Post by Deleted on Sept 12, 2016 10:17:42 GMT -6
Chicago Bears report card: Offensive line struggles against Texans in Week 1
Sep 11, 2016; Houston, TX, USA;
By: Bryan Perez | 6 hours ago
After falling to the Houston Texans 23-14 in Week 1 of the NFL season, the Chicago Bears are going back to the drawing board to determine what went wrong and what corrections need to be made before their Week 2 match-up against the Philadelphia Eagles on Monday Night Football.
Winning football starts with good, sound line play on both sides of the ball. The Bears’ loss to the Texans can be directly attributed to the poor play of the offensive line which prevented Jay Cutler and the skill players from having any chance at being successful.
The most dreadful of all Bears’ linemen was right tackle Bobby Massie. In fact, he was so bad that Chicago’s coaching staff has to consider replacing him with Mike Adams in the starting lineup. Massie is too heavy-footed and uncoordinated to consistently block the NFL’s speedy edge rushers. He was responsible for many of the quarterback pressures that forced Cutler into bad throws and big hits. While Massie had some positive moments in the run game, his shortcomings in the passing game are too detrimental to overlook.
A close second to Massie’s poor performance was rookie center Cody Whitehair. To be fair, he was facing one of the biggest and strongest men in the NFL in Houston’s Vince Wilfork. The second-round pick from Kansas State simply couldn’t match Wilfork’s power and was put on skates all game long. He struggled to recognize blitzes and stunts and was responsible for many of the passing pocket’s breakdowns. Whitehair had some nice blocks in the running game, including on a first quarter run by Jeremy Langford that setup a short one-yard touchdown run. But much like Massie, Whitehair was a big liability in Week 1.
Charles Leno, Jr. was competent at left tackle, but his game was a tale of two halves. In the first half, he played like the guy the Bears felt was capable of holding down the position for years to come. In the second half, he looked vulnerable on the edge, including one major whiff on Whitney Mercilus that resulted in a strip sack. Leno struggled when asked to get to the second level in the run game, but his play wasn’t nearly as poor as Massie or Whitehair’s. And when considering how talented the Houston Texans’ edge rushers are, his competent play is actually something worth feeling good about.
It wasn’t all bad for the Bears’ line, as Kyle Long and Josh Sitton played like the top-tier guard tandem Chicago was hoping for. Sitton was especially good, playing like a grizzly bear in the middle of the offensive line. Even when he was beat off the snap or shed by the defensive lineman, he fought with a scrappy blue-collar mentality and didn’t stop until the whistle. He was the best lineman for the Bears in Week 1.
Here are my grades for the Bears offensive linemen in Week 1’s loss to the Houston Texans:
LG Josh Sitton: B
RG Kyle Long: B-
LT Charles Leno: C
OC Cody Whitehair: D
RT Bobby Massie: F
