Olin Kreuts had stunningly good news regarding the OL
Dec 21, 2020 10:19:27 GMT -6
AlexM, riczaj01, and 2 more like this
Post by JABF on Dec 21, 2020 10:19:27 GMT -6
Olin is one brilliant dude when it comes to assessing offensive line play. The guy's football IQ is off the charts in regard to OL play. I used to love watching him play. He was amazing. Anyway I was really stunned by his statements about our OL after this last game. It is so good to hear his assessment of our young guys. This is from Brad Biggs article.
LINK
While we’re talking about the offense, the line deserves credit for the improvements it has made.
This is the fourth consecutive week the Bears have lined up (from left tackle to right tackle) with Charles Leno, Cody Whitehair, Sam Mustipher, Alex Bars and Germain Ifedi. Everything is starting to click on offense and Mustipher and Bars are the new guys in the equation. I turned to former Bears center Olin Kreutz, a go-to guy for intelligent offensive line discussion, to find out why he believes it’s started to fall into place (the Bears are averaging 157.3 yards rushing per game over the four games) for a group that was so maligned earlier in the season. As Kreutz said, “that’s not by accident.”
I asked him about Mustipher, who joined the team as an undrafted free agent last year and started this season on the practice squad.
“He’s a technician in every sense of the word,” Kreutz said. “He’s quick enough and strong enough and he gets movement, but his angles are perfect and he gets everybody on the right guys. You could really see it on that third-down blitz pickup that Mitch (Trubisky) threw to (David) Montgomery out in the flat (for 16 yards on third-and-4). That’s Sam organizing the blitz pickup. His angles are good. He works well with Alex and Cody, and to be honest I think Alex and Cody, even though they weren’t great centers, them playing center has helped out the line a lot because now you can tell they’re all relaying calls. They’re the epitome of being better than the sum of their parts right now.
“Bars is a really big, strong athlete so when he gets going in the right direction, guys are gonna go backward. He’s 6-6 and he’s 320 pounds and he’s a former basketball player and he’s just kind of a freak athlete. That’s why you can play him at left tackle, left guard, center, right tackle, because he can do those things. Even though his technique may not be perfect a lot of times, he gets away with it because he’s such a big, strong man. And he’s played offensive line for a long time.
“A guy who has really helped out a lot is Cole Kmet. He blocks pretty damn good at tight end. It’s so funny because it really is just that simple. They all know exactly what they want to do and they’re just doing it. They weren’t doing it before. They weren’t hitting the right angles. Linebackers were shooting the gaps and guys were free and you were like, ‘Does no one know who to block?’ The answer was yes. Obviously, the defenses have been horrible. Look at it, they haven’t seen a starting D-lineman since Packers week. They haven’t seen a guy you would call an above-average interior lineman since they played the Packers.”
While we’re talking about the offense, the line deserves credit for the improvements it has made.
This is the fourth consecutive week the Bears have lined up (from left tackle to right tackle) with Charles Leno, Cody Whitehair, Sam Mustipher, Alex Bars and Germain Ifedi. Everything is starting to click on offense and Mustipher and Bars are the new guys in the equation. I turned to former Bears center Olin Kreutz, a go-to guy for intelligent offensive line discussion, to find out why he believes it’s started to fall into place (the Bears are averaging 157.3 yards rushing per game over the four games) for a group that was so maligned earlier in the season. As Kreutz said, “that’s not by accident.”
I asked him about Mustipher, who joined the team as an undrafted free agent last year and started this season on the practice squad.
“He’s a technician in every sense of the word,” Kreutz said. “He’s quick enough and strong enough and he gets movement, but his angles are perfect and he gets everybody on the right guys. You could really see it on that third-down blitz pickup that Mitch (Trubisky) threw to (David) Montgomery out in the flat (for 16 yards on third-and-4). That’s Sam organizing the blitz pickup. His angles are good. He works well with Alex and Cody, and to be honest I think Alex and Cody, even though they weren’t great centers, them playing center has helped out the line a lot because now you can tell they’re all relaying calls. They’re the epitome of being better than the sum of their parts right now.
“Bars is a really big, strong athlete so when he gets going in the right direction, guys are gonna go backward. He’s 6-6 and he’s 320 pounds and he’s a former basketball player and he’s just kind of a freak athlete. That’s why you can play him at left tackle, left guard, center, right tackle, because he can do those things. Even though his technique may not be perfect a lot of times, he gets away with it because he’s such a big, strong man. And he’s played offensive line for a long time.
“A guy who has really helped out a lot is Cole Kmet. He blocks pretty damn good at tight end. It’s so funny because it really is just that simple. They all know exactly what they want to do and they’re just doing it. They weren’t doing it before. They weren’t hitting the right angles. Linebackers were shooting the gaps and guys were free and you were like, ‘Does no one know who to block?’ The answer was yes. Obviously, the defenses have been horrible. Look at it, they haven’t seen a starting D-lineman since Packers week. They haven’t seen a guy you would call an above-average interior lineman since they played the Packers.”