02-18-2022, 09:51 PM
(02-18-2022, 09:30 PM)KillerGoose Wrote: It's a mix of the offensive line and QB. QBs always share some responsibility for sacks, good or bad. A QB can't be sacked unless unless he is holding the ball is the basic idea behind that.
YEAR SK% Lg. Avg. % Difference
2016 6.7% 5.8% 15%
2017 7.2% 6.4% 12.5%
2018 6.3% 6.42% -2%
2019 7.2% 6.7% 7%
2020 7.6% 5.9% 28%
2021 9.5% 6.2% 53%
Over that time span, the Bengals largely hovered around league average/below average. In Burrow's two years, they have shot to well below average/awful category. Is some of this due to talent? Yeah, of course. Is some of this due to QB? Yes, as well. They go hand-in-hand. Cincinnati needs to put better offensive linemen around Burrow, but there are some things that Burrow can do to clean it up as well.
2020 wasn't as drastic though, and it fell in line with most of our previous years. This year we were much more aggressive as an offense with the addition of Chase, therefore we were probably worrying a lot less about masking line deficiencies.
Burrow definitely causes some of his own sacks as all QBs do. I just haven't seen any compelling evidence that - rather than this being a case of an aggressive offense further exposing an already bad line - that it's more Joe's fault, and we're going to give up 50 sacks regardless, because that's just Joe.
Apologies for the run on sentence.
There's definitely things Joe can do to avoid some of these sacks. I'm just saying that before we go changing Joe, we should have a pretty air tight line without multiple guys grading in the 40s.
To simplify what I'm trying to convey here, let's say 50 of the sacks were on the line and 20 were on Joe/the offense being aggressive. I'd rather get the line to where it's allowing 25 sacks than to ask Joe to tone it down just to cut out 10-15 sacks.
Our offense being so dynamic was a key reason we did so well last year. Get the line fixed and don't change a thing. For now, of course.
The training, nutrition, medicine, fitness, playbooks and rules evolve. The athlete does not.
