2023 NFL Breakouts: Second and third-year offensive players ready to explode ft. Desmond Ridder, George Pickens and more

#7, Bernhard Raimann, Indianapolis Colts (OT)

Bernhard Raimann could shine inn the 2023 NFL season

Picking up a football for the first team when he was 14 years old, this Austrian started his athletic career as a wide receiver for his local Vienna Vikings. After coming over to the US as an exchange student for a small high school program, he developed himself into a two-star recruit at tight-end and was offered a scholarship by Central Michigan.

After flying back to his home country for his mandatory six-month military service, he caught ten passes in each of his first two seasons with the Chippewas, before making the transition to left tackle. There, he started the following 18 games and quickly showed major growth, as he earned first-team All-MAC honors in 2021.

Coming in at 6’6”, right around 300 pounds, his arms are on the fringe of the 33-inch mark, but he tested in the 79th percentile or better across the board at the combine. Yet, despite being projected to end up as a potential late first-round pick, he fell all the way to the middle of the third (77th overall) in last year’s draft, due to reportedly not being cleared medically by all teams.

Raimann ended up starting 11 games at left tackle – for a Colts team that had otherwise largely ignored that position – of which he played every single snap in all but one of them and was put on the bench following the first two, before settling in on the blindside.

If you just look at the fact he gave up seven sacks and Indy was a bottom-ten rushing offense, after Jonathan Taylor led the NFL in yardage the year prior, there isn’t a whole lot to hang your hat on. However, adding context to the situation, evaluating where we could see growth and what he already showed as a rookie, I still very much believe in his future as a pro.

What really impressed me about Raimann coming out of Central Michigan for being just a two-year player on the O-line was how consistent he was with his aiming points in the run game. He was able to take the appropriate first steps and latch his hands. That also stands out on his pro tape, where you see him consciously add in gather steps dependent on his man’s alignment and similar subtle adjustment.

He’s a very natural bender, being able to create leverage and unlock his hips, while displaying impressive dexterity to stay engaged with defenders trying to dip underneath his shoulder on running blocks and regularly putting them on the turf in the process. And even if his paws slide off a little bit, he’s still able to maintain that distance he’s created out of his stance and wall off opponents.

Raimann is consistently able to earn that space between his outside foot and the edge defender, widening the B-gap on the front side of zone calls and on other drive blocks of gap schemes. If he’s asked to seal or scoop the backside 4i-/5-technique on wide zone, his leg drive to continue riding bodies and not allow them to actually flatten down the line allows him to get the job against some of the more powerful interior defenders in the NFL (such as Cam Heyward).

That Pittsburgh game was the most impressive one I watched, with just one bad/weird play at the end, where he was charged with a sack, as it looked like he was approaching it like quick-game.

Looking at his PFF grades after the two-week break I referenced, he only went below 65.6 once in nine contests and had a pass-blocking grade above 70 in all but two of those, getting penalized five times and surrendering 20 pressures across 345 pass-blocking snaps. He allowed two or fewer pressures in five of those games and never more than four.

Raimann is light on his feet and maintains solid posture, whilst guiding them around the loop. He quickly covers width in his pass-sets to cut off the angle for wide rushers and force them to find an alternative way to win. There are several reps, where he makes defenders truly run around him, which at that point either the ball is out already or they’ve overrun the initial aiming point anyway.

Even if he does get bent over or is forced to re-anchor, the ankle flexion to get his full cleats into the turf and stop the momentum of power rushers allowed him to avoid his quarterback getting hit, the more experience he was able to gain.

Raimann has the foot quickness to mirror inside counters typically and even as he’s a beat late to come off the spiking end on E-T twists where the interior man loops out to the edge, he’s able to still slide in front of them. He also doesn’t panic or overreact when he needs to pick up slot blitzers and makes them run past the quarterback typically

With that being said, Raimann does need to work on using his hands more proactively to brace against power, as you see rushers take a more direct path and attack his chest quite a bit. Especially if there’s a tight-end outside of him, who doesn’t actually chip that wide edge rusher and now that guy has a runway to build up momentum, whilst Raimannn stays on his typical arc, waiting for the opponent to some degree, that can get him into trouble.

Particularly early on, guys like the Dre’Mont Jones and Baron Browning of the Broncos in his first extended action were able to attack the middle of his chest and put him on skates once contact was initiated, pressing him into recovery mode. How he frames rushers generally is really good considering his limited playing experience – he just allows those guys to dictate terms too much when they initiate the contact.

His arms measuring in an eighth of an inch short of the typical benchmark most NFL teams set does hurt him in that regard and generally, as those lanky guys on the edge are able to out-reach him (limiting his effectiveness to some degree as he’s trying to stay in charge of a rep). In the run game that’s certainly less of a factor, although heavy-handed guys who just strike as they come off the ball can shock him every once in a while.

As someone generally rooting for Raimann as a fellow Austrian, I was excited for his opportunity to get playing time early on already, but then very concerned when I watched his first start at Denver (Week 5), when he was on the ground a lot more than you’d wish to see. However, from that point on, the arrow was clearly pointing up once he was inserted back into the lineup a month later.

Jumping forward to Week 12 against Pittsburgh and I thought he looked like a legit franchise guy, taking care of and guiding around studs like Alex Highsmith, Cam Heyward and others. Even for me, it was a bit surprising that he ultimately finished 17th overall among all starting OTs with an overall PFF grade of 77.1.

With Quenton Nelson next to him and that unit overall potentially bouncing back in a major way, if they can just find a solution at right guard, I expect this to be major strength yet again. And with Shane Steichen coming over to call the shots, I think we could see him end up as one of the top ground attacks in football, with a healthy Jonathan Taylor – who people seemingly have forgotten that he led the NFL in rushing in 2021 – and the most athletic quarterback we’ve ever seen in Florida’s Anthony Richardson.