has some blame in it. Its not his fault that Cushenberry was the worst C in the NFL. It wasn't his fault his best receiver only played 1 quarter with him. It wasn't his fault that the run game was Horrible the first half of the year. It wasn't his fault that Shurmur forgot what the word "Screen" meant. Yes, he made mistakes. Yes, he forced passes he shouldn't have. Yes, he tried to make the big play instead of checking down way too often. But he was learning and improving on those things.
Ask any QB that ever played the game how important it is to have a few years of continuity, and they will all tell you that you are better going into year 2 and year 3 in an offense. The middle of the OL sucked last year. THey were horrible. By what metric do you say they were "above average" Sacks? that is a QB stat, not an OL stat. Lock kept the sack numbers down.
People expect him to be Patrick Mahomes or Justin Herbert his first year starting. That doesn't happen. Look at how bad Baker Mayfield sucked his second year.