[msqueri]

It’s all in the lines. And the lines suck.

Poor protection on offense. Hardly a pass rush on defense. They have a chance against teams that have a similar pass rush because of the Stanford receivers.

Perhaps Bailey will get a sack or two along the way but the DL and for Sam’s sake the other edge guys have no push. Anderson hardly ever blitzes his ILB’s (or just LB’s for Sam). Was Penix even touched?

And it’s going to be even worse in 2023.

I do not think the offensive line sucks. The Washington game came against great edge defenders (ZTF the sack champion of the Pac-12 before his injury, Trice and Martin two of the conference's emerging stars this season, Smalls a former 5-star recruit) and a pass defense PFF has judged to be #12 in America so far, and they got to play against a Stanford team missing both starting tackles for a chunk of the game and having neither starting tackle healthy all game (Hinton out, Rouse hobbled for the half of the game he played). Very rash if anybody is concluding the quality of Stanford's offensive line based on one game against the best pass rush we face all season (nobody else even top 20 on PFF and UCLA and Notre Dame the only ones even top 40) without our tackles.

For what it's worth, PFF currently has Stanford as #80 in pass blocking and #21 in run blocking. That does not suck. If one figures that Rouse + Hinton > Miller + McLaughlin (which is clearly the case, let's see what health has in store for us) and that things get easier in terms of opponents (PFF has Oregon as the #120 pass rush), it's easy to see OL play getting better. I continue to think this is a relatively good OL by Stanford's recent standards and has a chance to be our best in seven years.

Don't get me wrong, the TEAM sucks. But offensive line is quite possibly the best thing about the entire team. A conservative take is it's a top three unit on the team (along with QB and WR), though OL has certainly played better for us this season than WR has.

Nothing to quibble with on your take on our defense's pass rush. It's bleak. I have no faith in Lance Anderson-led defenses, now or going forward.

Agree with you next season looks even worse than this season. I'd have to be very surprised by key players deciding to return who I think are gonzo and/or significant coaching staff changes to think there's a prayer 2023 won't be one of the worst Power Five teams in America. Again.

So which is it: McKee's inability to elude the rush or an O-line that can't protect him? How long before this guy sustains a serious injury? And if the D-line  were a town it would be declared a disaster area.

Fundamentally I think sacks are more of a QB stat than fans appreciate. Most fans think of it as 100 percent an OL stat and I think responsibility is much more evenly divided than that. In McKee's case, I think he bears a lot of the responsibility for the sacks he's suffered throughout his career. His pocket presence is awful. He's supposed to be able to step up/around the pocket as he feels the rush but he runs into sacks more often than he evades them. For what it's worth, one of the components of Total QBR is "expected points added on sacks with low leverage plays down-weighted," which is to say avoiding sacks. This year McKee ranks 109th of 126 QBs in that stat. Last year he was 83rd of 123. By comparison, Mills in 2020 was 44th of 124, Mills in 2019 was 9th of 121, Costello in 2018 was 97th of 127, nobody qualified for Total QBR in 2017 or 2016, Hogan was 77th of 128 in 2015, Hogan was 73rd of 129 in 2014, Hogan was 46th of 128 in 2013, Nunes was 11th of 119 in 2012 (an important thing he did right to give us a chance!), Luck was 39th of 122 in 2011, Luck was 13th of 117 in 2010, Luck was 4th of 118 in 2009, Pritchard was 45th of 112 in 2008, Pritchard was 91st of 118 in 2007, nobody qualified for Total QBR in 2006, Edwards was 101st of 115 in 2005, and Edwards was 81st of 112 in 2004.

There may be ways in which this stat struggles to separate OL play from QB play, I don't know, but I think we have ample statistical and eyeball evidence that McKee is horrible in the pocket. I'm a big fan of literally everything else he does, but this is a big problem and needs to be accounted for when people are assessing the offensive line. For what it's worth, PFF grades Nugent and Rouse as good pass blockers, Hinton and Hornibrook as mediocre pass blockers, Rogers as a sub-par pass blocker, and Miller as a liability pass blocker. In his emergency action against Washington McLaughlin was off the charts disastrous. Given Rogers (playing because of Bragg retirement), Miller (playing tackle because Hinton injury), and McLaughlin (forced in to action when Rouse got hurt) being the weak links, it seems rash to write off the OL. If Rogers improves and/or Hinton comes back, Saturday will not have been representative. And again, it came against the best pass rush we face all season.

[msqueri]

It’s all in the lines. And the lines suck.

Poor protection on offense. Hardly a pass rush on defense. They have a chance against teams that have a similar pass rush because of the Stanford receivers.

Perhaps Bailey will get a sack or two along the way but the DL and for Sam’s sake the other edge guys have no push. Anderson hardly ever blitzes his ILB’s (or just LB’s for Sam). Was Penix even touched?

And it’s going to be even worse in 2023.

I do not think the offensive line sucks. The Washington game came against great edge defenders (ZTF the sack champion of the Pac-12 before his injury, Trice and Martin two of the conference's emerging stars this season, Smalls a former 5-star recruit) and a pass defense PFF has judged to be #12 in America so far, and they got to play against a Stanford team missing both starting tackles for a chunk of the game and having neither starting tackle healthy all game (Hinton out, Rouse hobbled for the half of the game he played). Very rash if anybody is concluding the quality of Stanford's offensive line based on one game against the best pass rush we face all season (nobody else even top 20 on PFF and UCLA and Notre Dame the only ones even top 40) without our tackles.

For what it's worth, PFF currently has Stanford as #80 in pass blocking and #21 in run blocking. That does not suck. If one figures that Rouse + Hinton > Miller + McLaughlin (which is clearly the case, let's see what health has in store for us) and that things get easier in terms of opponents (PFF has Oregon as the #120 pass rush), it's easy to see OL play getting better. I continue to think this is a relatively good OL by Stanford's recent standards and has a chance to be our best in seven years.

Don't get me wrong, the TEAM sucks. But offensive line is quite possibly the best thing about the entire team. A conservative take is it's a top three unit on the team (along with QB and WR), though OL has certainly played better for us this season than WR has.

Nothing to quibble with on your take on our defense's pass rush. It's bleak. I have no faith in Lance Anderson-led defenses, now or going forward.

Agree with you next season looks even worse than this season. I'd have to be very surprised by key players deciding to return who I think are gonzo and/or significant coaching staff changes to think there's a prayer 2023 won't be one of the worst Power Five teams in America. Again.

So which is it: McKee's inability to elude the rush or an O-line that can't protect him? How long before this guy sustains a serious injury? And if the D-line  were a town it would be declared a disaster area.

Fundamentally I think sacks are more of a QB stat than fans appreciate. Most fans think of it as 100 percent an OL stat and I think responsibility is much more evenly divided than that. In McKee's case, I think he bears a lot of the responsibility for the sacks he's suffered throughout his career. His pocket presence is awful. He's supposed to be able to step up/around the pocket as he feels the rush but he runs into sacks more often than he evades them. For what it's worth, one of the components of Total QBR is "expected points added on sacks with low leverage plays down-weighted," which is to say avoiding sacks. This year McKee ranks 109th of 126 QBs in that stat. Last year he was 83rd of 123. By comparison, Mills in 2020 was 44th of 124, Mills in 2019 was 9th of 121, Costello in 2018 was 97th of 127, nobody qualified for Total QBR in 2017 or 2016, Hogan was 77th of 128 in 2015, Hogan was 73rd of 129 in 2014, Hogan was 46th of 128 in 2013, Nunes was 11th of 119 in 2012 (an important thing he did right to give us a chance!), Luck was 39th of 122 in 2011, Luck was 13th of 117 in 2010, Luck was 4th of 118 in 2009, Pritchard was 45th of 112 in 2008, Pritchard was 91st of 118 in 2007, nobody qualified for Total QBR in 2006, Edwards was 101st of 115 in 2005, and Edwards was 81st of 112 in 2004.

There may be ways in which this stat struggles to separate OL play from QB play, I don't know, but I think we have ample statistical and eyeball evidence that McKee is horrible in the pocket. I'm a big fan of literally everything else he does, but this is a big problem and needs to be accounted for when people are assessing the offensive line. For what it's worth, PFF grades Nugent and Rouse as good pass blockers, Hinton and Hornibrook as mediocre pass blockers, Rogers as a sub-par pass blocker, and Miller as a liability pass blocker. In his emergency action against Washington McLaughlin was off the charts disastrous. Given Rogers (playing because of Bragg retirement), Miller (playing tackle because Hinton injury), and McLaughlin (forced in to action when Rouse got hurt) being the weak links, it seems rash to write off the OL. If Rogers improves and/or Hinton comes back, Saturday will not have been representative. And again, it came against the best pass rush we face all season.