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dzrams
Well, first, since we both agreed a week or two ago that this injury depleted line was performing better than the non-injury depleted line, the raw statistics on pressure for injury depleted lines are irrelevant IMO.
Secondly, there is a flaw with your cane needing, crippled man analogy. It assumes that every person needing support as they walk all struggle at the same level and need the same level of support to walk. But maybe you walk slow because you're old, while another man is missing a leg, and a third man is missing both legs.
You may simply need a cane, the second man needs an elaborate cane, and the third man needs a wheelchair. Saying they would all be helped by having a cane would probably be true but doesn't factor in the degree of help each man needs.
We're not going to agree on this. I'm fine with that. You should make your peace with it. I believe we already saw a solid OL in 2018 and Goff was not ok then. Last year's line was certainly not injury depleted and it also wan't subpar per your definition the other day since it was not consistently bad and merely just got beat the five times it faced teams with physical fronts. The OL was not broken for most of 2018 and he still did horrible under pressure.
So no, decent is not enough. In this under pressure context, Goff is the third man missing both legs who needs a wheelchair. We're wasting our time shopping for a flimsy cane at Walmart.
On the ZBS, I never said you need a mobile QB for the running game to work. Pay attention. When you look at both of my posts, I've said that there is a problem when the QB is not mobile and he's limited in his ability to process things quickly and accurately and thereby perform well under pressure. Every example you've brought up so far had either a mobile QB or a very elite QB like Brees or Manning who both were very adept at performing under pressure. My point wasn't about the running game working. It was about the QB working when the OL is overwhelmed by physical fronts.
You have so much going off track there! I have agreed with you on a lot of things and always respect your posts, but you are being so categorical. Actually you start this discussion as if you agreed with DP but in fact DP's argument is not the same as yours.
#1, an OL with 3 inexperienced OL replacements can do well against teams that cannot pressure at a high rate. I said emphatically and often that you can EXPECT a line like that to stumble.No one who thinks even modestly hard about OL play would ever just shrug off the Rams OL situation (who beats strong defensive fronts with 3 inexperienced mid-season injury replacements on the OL?)
And on this I agree completely with DP:
So what that tells every DC is that to slow down and beat the Rams offense all you have to do is press the middle of the OL. Clog it, push the pocket back, really anything because thats where Gurley is running and thats where Goff will be passing from. It also really nullifies the playaction since you are clogging it as you push the pocket.....Now obviously not every team can press like Dallas did today or the 9ers or the Ravens, but its a big enough issue that something is going to have to be changed.
To me, the fact that that injury replacement OL did well in some games (against teams that are not top 10 in defensive pressure percentage) is a testimony to the players (or at least some of them) and the coaching. On paper it should never have done that well. As it stands in 2019 the Rams are 2-4 against teams that are top 11 in pressure percentag. Those teams being, Pitt SF N.O. Chi Balt & Dallas.
And so yes absolutely if your stats are not factoring in OL issues, then, I have a big problem with them. They're not situational or context bound and so you just end up with abstractions. For me it's always numbers + context.
And no just don't accept the logic that says because Goff struggles under pressure he needs an absolutely elite OL. And your data doesn't lead to that anyway. You have never once looked to see how Goff does when the OL situation is average or just solid---that is when the pressure is above optimal but below heavy. You have only 2 raw abstract criteria---really bad, or elite. To me that just leads to these categorical extremes.
BTW they did not have a solid OL in 2018--it got exposed against teams that could attack it. We know which games. They attacked Sullivan and Blythe at OG and Hav is not going to hold up under those conditions
And btw I don't know what you are asking to me to just make peace with---I think your arguments on this issue are too categorical. The arguments I have problems with are:
* not factoring in the OL situation...something I have seen in vexed discussions going back to 2007 when the Rams OL fell completely apart at an historic level, and yet there were Rams fans then too who had no idea how to factor that in (there was a lot of lame "all teams have injuries" stuff).
* the idea that because someone struggles under heavy pressure, that means they need an elite line. To me that just doesn't compute. And given how you approach things, you have no way to sort that out--you never look to see what happens with just solid or decent OL play.
The ZBS comment was way too categorical too. Lots of different teams with lots of different qbs have played well all the way around on offense using the ZBS--there's far too many of them to make such categorical and abstract claims. There are far too many ZBS teams in NFL history to make any kind of simple generalization like that.
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/16/2019 06:58AM by zn.
