As I'm relatively new, I need some help figuring out what to do to right this sinking ship of a team...

I just gave up THIRTEEN sacks. THIRTEEN. To a team that has only ONE player on his defensive line rated at over 64 (at an underwhelming 76), ONE linebacker over 56 (WLB at 75), and ZERO defensive backs rated over 60. My QB finished a putrid 16 of 37 for 0 TD and 1 INT, and seemed to be scrambling as soon as he took the snap.

My offensive line isn't great, but it's not the worst either, with mostly young, developing players. Offensively, my QB has two amazing TEs to throw to and one decent WR. The TEs should be absolutely shredding their competition, especially against such terrible LBs, but have had almost no success all season long. I can't even seem to get the ball thrown to my TE2, despite running almost exclusively two TE sets.

What makes this even more frustrating is that I was playing a QB equally rated to my own, with a FAR worse offensive line, and very little support in its offensive weaponry. While we shut down the run game completely, his 63 rated QB put up a 105.46 rating, and his 57 rated back-up came in for a cool 116.67. I managed only ONE sack... by my CB.

Comparatively, this was with two DEs rated at 80+ and two DTs at 70+, and all starting DBs, including the nickel, over 60 rated.

While obviously my team isn't great, on paper it seems light years over the competition it was facing, and yet the results aren't even in the same universe. Maybe it might just be a horrific slew of bad rolls, but the team hasn't played much better in its prior games this season either, and I'm left scrambling for answers as to what I can possibly do to salvage the year. On paper, I honestly think this is my best team in any of the leagues I'm in, but so far it's been complete trash, stumbling only incompetently into ugly wins, while my other teams have both been at least competitive, even if their rosters weren't as strong.

The only difference I can think of is that (due to my great set of TEs and an excellent FB) I've been playing almost entirely out of heavy sets, whereas neither of my other teams have much depth at TE or FB and consequently tend to play out of the spread. Has anyone else had any success passing in heavy sets? Is there any way I can actually take advantage of the TEs I have? Running is weak across the board for all teams, so there isn't much help there to take the pressure off my struggling passer.

For reference, the game in question: http://cust9.myfootballnow.com/box/124

Would love some advice, not only as to how to fix an anemic offense, but to teach these d-linemen to pin back their ears and replicate some of the success far inferior teams seem to be enjoying. Thanks!

Edited to add:

Here's the total cumulative score of respective units' starters, for comparison...

My (5) O-Line: 322 points
Versus (4) D-Line: 266 points

My (4) D-Line: 314 points
Versus (5) O-Line: 251 points

Major mismatch on both ends, yet the results of the game seem totally reversed :/

That is a lot of sacks, I don't know how many times I've seen that. Glancing at the logs, it looks like there's a lot of blitzing specifically goal line defenses (probably because of the heavy offensive formations). Your QB will hot read out of a blitz if he's familiar enough with the play, so be sure you are scouting your opponent especially the Goal Line Attacks which look to be the biggest threat to your sacks. But I'd also probably play out of other formations, even possibly placing your TE into maybe the slot receiver (you can do that by making him the #3 WR or by placing him into a formation via the depth chart overrides) to get him more targets. You are probably overdoing the heavy formations is my guess.

The success of a pass block is based on the offensive player's pass block vs the defensive player's pass rush, plus weight and strength differential. Also, you can see in the game logs who was assigned to block the player making the sack. If no blocker is mentioned, it's a free blitzer that was unaccounted for - something that your offense's familiarity in the defensive play can overcome.

Wouldn't conventional logic say that a team giving up excessive QB pressure should be switching into more heavy sets, to allow more blockers? I will look into setting the defensive practice plays to the goal line plays to see if that helps.

That's a good point, but it would only work if the extra players were blocking. I'll have to look at the playbook and see if we have many plays where the TE's stay in and block.

The backs will bail on their route and pick up the blitz if the familiarity is high enough, but I don't think the TE's will.

my TE conceded at least 1 sack this season...

I think part of what is being missed here is how important separation is to the passing game. Passing out of a bunched up formation gives defenders extra help in coverage early on.

It should be any eligible receiver off the LOS, I don't know for sure if the TE lines up far enough off the LOS to count but I don't think he does. He may have lined up as a FB on that play.

I've continued to find it totally impossible to play the game using anything involving heavy sets. I've taken care to ensure that I'm scouting only plays that would be called to defend against it, but it's making no difference. I'm still giving up an obscene amount of sacks (55 allowed in 11 games; 31 from my tackles alone) and finding it impossible to effectively involve my TEs when playing out of their natural positions. On a side note, on my other team in L8, which runs mostly spread or single TE sets, I found that my TE had actually managed to be my sack-allowed leader on my o-line last season, in addition to being a mostly ineffective receiving threat despite being reasonably skilled.

I really have no choice at this point but to try and switch over to a spread offense, but it seems kind of ludicrous to not be able to utilize my star TEs as actual TEs. Now it's just time to see whether or not they can be used effectively as WRs instead.

Who is your "star" TE? Wessels is the only star caliber TE I see, and you just signed him. And on top of that, they way I have position weights set up, your OL is just 50's and 60's, so they are going to give up some sacks.

Wrong league; the "star" comment referred to my L9.