KW's Growing Pains Are Becoming a PIA For Bears Offense.....

Hawk, White spent time in Nashville with Cutler and the other WR in the offseason and while he's missed a few practices he's made plenty more and in that time he certainly should have learned the basics of his position NFL style.  The real problem is he hasn't. 

He's still playing like he was back at WVU where they simplified the game for him by only ever lining him up on one side of the field and only having him run a handful of pass routes.  He came into the NFL without ever having run the entire NFL route tree and he still doesn't know it well enough to execute it over a year later.  You don't need to be on a practice field to learn the basics of the route tree anymore than you have to practice reading to learn the alphabet.  In fact you have to learn the alphabet long before you can read and he has to learn that route tree in order to play well.

With his size and speed he could dominate against those wide open college secondaries but he can't do that in the NFL.  NFL QBs seldom get the time to throw that a college QB gets so many of his bread and butter routes in college can only be used sparingly in the NFL if at all like yesterday when the pass rush doesn't allow enough time for them to develop.  If all he can do is "go long" then he's of no use at all in a game like yesterday when Houston's pass rush would seldom allow it.  He needs to learn to run precise timing routes that are much shorter and he needs to catch what's thrown to him.  He's failing at both of those right now.

Let me throw one other persons perspective and I think you'll see what I mean.  This is from "Moon" Mullin who is as good an observer of the Bears and as honest at reporting those observations as anyone on the Bears beat.

The receiving career of Devin Hester in Chicago effectively ended when Cutler no longer had enough confidence in Hester for the Bears to even use him in a minimal fourth- or fifth-receiver role. White likely won’t get to that point, but coaches base game plans on quarterbacks’ confidence in plays, and right now White has some damage repair to do.

White is evincing none of the 4.35 speed he registered at the 2015 Scouting Combine, and the reason has little to do with his stress fracture of last year or his hamstring strain of last week. Every player speaks of how getting the mental side of the game down allows them to play “fast,” and it was too clear on Sunday, as it was during too much of preseason, that White isn’t locked in with the details.

The Bears need White to be fast, very fast, to pose the threat of taking the top off a secondary. Cutler needs White to be fast, catching balls in crunch times (the Bears will have more than one in most games) and, most important, be where he’s supposed to be when he’s supposed to be there.

So in a nutshell we find that White is not playing at his world class speed because he's uncertain of what he's doing and that comes from not understanding his role and how to properly execute it.  Sorry but it shouldn't take a year to get that down because the route tree is the same for every NFL team and it's not dependent on learning any specific OCs playbook.  It's universal.

We also find that Cutler may have or has lost a certain amount of confidence in him because of his drops and because he's not where he's supposed to be when he's supposed to be there.  That was very evident on that pick yesterday and no matter how many other contributing factors anyone wants throw into the mix it won't obscure the fact that White didn't run his route correctly and that was why the ball was picked.  That can't keep happening.

Imagine a young QB who can't even execute a simple hand off to his RB without risking a fumble, or make a swing pass or screen pass to his RB.  This is the kind of failure to grasp the basics and execute them consistently we're talking about here.  No NFL HC would even think of having that QB run his offense yet we're starting a WR whose that far behind in doing the simple things that every WR should know how to do when he arrives.  That's about how far behind the curve Kevin White is right now.

Posters saying Cutler hung White out to dry don't understand the timing built into NFL offenses these days. Gone are the day when Stabler could sit back and wait for a WR to get open. All passing offenses are built around a WR and a QB seeing the same thing in a DEF and knowing that the route will be adjusted accordingly. Every OFF does this because DEFs are too good to wait for someone to flash open. Most passes are thrown before the WR is open and often before the WR has turned around. Watch Rogers throw slants. He releases the ball before the WR has even made his cut. Nelson/Cobb/whoever has less than a second to find the ball in the air while continuing to the spot. Nelson will take 2 steps upfield and cut, meanwhile his hands are in position to grab the ball even before he start his cut. If the route is broken OFF, well we all know what that looks like (ask Knox/Hester, they were masters of breaking off slants leaving the ball to do directly to a CB/S/LB.)

That why finding the ball is such a vital skill these days for WRs. The QBs not only know the routes, they have to place the ball exactly where the WR is looking for it. Don't remember what game I was watching yesterday where the WR had a step on the CB and was driving downfield. He looked up found the ball and it was on the opposite side then the route called for, he twisted around but couldn't haul it it. The key was that the WR didn't know the ball was coming to him until he looked up and 'found' it in the air, although not where he expected it. Cutler looked at the same thing White did, and White didn't see the adjustment he had to make. Cutler threw the ball to a spot, because the play call AND the formation AND the coverage dictated that White would be there. White wasn't there.

Cutler, as a captain and leader of the OFF, took blame he didn't have to. He is taught to took check his reads and then turn and throw. This isn't street football anymore. Why did he throw to that spot? Because that is where White was supposed to be. Rogers will yell at a WR at least once a game for the same thing.

Coaching? Football IQ? Game still too fast? Bears better figure it out. Once DEFs understand that White does't understand the OFF, the Bears will see more coverages like the second half yesterday with a safety rolled toward Jeffery and White left one on one with a CB2 or worse.

It's not memorizing 9 routes, it's memorizing a crap load of actual play names and which route needs to be run.  I think you are generalizing it way too much.  I played some WR in high school and hated it because I struggled remembering the plays.  I preferred playing defense.  Have you ever heard the play calling in the NFL?  It's ridiculous and it's one of the reasons Goff is not starting for the Rams.

I'm not trying to make excuses for White though, just making sure everyone knows that being a WR is a lot more than just memorizing 9 routes.  Every offensive player has to remember the same plays so there is no excuse for him not being able to though.  I really hope he gets his game together.

Cutler called White out after PS game 3 and was visibly pissed at him after that pick on Sunday. White also had a penalty, a couple of obvious drops, and generally looked slow and clueless out there. I'm hoping he's busting ass in practice this week and burning the midnight oil studying film and the playbook because if he has a few more games like that, Cutler will be done with him. DONE at least for a while.

As Hoge pointed out in his piece, Cutler simply stops looking at or throwing to guys he's lost confidence in. We saw it with Hester and Roy alligator arms Williams. Heck, even Rodgers last year gave up on Davante Adams for a while. If White doesn't improve in the next few weeks, I'd bench him for Meredith or Wilson (when back from PUP) until he earns it back in practice. There's not much point in having a WR out there the QB is gonna ignore most plays.

Yes, it's early and yes there's time for White to get some positive things going. But right now he's on the Cordarelle Patterson track. I think it's pretty clear that Cutler is losing patience with him. He should be farther along the path than he is at this point.