If not for right tackle Marcus Gilbert, left guard Ramon Foster would easily be considered the Pittsburgh Steelers most underrated offensive lineman. Additionally, you could probably argue that Foster is perhaps the NFL’s most underrated left guard as the 2017 regular season draws nearer.
On Wednesday, Pro Football Focus made sure to highlight Foster’s strong play last season when it comes to pass protection and named him one of four guards not to allow a sack in 2016 of those that played a minimum of 500 pass plays.
In full disclosure, our very own Alex Kozora has Foster down as allowing two sacks last season and that number is made up of one full and two halves in the Steelers games against the Miami Dolphins, New York Giants and Cleveland Browns. You can look at each of those sack breakdowns via the links below to see how and why he placed the blame where he did.
Regardless of whether or not blame for those two total sacks last season is warranted, it goes without saying that Foster was a solid pass protector last season for the Steelers just as he’s been his entire NFL career. He’s been perhaps the team’s most consistent offensive lineman for the last several seasons in all phases of his game.
It’s probably worth pointing out in this post that Foster is very rarely penalized. In fact, he was flagged just once last season during the regular season and once during the team’s playoff run. In case you’re curious, Foster has been flagged just 26 times since entering the league in 2009 as an undrafted free agent and that includes all playoff games. To put that into some sort of perspective, fellow Steelers guard David DeCastro has been flagged a total of 23 times over the course of the last three seasons and that includes playoff games as well.
