Sack blame in the first four games

In Tim’s article about the performance of the OL so far this year. It was noted that someone has assigned blame for seven of the thirteen sacks we have allowed this year to Menelik Watson. Never being one to trust a number like that without verification, I decided to verify.

Using NFL rewind/gamepass, I went back and watched all 13 sacks assigning blame to someone on all thirteen. Full disclosure, I played offensive line so if the QB is standing in the pocket for 5 seconds with his thumb up his rectum then he gets sacked, I’m going to blame that sack on the QB. So here is the run down; I’ll go more in depth into a few of these sacks.

So yes, Watson has the most blame for our sacks so far this year, but not by much. he has three sacks that are all on him and two where he and Garrett Bolles share the blame equally. So let’s talk about some of the more difficult ones to “score”

First sack allowed 2nd Quarter vs LAC

Watson’s man, Chris McClain gets credit for the sack, but Bolles’ man, Melvin Ingram pushes Bolles back into Trevor Siemian and forces Siemian to try and run, which doesn’t last very long since McClain gets there shortly to sack him. I blame Bolles for this sack. You could argue that Bolles and Watson should share the blame, but I’m going to lay the blame at the feet of the man whose defender gets there first.

Second sack allowed 3rd Quarter vs LAC

We actually have six offensive lineman in on this play. Stephenson and Heuerman double team Ingram. Bolles ends up blocking no one and the DT who was near him gets a free run. he might have thought that CJ was going to pick him up, but that’s atall tack for a RB. Watson allows Bosa to get to Siemian first but Bolles allows pressure up the middle that gets there almost when Bosa does.

Bolles is in the upper circle. Both his man and Bosa get there at the same time.

3rd Sack vs LAC

Siemian gets the blame for this sack. Yes, he is getting pressured by the man that Watson is blocking, but he has to get rid of this ball. Emmanuel Sanders is running a crossing route and there isn’t a defender within 7 yards of him.

Fowler looks to be coming open up the seam, but Trevor is locked onto his first read on his left, misses both open receivers and ends up getting sacked. he could have possibly rolled to his right or dumped the ball to CJ Anderson.

4th sack vs LAC

This is the fourth sack against SD, the 13 yard sack that took us out of FG range with 4 minutes and change and a 3 point lead. TS feels the rush early from Ingram and can a) try to run between Mcgovern and Watson b) take the sack c) try to roll left (bad idea) d) retreat backwards (worse idea) e) try to hit CJ with the dumpoff

No one was open, really. DT was doubled at the top. ES was well covered. CJ was as well and Derby was blanketed. His best bet here would have been to try and run through the shrinking gap between McGovern and Watson where he most likely would have been sacked for a loss of 5 making it a 40 yd FG attempt instead of a 50 yd attempt (which McManus missed). I blame Watson for this sack since Ingram is the guy who sacks Trevor, but Trevor makes a bad decision to run backwards on this one. The extra 5 yards that he loses by running backwards were the difference between a missed and a made FG (maybe - McManus pushed it about 5 yards to the right).

First sack vs BUF

This was a coverage sack where Siemian runs out of bound for a loss of 1. We must have had the wrong play called here. BUF rushes 4 but has 9 defenders within 5 yards of the LOS. There had to be something McCoy could have called to take advantage of this.

I blame this sack on Siemian. Has has to know that once he is out of the pocket (he rolls to his left) he can throw this away to avoid the sack (and stop the clock). He doesn succeed in stopping the clock, but this was a losing play from the start with 7 Buffalo defenders covering three Denver receivers.