Bears vs Titans - what did you think?

Haven't seen much about Borom but Leatherwood & Carter definitely got some accolades which is encouraging.  I care more about OL than DL this season, given the need to evaluate Fields, and that's why I don't give a darn about Jalen Carter.  Darnell Wright is way more important to the "success" of this season than a DT would be.  Wright and Brax looked good as well which was good to see.  

Here's some REALLY good news.  Larry Borom played 41 solid snaps... almost all of them at LT in that game.  Last night I rewatched that game for the 3rd time focusing on the OL play.  Borom looked solid at LT in that game.  At least to the eye test.  But he also graded out very high by PFF (I know, not always the best source, to say the least).  He graded out 83.5 for pass protection and only allowed 1 hurry.  No sacks.  No hits.  His run blocking grade was even more impressive at 94.9.  He looks like a good combo of power and athleticism at LT.  As backups, Borom and Leatherwood look solid to me if the starters, Brax & Jenkins go down to injury.  We obviously need to see more than just 1 preseason game before we anoint those two as good backups.  But it is an encouraging start.  I think this OL coach is a keeper.  The overall blocking in that game was superb.  Yes, some breakdowns and rough plays... but overall, for a first preseason game I was so impressed.  Those dudes got out fast to the second level over and over again.  Good speed and athleticism for OL... at least I though it was impressive to watch how they got it done.  LOL I'm looking forward to that second preseason game now, bigtime :-)

I agree.  It's funny.  I have often noted over the years that QBs who are good with accuracy, can misfire with those short passes.  You'd think it would be so easy that anyone could throw those well.  It must be some kind of mechanics issue that makes short passes more difficult than they look to be.  But yeah, Fields needs to get that fixed.

I agree it's backups.  But you can't imagine how concerned I have been over our depth going into this season.  I was so impressed with our depth on the OL that was showcased in this game.  But I was relieved to see the backups perform as well as they did.  The execution was really solid.  In other words, we seem to have guys who can perform as well as you could expect backups to perform if they are needed to replace a starter.  Some of them have starting experience too.  I credit the Bears OL coach for developing these young guys well.  And this is year-2 in this zone blocking scheme... so hopefully they are settling into running these blocking schemes better execution-wise.  Also, they blocked well as a unit adjusting to D pressure and blocking responsibilities.  That's something that really sucked last year and D guys were getting untouched at times - with confusion as to OL adjustments to pick up these guys.  So much improvement.