge lane for the running back to run through.
It might appear easy on the face of it, but it’s really not that common for offensive lineman to be able to move fluidly up to the second level, stay in control and manage to get such a strong and impactful punch on a defender. Some guys just aren’t athletic enough to get up to the linebacker and reach him in the first place, while others can get up to the linebacker but then fail to make the block in space because the linebacker is a smaller, more agile target with room to work with. So the fact Skoronski has the athleticism to not only get up to the second level, but make effective blocks in space is a big plus for him.
It’s such a plus, in fact, that Northwestern often used that athletic ability to help out other offensive lineman.
This time we have two examples of a zone blocking scheme to the right. Typically in a zone blocking scheme, all the lineman step in the same direction and look to pick up blocks in their play side gap or climb to the second level if uncovered. In that scenario, Skoronski would be responsible for the defensive tackle lined up just slightly shaded over the outside shoulder of the left guard, while the guard would climb and try to reach the linebacker. However, thanks to Skoronski’s athletic ability, Northwestern makes a slight adjustment to the scheme. Instead of having the guard work up to the second level, he blocks down on the defensive tackle, pinning him on the back side of the play. Meanwhile, Skoronski pulls from his left tackle spot and wraps around the left guard before working up to block the linebacker.
These two plays again show just how well Skoronski can move and still pick up blocks. In the first play of the clip, he picks up the linebacker in time to seal him off inside as the back follows him to the right side. Skoronski also shows a nasty streak in him by finishing the block to the ground. In the second play of the clip, the linebacker starts with slightly better leverage and hits the hole a bit faster. This prevents Skoronski from sealing him off at the point of contact. However, Skoronski is still able to pick up the block and give the runner a lane to work with. The linebacker does eventually manage to peel off Skoronski’s block and make the tackle, but by that point the runner had already picked up five yards.
His ability to move and block in space shouldn’t be understated. As we’ve seen, it can be a huge asset for zone blocking teams, but it can also be incredibly valuable to gap scheme teams too.
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