Bears’ quandary this week is further proof Pace needs to fix offensive line
With confidence in his voice,
Ryan Pace said he believed the Chicago Bears could rebuild their group of wide receivers quickly.
Thatwas at the 2018 scouting combine afterKendallWright and Josh Bellamywere the biggest producers at the position the season before. A couple ofweeks later, Pace landed Allen Robinson in free agency. Pace’s othermoves produced place holders, but the emergence of rookieDarnellMooney this season provides hope.
Pace will need a similar sense of urgency — and perhaps an improved strike ratio— to overhaul the offensive line in the offseason ahead, something thatwas readily apparent before a series of misfortunes arrived thisweek that will leave the Bears down at least three and possibly four starters for their game Sunday against the Tennessee Titans atNissan Stadium.
The Bears need to retain Robinson, almost certainly will have to take a hard look at the quarterback position unless Nick Foles plays significantly better in the final eight games and do some heavy lifting on the offensive line. That’s just the beginning of what the offseason to-do list will look like, and upgrades for the trenches could be Pace’s top priority.
It’s a “chicken or the egg” discussion— which came first— when it comes to quarterback development and a quality offensive line, but those saying the Bears have failed to produce a franchise passer for the seven decades since Sid Luckman retired because of anything related to line play are obscuring the fact the organization has flat-out bungled chance after chance regarding quarterbacks. The offensive line wasn’t the Mitch Trubisky’s downfall and didn’t prevent Jay Cutler from ever getting off the rollercoaster of uneven play.
Pace needs to introduce change up front for 2021, probably involving multiple positions. The approach this seasonwas that new line coach Juan Castillowould make the biggest difference, considering personnel moves constituted the signing of right guard Germain Ifedi and swing tackle Jason Spriggs to minimum one-year deals and using two seventh-round picks on developmental players ArlingtonHambright and
Lachavious Simmons.
It’s not as if Pace has ignored the line in the draft. Seven of his 39 draft picks in six years have been linemen. Three picks have come in the top-three rounds— Cody Whitehair and JamesDanielswere second-round picks and center Hroniss Grasuwas a third-round pick. It’s important to remember Pace has been short-handed with draft capital the last two years as result of the KhalilMack trade.
What the Bears have not done is draft an offensive tackle high in the draft. Right tackle BobbyMassie, who is out more than amonthwith a left knee injury, was signed in free agency and is on his second contract with the Bears, and left tackle Charles Lenowas a seventh-round find by former GMPhil Emery.
It’s instructive to look at the 11-year run Jerry Angelo had with the Bears from200111. He had a 95-81 record with four playoff appearances andwas fired a season after reaching theNFCchampionship game. Ultimately, Angelo’s undoingwas the decay of a dominant offensive line the organization built in the runup to Super Bowl XLI.
As those players aged and began to decline, the Bears didn’t have any young linemen in the pipeline who could step in and p,erform at a high level. They drafted offensive tackle ChrisWilliams in the first round in 2008; he had a bad back and never became a top-tier player. They selected Gabe Carimi with the 29th pick in 2011, and hewas quickly injured and then gone.
The line fell apart, the offense struggled and Angelowound up paying for it with his job. But the clues to the issues date to the beginning of his tenure and the failure to feed the offensive line. During a five-year span of drafts from 2003-07, the Bears used one pick higher than a sixth-rounder on an offensive lineman. Thatwas undersized guard Josh Beekman, a fourth-rounder in 2007. The steady group of veteran linemen, most acquired in shrewd free-agentmoves with the exception of center OlinKreutz, aged together. And when it came time to turn the thing over, Williams and Carimi couldn’t anchor it.
Pace has been driven to build his defense and maintain a strength on that side of the ball while also trying to find playmakers on offense. Nowthe line is struggling, and the Bears will enter an offseason needing to piece together talent in free agency and the draft. Unless Pace is in position to select a quarterback in the first round, it’s a good bet he goes with an offensive lineman.
The Bears are in a predicament Sunday against the Titans. Massie andDaniels are out with injuries, Whitehair has a calf injury and has tested positive for COVID-19, as has Spriggs.Ifedi self-quarantined because of close contact with Spriggs, but the Bears announced Friday morning that hewas cleared to return. SamMustipher, Whitehair’s replacement, is out with a knee injury.
That leaves Leno at left tackle, Hambright expected to start at left guard, Alex Bars at center, Ifedi at right guard and Rashaad Cowardmoving fromright guard to right tackle. The good news for the Bears is the Titans struggle mightily to rush the quarterback, and high-dollar addition Jadeveon Clowney, who has three sacks in his last 21 games, could miss the matchup with a knee injury. On the flip side, the Titans have to view the chance to get after immobileNick Foles as a rare opportunity to win up front.
Castillo cross-trained many of his linemen during training camp, so Coward got work at right tackle in practice. The wild card is Bars, who didn’t play center atNotreDame. Hewas the backup toMustipher on Sunday, so the coaching staff must be sufficiently confident he can snap the ball well enough to avoid disaster, otherwise theywould consider one of the practicesquad options at center.
It’s suboptimal, no question, but the only way to find out ifHambright and some of these other young players have potential is to judge them in game action. The Bears would prefer that to be in preseason games, but here they are, enteringWeek 9 in the middle of a pandemic, and it’s next man up.
Maybe there will be a positive to take away from the experience, as challenging as it will be, but when the season is over, Pace needs to look at his offensive line, consider his options and say with assurance it can be revamped in short order. 2)