Bears look to anchor the line
Veteran center possible in free agency, but don’t rule out this year’s draft
MOBILE, Ala. — Center looms as a position of need for the Bears, and it’s going to be interesting to see how they attack it.
They could go the free-agent route, but I am expecting them to be less active than they were a year ago on the open market. It would be a bit of an upset if there were a bigger deal to be done than the one the Bears try to hammer out with cornerback Jaylon Johnson.
It wouldn’t be surprising if the team considered some veterans in free agency to anchor the line, but you can’t rule out the draft. There are a pair of good ones at the Senior Bowl in Oregon’s Jackson Powers-Johnson and West Virginia’s Zach Frazier.
Powers-Johnson measured a shade over 6-foot-3 and 334 pounds, and my guess is NFL teams would want him to drop a little weight. It’s not that he doesn’t carry it well, but if he’s playing center — or guard (he got reps at both positions this week) — they want him to be able to move well.
“I like inside zone more,” Powers-Johnson said when asked about his preferences, perhaps shining a light on his personality. “It’s more of an identity play. It’s the OG run play. Doing that against the defense is demoralizing.
“We ran a lot of outside zone at Oregon all three years I was there. It would be seamless (transition to that). I love pulling. I love running in space. I love the ferocity of outside zone and if a team needs me to do that, I am going to do that.”
Frazier suffered a broken fibula in the final minute of the Mountaineers’ win against Baylor on Nov. 25. He hasn’t been cleared to return to action but was in Mobile participating in some drills and going through the process. A fourtime state wrestling champion in high school, he’s an appealing option for teams in the market for a center.
“Incredibly good with his
upper body,” a scouting director said about Frazier. “He’s got very, very good strength. He can torque and twist and control people with his hands. He can drive block, displace defenders, he can sit down on zero techniques trying to run power through him.
“He does struggle a little bit with some edge speed and a little bit of counter in the rush. He’s good at getting to the second level and he’s gotten better, but being able to sustain (at the second level) wasn’t there early. He wasn’t finishing with his feet. Somebody will take him in the top half of the second round.
“The kid from Cincinnati (Dontay Corleone) that will be a first-round pick next year, defensive tackle, he kicked his ass. Throw on the tape of that game. He got better this past year.”
Some are of the mindset that it would be tough for a team to pair a rookie quarterback with a rookie center. But in talking to a few folks, it would depend on the center.
“If the center is competent enough about changing protections and making line calls and everything else, I don’t think that is a big deal,” an offensive coordinator said. “It takes some off the quarterback to help him out a little bit. It depends on what the quarterback has to learn too. Not a lot of quarterbacks in college football have to ID the mike (linebacker), change the protection after a mouthful of calls. It depends on that.
“I’d say no, it’s not a problem, unless you were not comfortable with the way the center could set the front, change the protection and all of that if you’re going to put that on him.”
Ron Rivera first crossed paths with new Bears defensive coordinator Eric Washington in 2005, when Washington joined the Bears in training camp as part of the Bill Walsh minority coaching fellowship program.
Washington was the defensive line coach at Northwestern at the time. He made a positive impression on the staff, and Lovie Smith hired Washington as a defensive assistant in 2008. Two years later, after Rod Marinelli was promoted to defensive coordinator, Smith elevated Washington to defensive line coach. That made it a no-brainer for Rivera to hire Washington in 2011 when he was seeking a D-line coach in Carolina.
The connection — Rod Marinelli was an assistant at Cal when Rivera played there — is the same one Bears coach Matt Eberflus likely was leaning on. Eberflus considers Marinelli one of his greatest mentors.
“I knew Eric was trained by Rod and that is what appealed to me more than anything else,” Rivera said this week.
“He probably is one of the best defensive line coaches around. He’s an outstanding pass-rush coordinator, in terms of setting it up and knowing how to use it. He’s very, very good at that.
“You can see his influence on the way they rush for Buffalo.”
Washington worked under Rivera for nine seasons in Carolina, serving as the defensive line coach for the first seven and then as defensive coordinator.
Washington went from there to Buffalo with Sean McDermott and directed the defensive line for the Bills and also earned the title of assistant head coach.
“Eric will do a great job explaining it,” Rivera said. “It will be very detailed, very well put together.
“He knows how to fit the run. He knows how to stop the run. His pass rush game is phenomenal. He’s going to be very good with that. Guys like (Montez) Sweat, they’ll get better.”
Washington, who played tight end at Grambling for legendary coach Eddie Robinson, is pretty reserved and can be quiet.
But Kawann Short, a two-time Pro Bowl defensive tackle for the Panthers who went to Central High School in East Chicago, Ind., said he has no problem envisioning Washington addressing the entire defense.
“Man, honestly, Coach Washington was the driver of the car,” Short said. “Just him being the behind-the-scenes type of guy, very quiet, but Coach Wash, we’ve grown to build a relationship damn near like a father-son. Going in that room early, meeting before the day got started, one-on-ones, he motivated me to be the best player I could be in Carolina. To this day, I appreciate him dearly.
“He means business. In between work and practice and all that stuff, he’s a focused and success-driven guy. He’s trying to get the best out of his players. He’s going to do whatever it takes. He puts in the work to make sure you take the extra step as a player.
“Being with him elevated my game 10 times as much. I had the athleticism and the ability to play. He made me look at the game a lot differently. He showed me what to look for and he simplified the game for me and made me that much better.”
Short said that Washington was a primary reason he and Star Lotulelei, defensive tackles the Panthers selected in the first two rounds in 2013, had an immediate impact in the NFL.
“I could sit here and tell you about every meeting we had,” Short said. “From day one, the most important thing he told me once I got to Carolina was, ‘There’s no redshirt year.’ You know what that means — practicing and not playing.
“That was his mentality. I don’t care if you’re Year 1, a free-agent pickup or a practice-squad player, he’s going to teach every guy in that room, and if we were to play tomorrow, we’d be ready.
“I was second round and Star Lotulelei was (first round). He sat us down and said, ‘Look, we drafted you guys because we know you can do it. We know you are the right personnel for this defense. I vouched for you guys and one thing I want is don’t let yourselves down. Not me. Don’t let yourselves down. I know you can do it. We’ve just got to figure it out and pull it up out of you.’ ”
With second-year defensive tackles in Gervon Dexter and Zacch Pickens, the Bears surelyare hoping Washington can help make an immediate impact.
Washington isn’t the only Bears staffer from the latter years of the Smith era at Halas Hall to be named a defensive coordinator recently. The Tennessee Titans are hiring Baltimore Ravens secondary coach Dennard Wilson as their new defensive coordinator. Wilson was a pro scout for the Bears from 2008-11.
Talent in this draft is expected to drop off on Day 3 (Rounds 4-7).
It’s not that this is considered a weak class necessarily, but only 54 players were granted early entry to the draft. The number was 63 a year ago, 73 in 2022 and routinely reached triple digits in previous years.
Ohio State offers a prime example of talented players deciding to return to school.
Buckeyes wide receiver Marvin Harrison Jr. opted to head to the NFL, but wide receiver Emeka Egbuka, cornerback Denzel Burke, edge rushers J.T. Tuimoloau and Jack Sawyer and offensive lineman Donovan Jackson all decided to stay in Columbus.
“It’s going to fall off in a hurry starting in Round 5,” said one general manager said, adding that there was almost an entire round of solid players who chose to wait at least a year to turn professional.
Said one national scout: “NIL has a lot to do with it, if not all to do with it. I think it’s going to continue that way too.”
I asked how he grouped players who were leaving school early in the past when the number was around 100 or even higher.
“You can understand why a lot of them were or are coming out,” the scout said. “Probably 15 percent to 25 percent are just making poor decisions. Then there’s probably 50 percent that are worthy of coming out early, players that have that type of value.
“I’m just pulling these numbers off the top. There’s probably 25 percent that are good enough and they’re not getting any better, so why not enter the draft? Then, like I said, there were as much as about 25 percent that were just making a bad decision.
“There are a lot of good players going back to Columbus — Day 1, Day 2 picks. Are they going to get significantly better? Probably not. It’s interesting.”
Illinois defensive tackle Johnny Newton stayed in school when he could have gone into the draft last year, and he stands as an example of a player who probably enhanced his stock.
“Johnny was probably an early Day 3 pick last year, a fourthrounder maybe,” the scout said. “If you look at all the mock drafts, he’s a first-round pick unanimously. I think that’s rich for him.
I could be wrong, but he’s in a better spot for sure.”
The scout said the number of players who returned to school this year will enhance the 2025 draft.
“Next year is going to be a crazy draft class because you’re going to have all of those players that could be early entrants that are going back to school,” he said.
“So they’re going to be in the draft next year. Then you have all of the COVID guys, dudes that got an extra year of eligibility because of COVID, that are going to be in the draft next year and then you’ll have the normal amount of players that will be in the draft next year.
“It’s going to be just a lot of names. Rounds 5 through 7, there will be a lot of players — a lot more than there are this year.”
Illinois right tackle Isaiah Adams put together a solid week of practice.
Adams has been working inside at guard, which is where he played in 2022 for the Illini. Coach Bret Bielema told me during the season it was a move based on necessity — what was best for the team — that kicked Adams out to right tackle.
It’s probably something that ultimately helped Adams, too, as it diversified his resume a little.
“It definitely was not a bad thing,” Adams said. “I kind of got comfortable on the right side. If I need to play right guard, it’s only going to help me.”
Adams, who is training with Duke Manyweather in Frisco, Texas, could wind up being a midround pick.
“This week teams have been wanting to see what my football IQ is and what this game means to me,” he said. “That’s sort of the common theme right now. Some of them brought up plays from last year and what our calls were, why I set a certain way. Lot of white board and a lot of video. It’s been a good experience.”
Eight teams — one-fourth of the league — have changed head coaches with the last openings filled this week.
The Bears are scheduled to play five of those clubs in 2024: the Seahawks (Mike Macdonald), Titans (Brian Callahan), Panthers (Dave Canales), Patriots (Jerod Mayo) and Commanders (Dan Quinn).