Post by mpbears68 on Feb 23, 2020 22:00:38 GMT -6
Last year during the season, I asked this board several times what the explanation was for the OL struggling like it did. (And it struggled everywhere--even Whitehair had a down year).
I pointed out that the OL didn't have obvious problems to explain the decline (big turnover, aging, major injuries, poor investment, etc). The OL returned 5 starters from 2018. 2 were pro-bowlers, 1 was a former pro-bowler, and 1 had been named to the all-rookie team. It included 2 2nd round picks, a 1st round pick, and a 3rd round pick who was a priority free agent signing. Even with the Long injury/benching week 5, the OL's injury situation was no worse than league-average. Lots of teams lose a starter on the OL -- it's not unusual at all. Wasn't until late in the season when Massie got hurt that the unit's injury situation was more serious. Even so, 3 of 5 starters played every game.
Bottom line was.....no one here had an answer to explain why an OL that wasn't old, wasn't talent-less, and wasn't hurt that bad was PLAYING so bad and why it was clearly so much worse than the season before.
The only thing I can come up with that was different was the Nagy 2.0 scheme/Helfrich. So I am gonna ascribe the OL's struggles last year to coaching/scheme. Sorry, but they may not be the best unit in the NFL but they simply aren't that bad. I remember watching from the stands week 1 at Soldier Field and the OL was false starting, running into each other, and plain missing/not knowing their assignments play after play.
Simply put--it was a CF right from the top.
Having said all that, Leno and Massie aren't going anywhere because of their contracts. The only starting position that's screaming for an upgrade is RG and there are FAs there who can help. I hope Pace also drafts an OT Day2 cuz we need one in the pipeline. Add in Alex Bars to the mix and se where it settles out in training camp.
I know people like to blame coaches but as I've said repeatedly players aren't robots to program. They have put the work in too.
Also many of the problems put on the OL often were due other factors like TEs and WRs not making their blocks.
Some things to consider in no particular order:
- The Bears' pass blocking by most stats and ratings was pretty average for the league. As we all should know by now Mitch has issues holding onto the ball too long and most our WRs/TEs aren't getting a lot of separation. More on that later.
- The run blocking was very bad but much of the that was primarily on the right side where we had an injured Long and later the newbie Coward, then Massie and Lucas the backup on RT. You can maybe get away with one weak link on the OL but not two.
- As we all know our TEs are not good. The ones that can catch can't block, the ones that can block can't catch, and the only one that could kind of do both was injured in some way all season. So if you put in the guys in who can block they know it's run, and if you put the guy in who can only catch they know it's a pass.
- This lack of consistent run blocking meant that defenses could put 5 and even 6 DBs on the field since the other 5 guys on the D could disrupt the run game. This meant there were few if any match up problems to exploit or misdirection to use which are two of the mainstays of any modern NFL offense.
- Mitch's inconsistent deep ball meant that DBs could cheat up pretty close to the line making runs even harder.
- Our WRs haven't been very good blockers either. It's important that they at least get a piece of the guy in front of them. That didn't happen often.
My hope is that Castillo can get these guys back to getting their fundamentals right. If they can do that and grab a decent TE and a G/T in the draft and/or a FA, we might see some better results. Because there's no scheme in the world that can make an offense work with poor execution.
But......I'm still not fully understanding the why "not executing" part. Did the OL suddenly just get stupid or lazy?
Cuz, other than Monty replacing JoHo, the entire offense was literally the exact same set of guys as 2018.