Week one preview: three rebuilt offensive lines and the quarterbacks who will find out first

The most consequential position changes this season happened where nobody films the highlights. Five teams will start a rookie at left tackle in week one, the most in a decade, and three of them open against a pass rush that finished top five last year.

The mistake in evaluating a young tackle is to look at sacks allowed. Sacks are noisy, heavily dependent on how quickly the quarterback releases, and a bad tackle on a team with a quick-release passer can post respectable numbers for a month.

What to watch instead

Pressure rate and time to pressure tell the story earlier. A line that is losing gives up hurries in 2.3 seconds rather than 2.9, and the offense compensates in ways that are visible from the couch: more play-action rollouts, more chips from the back, more three-step drops.

When you see an offense that ran eleven-personnel two-thirds of the time last year suddenly keeping a tight end in to block on early downs, the coaching staff has already made this evaluation.

You do not fix a rookie tackle with coaching in September. You fix him with a tight end and a running back until December.— A former offensive line coach

The three hardest openers

Of the five, three face defenses that generated pressure on more than 38 percent of dropbacks last season. Two of those three also lost their starting center, which compounds the problem — a rookie tackle can be helped by an experienced center making the protection calls, and cannot be helped by another rookie doing it.

The fourth team has the softest opener on paper and the most difficult schedule after it. The fifth has the reverse.

• Rookie left tackles starting week one: five, the most in a decade
• Three of the five face a defense that pressured on 38%+ of dropbacks last year
• Two of those three also start a new center
• Early tell: time to pressure, not sacks allowed

The broader pattern from previous seasons is reassuring for the teams involved and unhelpful in September. Rookie tackles improve substantially between weeks one and eight in most cases. The games in between still count the same.