The NFL’s ‘Queen’s Gambit’ who helped create $1.5bn worth of talent

When you think of the NFL’s biggest names, not many are players in the offensive line.

It’s an unfashionable position, yet these players hold one of the most important roles in the team and are often unsung heroes in Super Bowl-winning sides.

Duane Manyweather has made a name for himself as a ‘super coach’ for the position, having nurtured stars who have gone on to make career earnings north of $1.5bn (£1.1bn).

Those players include New England Patriots offensive tackle Will Campbell, picked fourth in the NFL Draft in April and now set to make his Super Bowl debut next week.

What makes Manyweather’s coaching so successful? Well he compares his thought process to Anya Taylor-Joy’s character in the Netflix hit The Queen’s Gambit. She is cast as a talented female chess player, who could envision future moves on the board in real time.

Manyweather, better known as Duke, is the world’s leading independent offensive line coach and has worked with some of the top O-line players in the NFL.

The 39-year-old set up his own company in January 2018 with the sole intention of elevating the standard of offensive line players at all levels of the sport.

But he also works with a small group of personally selected talents from US colleges in preparation for each year’s draft, when the 32 NFL teams select the best young players in the country.

The fact that the Patriots took Campbell with the fourth pick this year, and that eight offensive linemen were taken in the 32-pick first round, shows the value NFL teams put on the position.

Describing how he knew he had a talent for coaching the position, Manyweather said: “The way my brain started to process the game, I knew it was different from the start because I would see things on TV and on the film that other people did not.”

As a player, Manyweather played Division Two college football for Humboldt State University in California, but it is his career as a coach that has made him a name.

“Since 2018, we have had 75 players drafted,” Manyweather explains.

“We’ve had 15 first-round picks. We’ve had 45 top-100 picks in the NFL draft and then we’ve had another 14 undrafted free agents make rosters. That’s just since 2018. So pretty great success rate for guys that enter my college programme.

“I take normally only 14 to 15 guys a year, so it’s a pretty strong hit rate in that regard.

The offensive line is usually made up of a centre, two guards and two tackles, and their job is to block the opposition’s defensive players, and to protect their own quarterback.

Effectively, they are the difference between a quarterback making a pass or getting tackled.

What sets Manyweather apart from the rest is his unique combination of playing as an offensive lineman in college himself, as well as his degree in history and kinesiology.

He quickly realised that he had a knack for spotting where players were going wrong, both technically and physically.

Returning to his chess analogy, he says: “I think a lot of times it would frustrate my coaches because I was seeing things in like 4D.

“I wasn’t the biggest guy, but I was strong. I wasn’t the most athletic guy, but I moved with confidence. I knew exactly where I was going, what the angles I needed to be. I knew what everybody was supposed to do on the field.”

Manyweather’s passion for both American football and the offensive line position led to him setting up his business alongside Philadelphia Eagles tackle Lane Johnson.

He now holds yearly summits in Frisco, Texas, which are attended by the sport’s best players and coaches, as well as general managers and other non-playing staff.

Manyweather has now reduced his OL Masterminds summit capacity to 200 in order to make it more personal, and he even brought it to the UK in October to help grow the sport across Europe.

The long-term plan is to make it a regular European tour, owing to the sport’s growth in the continent.

“We’re seeing year on year kids coming in younger but bigger, more physical, more athletic,” says Andrew Watts, tackle for Great Britain Lions’ men’s team, who attended the camp in Nottingham.

“It used to be the days that if you were a big kid in your year group you’d go and play rugby. Well, now they’ve got alternative sports that they can do as well.

“They’ve got an opportunity to come and play American football. We’re seeing kids that are looking up to the NFL and seeing the American college system and that being their target.”

With players and coaches in one of the sport’s undervalued positions together for two days, the possibilities from Manyweather’s camp both in and out of the classroom are wide-ranging.

“There’s professional leagues in Europe, but it’s still an amateur sport in the UK,” adds Great Britain’s under-17s head coach Mike Davies, who also works as the offensive co-ordinator for Coventry Phoenix.

“It may be that some of the contacts that are made here lead to coaching opportunities overseas or playing opportunities overseas as well. The networking aspect of this is huge.”

As well as his yearly summits and coaching with NFL veterans including Lane Johnson, Creed Humphrey and 2025 first-round draft pick Tyler Booker, Manyweather will hope to make his summits in the UK a regular event rather than a one-off.

“It really puts into perspective the work that you’re doing and that teams value it,” he says.