Quote
merlin
When a QB dips like Jared did this season we can say the OL was mostly to blame. But I think laying everything at the feet of the OL .
No one did that.
But many times in an analysis of this kind of situation, there are people who will try to act like OL collapse does not mean anything and they don't factor it in.
For example there's this, the thing I disagreed with in your post. When the OL collapses and is unstable or unreliable, you really cannot go play by play and say hey look here there was pressure here there wasn't. There's no such thing. Here's why. The entire offensive dynamic changes and everything is out of sync. That is the qb enters the game and if he's sane he lacks confidence in the OL, which impacts decisions and causes him to press; and the playcalling compensates for the OL mess by restricting the offense; the team in that situation will tend to get behind so the D can more freely tee off since they know the offense has to pass; there are more penalties and 2nd & 3rd and long situations; and so on. So the entire situation is magnified. The disadvantages are multiplied.
Is that "blaming" the OL? I don't like the language of blame, I don't think it's at all analytical. It is the case though that in any fair and balanced analysis you have to say the OL has collapsed or is injured to the point of ineffectiveness or something, whatever is actually the case. AND you have to add that with very rare exceptions, no qb plays as well under those conditions.
Let's say I told you before the season that the Rams OL would have these problems--both OTs have regressed, 2 new starters begin the season struggling, and of course defenses already know how to attack Blythe at guard and either way it;s impossible for one player to look good when the rest of the OL is so out of sync. If I said that, would you predict Goff would excel? Would look okay? Or look worse?
Heck forget Goff. Put virtually any qb in the league in there. Would they excel? Look okay? Or look worse than usual?
When OLs go down to THAT extent the qb goes with it. Is that "blame"? Or description? The exceptions I keep naming who were in that situation before are Brady and Wilson, and it caught up with them, too, in spite of being exceptions.
We are not really analyzing the qb if he is playing under those conditions. What we are analyzing in that case is
the qb under those conditions.And you can also pretty safely predict which ones will bounce back if the OL is re-stabilized and remains relatively healthy.
A quote (for fun) from Firefly, Serenity:
Zoë : If they take the ship, they'll rape us to death, eat our flesh and sew our skins into their clothing. And if we're very, very lucky, they'll do it in that order.....
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/30/2019 09:08PM by zn.
