Graham Barton’s Overlooked Rookie Season
June 8th, 2025
Budding star?
Now this is pretty damn impressive to Joe. Provided it is accurate.
Regular readers know Joe is not down with the PFF tribe’s mindless grades. When NFL folks take these seriously– as one NFL scout told Joe years ago, “They’re cute.” — then Joe will think about taking them seriously.
People who monitor the NFL closely know there are all kinds of dubious issues with these … things. But what “this Joe” likes about the PFF tribe is its stats. There’s a big difference between “grades” and “stats.” The obvious is subjective vs. objective.
The following is an example of enlightening tribal stats.
Last year then-Bucs rookie Graham Barton played in 16 regular season games. That, per Pro Football Reference, was 1,065 snaps.
Per the PFF tribe, Barton was responsible for just one sack all season. One sack in 1,065 snaps. By a rookie starting center?
Joe thinks that is damn impressive. So Barton didn’t get bull-rushed or owned or beaten by some of the best defensive tackles in the game? Dang.
Joe knows it’s hard to compare players on the offensive line just because they have different positions and responsibilities. Joe’s readers may draw their own conclusion to the following.
When Tristan Wirfs was a rookie, playing at right tackle, he allowed one sack.
When Chiefs center Creed Humphrey was a rookie, he only allowed one sack.
When the recently retired Detroit center Frank Ragnow was a rookie in 2018, he gave up four sacks.
So you can see Barton seems to be in pretty good company.
Fun fact: departed Bucs center Robert Hainsey allowed zero sacks in his first year as a starter in 2022, per the PFF Tribe.
June 8th, 2025 at 12:18 am
Even if the Bucs were giving Barton an inordinate amount of help, one is a good number.
It seems like White often worked the inside in pass protection and blitz pickups. But, there is no doubt that White had a lot of releases to the outside.
Particularly with a rookie center, it seems like checking that the center has things under control would be a natural trigger for an outside release. If so, he must have been in good shape a lot for White to get so many passing yards.
June 8th, 2025 at 12:28 am
I don’t know if it’s just misworded or whatever when you say that Graham Barton played in “every“ game for the Buccaneers, let’s not forget he did miss the Saints game. Either way, I think that he showed some incredible upside while still making some mistakes. Hopefully, with good health, the future at center is very bright! Go Bucs!
June 8th, 2025 at 12:29 am
*snap
June 8th, 2025 at 12:32 am
So Tristan didn’t give up any. Barton gave up 1. Does that mean it’s 39 sacks divided by the other 3 or at what point does a sack not count against OL?
June 8th, 2025 at 12:36 am
When Joe talks about how Grizzard could possibly improve the offense and how high of a bar it is, Barton is a good answer. Many of our OL took a year 2 leap and it’s easy to see Barton doing the same.
June 8th, 2025 at 4:01 am
Sask ucs, I’m looking forward to a second year improvement from Graham too.
June 8th, 2025 at 5:37 am
Love Graham. He made some rookie mistakes including the miscue on a snap. He learned from them and has a good attitude about it all to look ahead. Looking forward to his improvement this season. Go Bucs!
June 8th, 2025 at 6:10 am
OK Joe, you got me curious. PFF Tribe lists the Top-32 Centers. Graham was listed as #21 on their list.
They list 32 Tackles. Wirfs was #2 and Goedeke was #29.
They list 32 Guards. Mauch was #22 and Bredeson didn’t make their list.
The way PFF listed some folks is strange to say the least. Centers for example. The Saints Erik McCoy was listed at #4; an early-season groin injury that required surgery restricted McCoy to just 293 snaps last season.
The Packers Elgton Jenkins is listed at #9 for Centers; after playing primarily at guard throughout his NFL career, Jenkins will make the jump to center in 2025. He has logged just 378 snaps at center in his pro career.
Wow. Graham Barton ranked 17 spaes behind a guy who missed almost all of the 2024 season & 12 spaces behind a guy who hasn’t even played Center yet. Gives one a lot of confidence in PFF’s position rankings.
June 8th, 2025 at 7:04 am
Graham will be an All pro in a year or two.
He might be a Senator in a dozen or so years also
June 8th, 2025 at 7:32 am
OR Buc is right. Where did the other 39 sacks come from?
June 8th, 2025 at 7:34 am
DR … Good point. Yep, “cute” alright… and stupid. Like a toddler.
OR Buc … Some of those 39 sacks (more like a lot of them) are missed assignments on blitzes (hard to tell who to blame sometimes), on a RB or TE or due to Baker holding the ball too long… leaving the pocket but not making it to the LOS. Can’t blame the line on that last one.
June 8th, 2025 at 7:35 am
I’ve seen tons of contradictions in PFF’s dartboard ratings. Their research is very accurate by modern scientific standards though. These days modern researchers start with a desired conclusion then work backwards, searching for coincidences that happen to support said conclusion while dismissing any inconvenient facts that get in the way. Then they feed the whole turd into the HAL 2000 supercomputer till it goes insane. Thanx to PFF, Skylab is coming.
June 8th, 2025 at 7:37 am
Good point: where did the other 3p sacs come from?
June 8th, 2025 at 7:40 am
I’m gonna look up and see what all 32 is. And buy a cheap DVR. Any suggestions?
June 8th, 2025 at 7:45 am
I’m pretty sure Ragnow played guard as a rookie but not 100% sure
June 8th, 2025 at 8:11 am
Great pick by JL
June 8th, 2025 at 8:12 am
I was looking some of this over the other day Joe. I think defenses tried to take shots at him early in the year but he was not having it. At least it lookied that way to me.
Good stuff Joe!
Go Bucs!