Honestly a lot of it is just noise. We like to overanalyze things and say there is a new greater trend emerging when honestly a lot of this will just revert itself back over a larger sample size.

People like whining about the QB hit rules but the bigger issue has always been how the NFL has regulated DB physicality more strictly each year. And this season it's been real bad as of last week illegal contact up 3X. This has always been far more relevant than whatever whining people like doing about QB hits where they just happen to selectively remember the few awful calls and think they are far more prevalent than in reality

Last year was an outlier due to injuries at QB with guys like Luck/Rodgers/Watson. The other thing is the 2016/2017 class in combination back to back years has a chance to be the best 2 year stretch of QBs since 2004-05 with Goff/Wentz/Watson/Mahomes. Low key the NFL went through a stretch earlier this decade from around 2013-15 where there just wasn't a lot of true franchise changing talent at QB. This in combination with older QBs like Peyton Manning, Eli Manning, Carson Palmer declining/retiring of late meant there weren't great options to take their place right away. It took until the 2016/2017 class really got their chance to replenish that.