All-Twenty Tuesday: OL Caleb Benenoch

This week’s All-Twenty Tuesday section is on Tampa Bay offensive lineman Caleb Benenoch.

Benenoch was drafted in the fifth round of the 2016 NFL Draft by the Buccaneers out of UCLA. Over the last two seasons he’s been a utility offensive lineman for the Bucs. Head coach Dirk Koetter says that until you have a starting position along the offensive line, you have to be able to play any of the five spots at any give time or you aren’t versatile enough to be a backup taking up a roster spot. Benenoch played mostly right tackle at UCLA, but during his final season as a Bruin he did get some starts at guard, too, so the versatility in Tampa was not a surprise for him. Though he started the final five games of the 2017 season for the Buccaneers at right tackle when Demar Dotson was place on IR, Benenoch is poised to take over the right guard position left vacant by the release of J.R. Sweezy.

Let’s take a look at how Benenoch performed in his five starts last year, albeit at tackle, and see if we can find some hints to predict how he may do at right guard.

We’ll start out with some areas he needs to improve on to be a reliable starter and then work into some traits that can make him successful in 2018.

Let’s start with the area in which I saw Benenoch struggle the most and that is with hand battles.

Hand placement, technique, strength and confidence are vital for a successful tackle. Opposing edge players they go up against are there to use space as their advantage, and when you cut that off you’re supposed to have an easier time getting into them and slowing them down as they attempt to collapse the pocket from the outside. But, Benenoch really struggled to not only predict and plan for certain hand attacks by more experienced edge rushers, but also failed to recover at all when he got beat by it.

Benenoch was too often caught reaching or just failing to get any strength out of his extended arms when engaging with edge defenders. This also made him appear to be off balance (something we’ll get to shortly).

Some of this comes with experience, but other parts do come with better technique and just execution of where you need to not only locate your hands when being aggressive, but also when to allow them to be more reserved and recover. That’s something he can work on with film study and more time on the field.

New Orleans defensive end Cam Jordan gave Benenoch the toughest match up he faced as a starter in that final game of the season versus the Saints.

Jordan just seemed to know exactly what Benenoch was looking to do each play and was able to counter it with great hand usage. Jordan is one of the better defensive ends in the league, so this was to be expected going against a first-year starter, but this is worth point in out as something Benenoch needs to improve on.

Benenoch’s hands even seemed fast in the clip above and yet Jordan was ready for it. Some of that is just a tip of the cap to a good pass rusher having a plan on a play — being patient and making the right move – but Benenoch definitely needs patience as well when it comes to where he places his hands, how aggressive to be and making sure he’s in a good position to counter a good pass rusher. That will come with studying the game and getting experience.

As he moves to guard, that kind of hand fighting isn’t exactly the same since those are edge rushers trying to get bend around a pocket, but if you lose hand battles too quickly in the middle you’re going to get your quarterback in a world of hurt.

Even with the position change, that is an area he needs to improve on for 2018 – less whiffing of the hands.

I do have a slight reservation about Benenoch’s balance.

When he gets down and gets good leverage, he can really bulldoze people (we’ll show that in a second), but when the slightest of uncertainty happens, he has a difficult time recovering and sometimes goes to the ground easier than I would hope for a man his size.

Unfortunately some of this is just the way he’s built. He has a more narrow lower body from his waist to his feet. It’s not terribly noticeable, but there’s a reason why scouts love offensive linemen with “tree trunk” lower bodies all the way down, and that’s because they hold the power to not only anchor but also recover when taking on pass rushers. Benenoch is athletic and quick on his feet for his size, but where that is a plus, he does give up some power due to how his body is built.

He is pretty flexible, though, so he is able to get a pretty wide base with his feet far apart and his butt down in his stance. That helps him make up for some narrowness in his lower half. But I still wanted to point that out.

Now let’s get to some positives, specifically where we can see Benenoch playing well at a guard position.

Benenoch likes to be the aggressor when initiating contact in the trenches. You definitely like that, especially on the interior. Sometimes that kind of mentality can get you in trouble when you’re playing tackle, as we’ve see from more experienced pass rushers using his impatience to their advantage, but on the inside that’s a good trait to have.

The play above is something you could see a lot of from Benenoch in 2018 as a right guard.

Playing guard involves a lot of “close quarters combat,” if you will. It’s more about double teams, chemistry and anchoring than it is about one-on-ones and quick feet like it is for tackles. That’s why I think playing guard will play into Benenoch’s skill set best, as of right now.

In the play above, you saw everything you’d want to see from a guard, even though Benenoch was playing right tackle. There was the immediate step left, the chemistry to seal up the double team, the recognition to find someone at the second level and the total finish block by bringing the defender down to the ground. Those are some great offensive guard characteristics on display right there.

Some people might think this is silly, but I really do think Benenoch has the mentality of a guard.

In the play above you saw exactly what you would see from Benenoch if he were playing as a guard and you saw him do it well. You saw the constant swiveling of the head to look for help, and when he found it he made sure to end any threat quickly. Now, was that a key moment in the play? No, of course not. That guy was already being double teamed. But, Benenoch came in there and finished the job so they could move on to the next one. That’s very much what a guard has to think. It’s about looking for work and finishing that work.

Goal line plays are good examples of what tackles can do as guards because they’re often asked to do a lot of those “close quarters” types of responsibilities.

In the play above, we saw just what Benenoch can do when you ask him to push in small spaces. When he can get his leverage right, which he can with a big base, he can really move some men around. If there’s one thing you have to be as a dominant guard in the NFL it’s imposing on any given play. I think Benenoch’s natural mentality allows him to do that.

To wrap things up, I think Benenoch’s five starts in 2017 showed promise. There are certainly things he needs to work on with anticipation of pass rushers, but he won’t have to face a lot of that in the same way if he’s playing on the inside. His skill set seems much more suited to play guard, as of right now, so I think the transition into a full time role at right guard should be a welcomed one.

It will be Benenoch versus rookie offensive guard Alex Cappa for that right guard spot, and that should be one of the better battles in training camp this year.