Blame it on the O-Line? Not so Fast

Andrew Walter is more to blame for the Oakland Raiders high sack totals than their offensive line. Here are some numbers that back up my outrageous claim. Let's compare him to Matt Leinart. Why Leinart? Well, for one thing both QBs played for coaches who were bad enough to get fired, both QBs started for the first time this year, they played in the same amount of games and were under the same amount of pressure. Also the Raiders passed on Leinart and before they pass on another potential franchise QB they should compare one to the guy they have.

category   G  Cmp  Att  Pct   Yds   Yds/Att  TD  Int  Sck  Rtg
Leinart   12  214  377  56.8  2547   6.8     11  12   21   74.0
Walter    12  147  276  53.3  1677   6.1      3  13   46   55.8

Fairly similar right? Leinart had more attempts and yards and actually got in the endzone. And look at those sacks, must be the line right? Not so fast...

Leinart
category   G  Cmp  Att  Pct   Yds  Yds/Att  TD  Int  Sck   Rtg
Blitz     10  61   112  54.5  819    7.3     4   2     8   82.4
Pressure  12  36    91  39.6  400    4.4     0   3    20   39.6

Walter
category   G  Cmp  Att  Pct   Yds  Yds/Att  TD  Int  Sck   Rtg
Blitz     11  54   107  50.5  698    6.5     1   5    17   55.0
Pressure  12  20    55  36.4  229    4.2     0   0    46   49.7

Very interesting, despite all the complaints about our line, Leinart was under pressure just about the same in the same amount of games, 12. Leinart made 91 pass attemps under pressure,and got sacked 20 times. Walter went down 46 times against 55 pass attempts under pressure. That speaks to an in ability to either pull the trigger or throw it away. Let's look at those numbers closely, Leinart tried 120 passes when the defense blitzed, Walter 124. Just about the same, these numbers would suggest that 101 times the blitz either got pressure to Walter (55 attempts under pressure), or out right sacked him (46 sacks total). Leinart's OL allowed pressure to reach him 111 times, he was able to get 91 passes off while just getting sacked 20 times. This suggests that Arizona's line is as bad or worse than ours as far as letting their QB get pressured, but Leinart doesn't get sacked nearly as much. And dropped passes? Leinart had 16 passes dropped, Walter 15, albeit in less attempts. However Peyton Manning took every snap for Indie this year and suffered 29 dropped passes while Walter, Brooks, and Tui combined to have 26 passes dropped. At the end of the day Walter was not the victim that he has been made out to be. He is a 3rd round draft pick that got a chance on a team with bad coaching and didn't do much with it. The line and the wide outs were not the only problem. Here's another tid bit, Walter has a passer rating of 36.2 in the 4th quarter, and he threw 7 of his picks in that quarter while failing to throw a TD pass. This is pretty damning testimony, if you still think the Raiders should again pass on a potential franchise QB so be it. I provide the links for fact checkers.

The blitz to pressure ratio is some what generalized, some of that pressure came from 4 man rush I am sure, but it's the pressure attempts versus times sacked that tell the story.

Stat sources:
Walter
Leinart
Manning

Stats found at sportsillustrated.cnn.com