Attyla the Hawk in epic fashion":29kj88lm said:
I went and looked at the sacks from Arizona in the first half, all five of them. Three of them were on Fant, at least partially (or entirely, in the case of the goal-line sack...Fant was supposed to block down and didn't). Two of them, though, were squarely on Wilson - he ran right into them. His scrambling habits make it difficult for his offensive linemen to know how to block - he'll sometimes run right past the edge and get pressured by a DE than Gilliam just had locked down.
Here's the thing:
Some systems and offenses are more reliant on the offensive line than others, and some systems get their QB sacked more than others. Mike Martz was notorious for his high-sack philosophy; he wanted the big play all the time.
Remember that early TD to Greg Olsen in the game after the Beastmode playoff win in 2010? It was a long seam TD and everyone blamed Lawyer Milloy for being too old and slow for the game. What nobody noticed was that the play happened on 3rd and short. This explains Milloy's hesitation; he probably never imagined Martz would go deep on that play, because there are about a hundred higher-percentage plays you can run in that situation. Had Jay Cutler missed Olsen on the throw, Martz indeed would have looked stupid. But Cutler didn't miss.
Pete (I'm not blaming Bevell, he's a sock puppet) does this stuff all the time. That deep sideline catch by Doug Baldwin in overtime in the NFCCG against the Packers? Same thing. Casey Heyward didn't expect Baldwin to go deep on short yardage and he hesitated; Baldwin got right past him. But it's a double-edged sword; that same deep greed lost us several games in '15 because we didn't convert, could have much more easily, and lost. Hell, has everyone forgotten Pete's love of deep fades to Golden Tate as early as 2012? It's always been a thing.
Point is, those deep throws require a lot of protection. You can run a system that requires a lot from your line, and you can run a system that doesn't. Pete can't make up his mind. Until the Tampa game, Wilson was amongst league leaders in getting the ball out quickly. Then, against Tampa, Pete reverted to the big play (with his starting center out, I might add - terrible timing) and Wilson started getting pounded.
I'm not saying the OL isn't to blame; you can't throw 40 times without at least a few deep shots. But Pete and Wilson aren't making life easy on them either. Imagine trying to block for a QB doing his best Ash-from-Alien-with-his-head-half-off impression upon getting pressured. You could almost say Wilson is one of the toughest QBs to block for, and Pete is one of the toughest coaches to protect for.