https://www.sportico.com/leagues/football/2025/nfl-offensive-linemen-protector-award-highest-paid-1234870769/
Only one football position group plays with its back to the ball. Only one group of players has a critical role on every offensive snap, yet never shows up in the box score, much less fantasy competitions. Only one group embraces the sobriquet “hogs.”
But, former all-pro left tackle Andrew Whitworth says, what makes the offensive line unique is also what makes football football.
“Their real, sole job is to stand in the way or pave the lane for other people to be successful, and [their performance is] really never about them having success,” he said in a recent call with reporters. “We have this added element of service and dedication for other people to succeed that separates our sport.”
And the big guys up front are increasingly being recognized for their efforts. The average salary for the top 10 tackles has grown 75% since 2019, a similar rate to the quarterbacks they protect (78%) and nearly double the raise rate that running backs have received. They’re getting more public attention too. It hasn’t hurt that Taylor Swift’s future brother-in-law, Jason Kelce, made his bones as a center.
Plus, for the first time this year, linemen will be able to pick up a piece of personal hardware. “I hope we continue to find other ways to show just how important those guys are to the game,” Whitworth said.
A select few people-movers have been behind the O-line’s public push.
Chiefs, Eagles Lead in Lineman Salaries
Last year’s Super Bowl contestants don’t need to be told how valuable linemen are. The Eagles have a league-high $94.7 million devoted to the offensive line in average annual contract value, according to Spotrac. The Chiefs are second with $86.2 million.
Kansas City made right guard Trey Smith the highest paid player at his position with a $70 million guaranteed deal this offseason, one year after making Creed Humphrey the highest-paid center with $50 million guaranteed. In between, the team spent its 2025 first-round pick on Ohio State tackle Josh Simmons.
If you compare 2007-11 to 2021-25, the number of OL taken in the first three rounds on average has risen by more than a third to 20.4.
Los Angeles Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh has justified the extra investment by pointing out that linemen are the only group that does not depend on others for success, yet all others rely on the line. But if that kind of mysticism doesn’t sway you, there are now real stats to look at too.
The best linemen—analyst Brandon Thorn ranks his top 15 at each spot in his line-focused blog, Trench Warfare—can go years without giving up a sack, keeping their pressures per dropback rate low while performing with a high island rate, meaning they rarely need assistance.
This year, Amazon is also employing artificial intelligence to evaluate line play, with a new “Pocket Health” measure coming to its analytics-focused Prime Vision feed for games that air on the streamer.
“This Pocket Health feature has opportunities to evolve and get down to the individual player level to really know who’s keeping quarterbacks safe,” Thursday Night Football analytics expert Sam Schwartzstein said in an interview.
An Award of Their Own
At Roger Goodell’s Super Bowl party in New Orleans this February, two of the biggest people in the room approached the NFL commissioner. For three years, Bills tackle Dion Dawkins had been arguing for an award to recognize the best linemen, and now he saw an opportunity to get over the goal line. Flanked by Hall of Famer Orlando Pace, Dawkins told Goodell, “We don’t have anything that can show we’re the best offensive lineman during our time for a season,” the Bills tackle later recalled. “We need that award.”
More conversations followed Super Bowl LIX.
“We were in meetings, over and over and over and over and over—meetings, meetings, meetings, meetings, Zoom, Zoom, Zoom, Zoom, Zooms,” Dawkins said in a phone interview. Whitworth and Kelce put their own arguments in front of the commish. Eventually, NFL EVP of football operations Troy Vincent texted Dawkins. It was happening. The league announced the new honor in May.
“It’s for the kids,” Dawkins said. “Some of these kids need a bigger person to look up to, to have hope. Everything can’t be about the skinnies.”
A panel of six ex-pros, Kelce and Whitworth among them, will help determine the first winner this winter.
“It’s going to be so freaking awesome for our game,” Whitworth said, “When, at NFL Honors, there’s a guy who’s done nothing but stand in the way or pave a lane for everybody else to be successful, and he’s going to get his moment to stand on that stage, get a trophy and just feel the love and attention that every other athlete that wins an MVP—that wins a Player of the Year Award, or any of those type things—gets to experience.”
Whoever wins, the honor is likely to accelerate the respect increasingly being paid to the league’s best.
Making a Statement
Dawkins’ push for an award dates to his pre-draft meetings with marketing experts. One told him “that I was unmarketable because I was an O-lineman,” he recalled this May. “I took that as a shot. Unmarketable? All right.”
But big brands have increasingly found value in working with big guys, according to B2 Enterprises CEO and founder Brian Bradtke, who handles marketing deals for Humphrey and Eagles right tackle Lane Johnson.
“Five years ago was probably the tipping point of where we got some traction,” he said. Smaller deals let the pair show their personalities and relatability, leading to larger companies coming on board.
Humphrey was one of five ambassadors for Sleep Number last year and one of four Chiefs selected for a Doritos commercial, alongside Chris Jones, Patrick Mahomes and Xavier Worthy. Johnson recently teamed with USAA.
Still, Dawkins said linemen have a ways to go. “There is no offensive lineman to have a Pepsi deal,” Dawkins said. “We need that stuff for us to stay relevant, year in and year out.” He tracks how often his peers pop up on the NFL’s Instagram page. It’s still only “every once in a while.”
Johnson has also been behind a yearly gathering of the world’s best blockers—dubbed OL Masterminds—since 2018, in part a response to Von Miller’s Sack Summit. The gathering has grown from 27 players to more than 200 past and present linemen, ranging from high schoolers to retired legends, who gathered at Dallas area entertainment venue Cosm this summer. Cosm CEO Jeb Terry himself was a hog for Tampa Bay and San Francisco. The venue’s massive screens were used for tape study as the peers discussed how they handle some of the NFL’s fiercest rushers.
“We’re getting in a room, we’re gonna f—ing eat, we’re gonna talk s–t, and we’re gonna watch film,” as co-founder Duke Manyweather described the agenda this summer.
But off-field development came up too. Multiple attendees had videographers capturing content of them, Bradtke said. Sponsors delivered gear—and yes, food too. Big and tall clothing brand One Bone brought shirts for participants. On Sunday, the company outfitted Humphrey and Johnson for their tunnel walks before a marquee Super Bowl rematch.
You might not see many offensive linemen joining the receivers and quarterbacks who have become fashion week staples. But that doesn’t mean the protectors aren’t increasingly en vogue.
https://www.sportico.com/leagues/football/2025/nfl-offensive-linemen-protector-award-highest-paid-1234870769/
