How Does OL Billy Price Fit the New York Giants Offense?

Nick Falato breaks down the film of offensive lineman Billy Price, acquired in a trade Monday from the Bengals for defensive lineman B.J. Hill.

Author:
Nick Falato
Publish date:
Sep 1, 2021 10:00 AM EDT

Sunday's preseason game failed to inspire hope to the many Giants fans concerned about the offensive line. All three tackles struggled, none more noteworthy than Andrew Thomas.

While I expect the Giants to entertain the tackle position after Tuesday's cuts, we at Giants' Country also speculated that the interior offensive line would be examined for an upgrade, or just more depth, as well.

The Giants found a trade partner in the Cincinnati Bengals. New York shipped a conditional seventh-round pick and B.J. Hill for 2018 first-round interior offensive lineman Billy Price. It's safe to say that Hill is the better overall football player, but Price plays a much less saturated position--offensive linemen are hard to find.

Price was highly touted coming out of Ohio State. He was never known for his athletic ability, but he plays with good leverage, is strong at the point of attack, and provides solid lower leg drive in the run game. He's a better run blocker than a pass protector, but he's not terrible as a pass protector either.

His career has been marred with injury from the get-go. He tore his pectoral muscle at the combine bench press event. He was able to work his way onto the football field by the end of training camp.

However, he broke his foot in week two and missed the next six weeks of play. In 2019, Price suffered and played through plantar fasciitis. He also suffered a back ailment, so he was injured throughout the season yet still played.

He has played in 1,354 career snaps at center and both guard positions. He's surrendered 28 pressures and four sacks on 892 pass-blocking reps through his career. According to Pro Football Focus, he was very poorly graded over the last two seasons as a pass blocker but was around average as a run blocker.

His measurements aren't great. He has 32" arms which put him at the 22nd percentile for IOL. His wingspan is in the 7th percentile, and he has 9 3/4" hands which put him at the 45th percentile. Price couldn't perform in drills at the combine due to his pectoral injury from bench pressing.

A lot of Bengals beat reporters praised Price's 2021 training camp. The arrow was trending upward, and we can hope it continues to ascend. The Giants saw Zach Fulton and Joe Looney retire while also dealing with a possible injury to Shane Lemieux's knee - better depth inside was necessary. Let's take a look at what he may offer the 2021 New York Giants.

Billy Price is No. 53, playing RG and OC in these clips via NFL Game Pass.

Pass protection

Good

More so than run blocking, pass protection has been the big Achilles heel for the Giants' offensive line for quite a while. Price's pass protection has been a bit inconsistent through his career.

Still, it's unknown how his injuries had stunted his development because, as alluded to before, the arrow for Price was pointing up throughout training camp and in the preseason.

Price is playing center on this play against Jeffrey Simmons (98) of the Titans. He has guard help to both sides, which may have prevented Simmons from going all out with his upfield burst to either shoulder.

He still anchors well and readjusts his hands to get underneath Simmons' pads, which is great to see. Watch how he sits on his hips and sinks his pad level beneath Simmons as he finds better hand placement to mitigate the rush.

This is a 4th-and-four situation for the Bengals, and Price is lined up against Simmons again. He does an excellent job absorbing the contact and maintaining a low center of gravity upon receiving Simmons.

Price gets a bit of help from the right guard, but he's able to lock his hands inside, utilize quality grip strength, and turn Simmons away from the pocket, showing a good anchor on this play--something that isn't consistent with his pass blocking.

Price does an excellent job at right guard here against this 3-technique. Watch how he locates the defender's chest with his outside arm. The defender attempts to chop Price violent arm downward.

Still, Price continues to work his feet and mirror the rusher while bringing his inside arm to replace the initial established outside arm. It helps prevent the pass rusher from winning the outside shoulder or employing certain pass rush moves like a swim or rip, as long as Price stays square to the target.

Price then follows the pass rusher and transitions him into a fellow Bengals' blocker. When quarterback Joe Burrow attempts to evade outside, Price is right there to disallow pursuit from his original blocking assignment.

Here's a similar play like the one above; the Chargers pass rusher tries to win outside, and Price makes contact on the mid-line of the defender before replacing that hand with his inside hand as he continues to mirror the rusher. Price maintains a low center of gravity, stays square, and doesn't allow the pass rusher to access either shoulder.

Price executes on a stunt assignment here. He is a bit late in recognizing the original 3-technique, who was tight to the interior defensive linemen, but once Price saw the twist happening, he could flip his hips and get enough of the looper to mitigate his success.

He does a good job planting that inside foot and getting to the outside to locate the looper once that defender had a slight advantage, showing good short-area quickness.

Bad

I have written many Good, Great, and Ugly articles for Giants Country. For Price, the ugly would be his inconsistency as a pass protector and past struggles that have cropped up on his film. Here are some examples of that.

Going up against Fletcher Cox (91) is never an excellent recipe for offensive success--he's a stud. We see Cox win with pure power, rather than speed, in this 3rd & long situation against Price.

Cox reads the punch of Price and gets underneath the extended arms of the interior offensive lineman, putting Price on skates.

Cox gets chest to chest with Price and lifts his center of gravity, which fully extended Price upward, giving him no recourse to sink back on his hips and rely on his adequate anchor. Cox runs through Price's blocking attempt in this challenging situation.

Cox displays a bit more speed and quickness in this play. When Cox was allowed to pin his ears back, it wasn't great for Price. The star defender runs right through Price's initial outside arm contact and then takes advantage of Price's positioning by ripping through his outside shoulder after getting hip to hip.

The swipe/rip combination, along with Cox's natural burst, leaves Price with his back turned running into the pocket.

Price may have expected help from his fellow offensive lineman on this play, but the center diverts his attention away from Price and Cox - this may have been a miscommunication.

Either way, Cox easily uses his hands to disallow Price from acquiring his chest. We see something similar, from a communicative standpoint, in the next play as well.

It seems like Price is slightly out of position as he flows laterally, but it looks like there should have been center help, but he turned his attention away and didn't pay mind to the immediate threat in the A-gap. I don't know the protection call here and if there was a slide or not - this mistake could be on several players - but the result wasn't pretty.

Price struggled with anchoring and the ability to stay in front of blocks. This is caused by a dip and leans into contact; I feel Price drops his head a bit too much in anticipation to absorb. The defender gets right into Price's chest on this play and shoves him backward.

Against stronger competition, Price can get put on skates, especially if he doesn't cleanly land the first contact and dictate the play early. If he allows the defender to keep his chest clean while not staying square and mirroring the player's movements, then Price gets put into disadvantageous situations where he has to be more creative to win.

The defender does a good job acquiring Price's hands when Price goes to block on this play. The punch doesn't land, and there's a slight lean into the block that puts Price into questionable positioning. These simple mistakes are correctable but can't persist on film.

Final Thoughts

The Giants had to upgrade their offensive line situation, and they found a solid option. I loved B.J. Hill's ability to shed and create disruption, but the Giants had to do something about the offensive line, and they could have done worse than Billy Price.

Price is a quality run blocker who isn't overly athletic but does have some upside as a pass protector. He's trending in the correct direction and is still only 26-years-old. If Price can stay healthy, he could be a solid option to help all three interior positions if anything happens to a starter.