Let's play hypothetical. Assume everyone else stays the same, but the offensive line makes that big jump. Would production really improve along the same rate that line play improved?
We actually saw this scenario play out last year, during the middle of the season, after the introduction of Decker and Jaimes. There was a stretch during the middle of the season where the pass protection was actually quite decent. The passing game didn't improve. In fact, over the course of the season, Lee's production doesn't correlate with the quality of offensive line play. (Lee is consistent, just not consistently good)
That's not to say line play over the course of the entire season wasn't quite poor, both in the running game and passing game. 6 man protections being beaten by a 3 man rush, an atrocious percentage of runs where first contact was at or behind the LOS, on and on. The reason we see line play as being even worse than it really was is because when they did block well, they weren't rewarded with big plays.
Tre Bryant had the same number of 20+ yard runs as Ozigbo and one more than Wilbon. Bryant had 3 in his 2 games.
Wisconsin is an even better example of the running back mattering. I think we'd all be pretty happy to have their line blocking for us. Look at their top 3 rushers in attempts:
299 att, 6.6 ypc
96 att, 3.8 ypc
61 att, 4.9 ypc
Taylor was a monster last year. Even with quality line play, you must have the right guy carrying the ball to make it pay off. Blocking just gets the play started, it comes down to the ball carrier to take a good start and make it a great play.
Better line play with a better running scheme and the correct personnel should equal a much improved running game. Line play on its own can only take you so far.
