This isn't an individual sport. There are 22 guys on the field for each play and on most plays each one has an effect on the outcome. Good QB play gives receivers better ball placement and timing, but the receiver still has to catch the ball. QB play can also be significantly negatively affected by bad protection. Good protection doesn't make the QB better. He is what he is. A bad QB with good protection is just a bad QB with more time to throw. His accuracy will still be off. His decision making will still not be as sharp. His arm still has the same level of strength.

A good QB with bad protection will still have moments of good QB play, but many more moments than he should of plays being negatively affected by the poor protection which kills drives and makes things look much worse than they are. By almost every measure, Lawrence had one of the worst o-lines in the league as a whole last year mostly due to abhorrent center play. You have to largely ignore stats and watch with your eyes does your QB keep his eyes downfield?, does he go through progressions?, does he deliver the ball quickly with good accuracy,? does he have good pocket presence/awareness? (does he walk into sacks or get rag dolled from a hit from behind?) There's not that many guys on the planet that are very good to great at all of these things. Trevor has shown he is when healthy. You won't have to focus on these things when the protection is there consistently. Fewer drives will stall, passing stats will increase and you can lazily look at the stat line and declare your QB to be great and probably be right without any in depth analysis of his performance. Don't worry, lazy analysis will catch up quickly with reality this season.

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