It seems we have had to return to this issue every season since Sam Bradford's rookie year. Is his poor performance a reflection of poor quarterbacking, poor protection, or both? To begin this season, it appeared that his protection had improved enough to provide a definitive answer, but then came five days in September in which Bradford was sacked 11 times and hit 18 more.
With each hit, Bradford's carefully rebuilt pocket confidence appears to be eroding, and the Rams' offensive statistics are trending back down into familiarly bad territory. Is there a direct correlation? And where is the pressure coming from? We mined stats from NFL.com and Pro Football Focus and entered them into Infogram to build an infographic essay on the topic. Full graphic appears after the break.
