My take on part of why sacks are (still) out of control:
TL/DR, in order of importance:
-Blitzers go unopposed on most snaps
-Skill generally is still undervalued
-Strength especially doesn't seem to matter at all for pass rush/pass blocking interaction
-DEs shoot off in random directions, QBs scramble straight into them
There's definitely a lot of oddities right now in terms of sacks. In L75 I have a perfect rated, 100s in every category RDE (
https://private75.myfootballnow.com/player/75). His stat line under the new code, 12 games in? 9 tackles. 4 sacks. That's silly, especially considering there's already 11 players with over 20 sacks this season. The defense as a whole has given up the third fewest points allowed, and second fewest yards, so it's not an issue of a trash team. Meanwhile, my LT, 92 speed, 96 accel, 100 str, 92/100 pass block... has allowed 13 sacks. That's also silly. The RT, 100s in every physical category, 78/100 PB, also has given up 13 sacks. The remainder of the offensive line has 10 sacks attributed to them, for 36 attributed sacks allowed, out of a total of 67. That means almost half the sacks have been unattributed.
This is almost always a totally unblocked blitzer. Frequently this will happen on plays I've scouted against, where an extra FB/HB is left to block in the original play, but they'll instead be sent out on a route. I assume this is a product of the new hot route system, which is dumb, because the QB is almost always immediately sacked. It's obscene how many times (on both sides) that there's one or multiple completely unblocked players rushing the QB. Sometimes this results in a massive gain as the hot route hits... but more frequently the QB is eating dirt before he ever has a chance to throw.
Even more galling is that skill has practically ZERO impact for blitzers. Which makes sense since they're making their sacks completely unopposed. The only thing that matters is speed, really, but even then when going unopposed you can frequently get away without even having that. Blitzers without any strength or pass rush are just as dominant as ones with 100s in both categories.
The league's third leading sack artist is an LB with laughably bad blitzing ability given his level of production:
https://private75.myfootballnow.com/player/2261Speed seems to be a common theme for the sack stat leading d-line, but at LB they're going unimpeded on almost all their sacks so there's quite a few slow LBs high on the chart. Secondary blitzers still require speed to succeed because they're usually blitzing from 10+ yards out and take ages to get to the QB.
For non blitzing, it's harder to evaluate why sacks are broken in the engine's current incarnation, because d-line interaction has been absolutely abhorrent. I can't imagine how bad the sack totals would be if this was working correctly. I'd easily have sacks allowed (and taken) in the hundreds if it weren't for d-line fleeing in random directions and mirroring the QB's face half the time.
Skill still doesn't matter near enough on either side. Great players don't play like great players. Detroit's near perfect LT has allowed 18 sacks on the season:
https://private75.myfootballnow.com/player/3264. If we had no access to player atts, just their on field performance, he'd never get a job again. Detroit may be an awful team, but so is the NFL's Cleveland, and you don't see Joe Thomas putting up those kind of stats.
From my own offensive line, my five starter's atts (as of game 12):
LT: 92SPD | 98ACL | 100STR | 92/99PB
LG: 100STR | 96/97PB
C: 89STR | 79PB
RG: 100STR | 88/92PB
RT: 100SPD | 100ACL | 100STR | 78/100PB
Principal back-ups:
100STR | 83/86 PB
100STR | 78/82 PB
FB: 100SPD | 100ACL | 100STR | 99/99PB
TE: 100SPD | 89ACL | 100STR | 99/100PB
RB: 98SPD | 90ACL | 78STR | 81/83PB
I'm currently averaging a 13.5% sack per dropback, which would be record setting in the NFL. This includes a game where I managed an impressive 26% sack per dropback. And I'm only middle of the pack (tied at 14th) in terms of sacks allowed this season (if you can trust the league stats for this, which you can't*). And this is not due to "over-passing" and teams being able to pass key me on every play, as my team is 5th in the league in rushes per game, and only 15th in passes per game, and I don't use a single formation that doesn't also have multiple rushing plays called from it.
One of the obvious issues I see with pass blocking is that strength seems to be a total non-factor, which is beyond absurd. Some of the league's premier pass blockers in terms of stats have below 40 strength. While they shouldn't be useless, they should be getting blown up by strong bull rushing d-linemen.
That said, there also isn't much consistency in general in terms of who's beating them. The players making those sacks are frequently awful, while a perfect rated DE will get totally stonewalled.
Finally, one of the other peculiarities to this engine that's led to a number of sacks is a two-fold issue. The first is pre-existing: QBs will needlessly scramble from clean pockets on almost every single play. They'll pick one side or the other and immediately shuffle off, even when their primary target is on the opposite side of the field. The second is that now DEs will frequently just jet straight forward, or even peel off at a sideways angle. The tackle will never touch them when they do this since they aren't angling towards the pocket at all. The result of these two issues combined is that the QB will frequently get flushed by phantoms straight into the DE.
*The league stats lists my team as giving up 3.2 sacks per game to opponents this season, which is nowhere close to being accurate. No clue where it's deriving its stats from. Should be 5.6. The average sacks per game in the league comes out to 5.44 per game. Meanwhile, teams are allowing only 3.38 sacks per game. Obviously these two numbers SHOULD be equal, and they're not. I've brought this up in the forums before but never got an answer for why they don't equal out.
