Perhaps that the first 8-9 games was the fact that Smith and the whole offense (including coaches) were trying to figure out how they will perform under Reid's new scheme, combined with the timing of the QB/WR/TE's along with the Offensive line.
It's not a coincidence that after 10 weeks (including the bye week) that it probably got to a point where it suddenly makes sense for the players and the timing between the QB's/WR's/TE's has improved and the gelling of the O-Line, combined with shuffling them to find the best players on the line, where everybody's comfort factor has improved, which would correspond with the increase of the PPG offensively.
Case in point. The first 9 weeks, the O-line was a nightmare, giving up sacks from left, middle, right, defenders blowing by them, etc, etc. While they still struggle on certain situations, the improvement on the offensive line has shown. There has been more clean pockets recently than I could imagine during the first 9 games. There's improvement.
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