Bear(ing) the News – A Chicago Bears Blog

Brad Biggs at the Chicago Tribune says that if the Bears are going to make second round James Daniels the starting center, they need to do it now.

It also will be the exhibition game in which the starters get the most action, likely playing into the third quarter. So if Daniels is ready, or if the coaches believe he’s close to ready, the time to promote him is now so he can get some work with quarterback Mitch Trubisky.

It’s sure to be a topic of discussion, whether or not the Bears want to hear it, especially after a shotgun snap from Cody Whitehair went through Trubisky’s hands and led to a safety in the first quarter. That snap, however, was fine, and the quarterback admitted afterward he should have caught it.

It is entirely possible that Daniels is the center of the future for the Bears.  But I doubt that they are thinking about starting him right now.  Not yet.

Whitehair has had the occasional bad snap dating back to when he was a rookie and took over the position but otherwise he’s been an excellent center.

When it comes to the offensive line, the ultimate goal is to get your best five guys on the field in some capacity. Biggs didn’t say it outright but surely in the back of his head he’s wondering, as I am, whether the Bears are sure that Eric Kush is one of those guys.

The Bears have said that they like Kush and up until now, their actions have backed that up as he has been the unquestioned starter at left guard since camp opened. But last night the Bears gave a series in the first quarter to Earl Watford, opening the door to the hint of the possibility that they are at least thinking about other possibilities at the position. It’s worth noting, however, that Kush went right back in on the next series.

The Bears drafted Daniels, a very good college center, in the second round. They made it clear when they did so that they were hoping he would compete at left guard.  This was logical in that its easier to learn to play guard in the NFL and breaking him in there, then moving him to center, where other responsibilities like making the line calls become important, later on.

In order to play guard, though, he was going to have to gain weight. The 6-foot-4 Daniels is listed on the Bears website at 295 pounds, which would be small for an NFL guard. Daniels says that he weighs 310 but many would dispute that looking at him. Daniels is only 20 years old and he can certainly grow into his frame, especially after an offseason in the weight room. But for now the Bears have evidently concluded that he’s a center. He has performed well in the last two preseason games there with the second string.

The guess here is that the Bears don’t want Daniels starting this year. They’ve put him in as the back up center to allow him to learn behind Whitehair and that they have concluded that there are other answers at starting left guard. Daniel’s time is probably going to come next year and his future could be either at center or guard with Whitehair manning the position Daniels doesn’t occupy.

Rich Campbell at the Chicago Tribune explains Leonard Floyd‘s further evolution this season:

“[Floyd] recently dug into his game video archive.

“I … wanted to go back and grab something that I did consistently,” he explained.

Floyd’s search took him back three seasons to his decorated career at Georgia. Between all the snaps on which he dropped into coverage, Floyd recognized he had pass-rush success using an inside move, not just an outside speed rush.

Ummm… shouldn’t his coaches have noticed that a long time ago?

Floyd had some notable success with the move in his brief playing time in the Aug. 9 exhibition game against the Bengals.

Brandon Staley is the Bears outside linebackers coach but its well known that Vic Fangio likes to coach them himself.  Fangio, however, has a lot on his plate as the defensive coordinator and its fair to say he can’t devote all of his attention to coaching the players at this one position.

Either way, you’d think someone on the coaching long before this would have looked at the  video and said “Hey, he’s always moving to the outside”.  Instead, its something Floyd had to figure out himself by going back to look at college tape when, presumably, someone taught him how to be a more complete rusher, at least in terms of this particular aspect of his game.

It looks to me like somebody may have dropped the ball here.

Steve Rosenbloom at the Chicago Tribune on the consequences of Roquon Smith’s holdout:

“[A]fter missing all of Bourbonnais and two practice games, the question becomes this:

“How far behind is Smith?

“The answer can be only this:

“It depends on how quick a study he is and how fit he is to withstand the rigors of NFL practices.”

No amount of study will get back what Smith has lost. Most of playing middle linebacker is quickly reading the play and reacting. Just determining whether its a run or a pass is a huge issue that must be resolved from the look of the play and seeing way the it develops. The decisions are made in much less than a second.

It helps to have good instincts but those instincts are all based upon recognition. That recognition only comes through repetition and experience. The loss of almost a month of those reps is something Smith will never get back. And no matter how good he is this year the fact will remain that he could have been better for having had them.

Rich Campbell at the Chicago Tribune on what the Bears running game will look like:

“Power blocking. Pulling guards. This isn’t the sideline-to-sideline outside zone blocking scheme the Bears ran the last three seasons. Yes, the Chiefs incorporated that into their repertoire with Andy Reid as coach and [new Bears head coach Matt] Nagy as coordinator, but they ran more inside zone and more power than the Bears have.”

“’Schematically, it’s great,’ Bears center Cody Whitehair said. ’The thing you’re going to see a lot more of is physicality up front. More downhill blocks. And just guys that are not going to beat themselves. We’re going to come off the ball and really maul guys.”’

This all sounds great, especially to old school guys like me. But the Bears have been drafting linemen to run outside zone plays and power football is a different game. How this adjustment goes as the new season progresses is going to be an issue.

Another significant issue is running back Jordan Howard, who thrived in the Dowell Loggains/John Fox offense his first two years with good patience and excellent vision. How he adjusts to the new scheme is going to be critically important. Things are going to look different and the rhythm of the play once he has the ball in his hands is going to vary depending on what the offense is doing and how they are blocking the play.

One good thing for Howard and the other Bears personnel – he’s excellent running out of the shot gun and indications are, as Campbell points out, that they’re going to be running out of it a lot. The Kansas City offense ran out of the formation 72% of the time.

Trubisky also was obviously more comfortable in the shot gun of his college days last year even as Fox tried to force him to throw more and more from the pocket in the typical drop back manner. I would look for both Trubisky and Howard to be far more comfortable this year as their strengths in this area seems to fit Nagy’s philosophy.

All in all the adjustments this year are going to be interesting all over the offensive side of the ball. Fans will add the ones here to their list of things to watch.

Dan Durkin at The Athletic gives fans reasons to be optimistic in 2018:

“Vic’s vision and voice — [New head coach Matt] Nagy’s singular focus is installing his offense, so he’s handed over control to [defensive coordinator Vic] Fangio. Considering how well the defense played last season, despite minimal help from the offense in terms of points and time of possession, keeping things the same on defense was a wise decision. [Former head coach John] Fox was a defensive-minded coach who reportedly didn’t always see eye-to-eye with Fangio. With Fox fleeing, that allows Fangio to scheme and gameplan how he wants and be the single voice in defensive meetings and film sessions. That’s a win for the side of the ball most ready to compete.”

I’m not so sure dismissing Fox’s contribution on defense is entirely right here. I can recall former head coach Lovie Smith allowing defensive coordinator Ron Rivera to depart after the Bears last Super Bowl appearance. The defense that year was outstanding but Smith didn’t like compromising on his game plans and resented Rivera’s input. Instead of viewing the situation as the positive which it undoubtedly was – a situation where creative tension resulted in outstanding performance on all sides – Smith chose to view Rivera as challenging his authority. Smith brought in his own yes men at defensive coordinator after that and his defenses were arguably never quite as good for the loss.

I’m not saying the situation is quite the same here. Fangio, himself, said that he virtually always got his way last year when he and Fox clashed. That wouldn’t be too surprising given Fox’s evident tendency to let coaches do their jobs as long as they got results. Nevertheless, it will be interesting to see if the absence of input from Fox this year will have an effect on the defense.

Kevin Fishbain at The Athletic gives fans reasons to be optimistic in 2018:

“The duo inside… — Injuries to [Danny Trevathan and Jerrell Freeman], suspensions and Freeman’s subsequent release put the Bears in position to add [Roquon] Smith, the most instinctive player in the draft who brings speed and playmaking to the middle of the defense. He’ll be paired with a healthy Trevathan, who has been an impact player against both the run and pass when on the field. He’ll be motivated to prove he’s worthy of sticking around in 2019 for the last year of his contract with fourth-rounder Joel Iyiegbuniwe looming. There’s a lot more speed in the middle of the field to bring down the ball carrier or run with tight ends up the seam, and the instincts the two starters possess should lead to more takeaways, a number the Bears still have to increase. Trevathan and Smith form one of the better inside linebacker pairings in the league.”

I’m a little surprised no mention was made here of Nick Kwiatkoski. I’d be more than a little surprised if Kwiatkoski wasn’t a factor at inside linebacker, especially early in Smith’s rookie season.

Kwiatkoski had a sneaky good year in 2017. Pro Football Focus had the 2016 fourth rounder rated very highly amongst other players at inside linebacker. They ranked him third in the NFL in run-stop percentage and he was fourth-best in pass-rush productivity.

“Kwiatkoski also wasn’t tagged for a missed tackle against the run all season. He still has to share time on the field with Danny Trevathan and newly-drafted Roquan Smith, but should be able to capitalize on a great sophomore year after being drafted in the fourth round from West Virginia in 2016. Overall, Kwiatoski was graded as the NFL’s 12th best inside linebacker, higher than both Spaight and Hitchens.

“His 21.0 pass-rush productivity ranked fourth and came on the heels of his rookie season in which he ranked 10th in the same category in 2016.”

The Bears probably wouldn’t have picked both Smith and Iyiegbuniwe if they were totally satisfied with Kwiatkoski. My guess is that, as was the case with safety Adrian Amos, PFF rated Kwiatkoski more on whether he did his job well last year over whether he was a high impact player on the field.

Smith is, of course, going to be given every chance to show he brings that high impact. Nevertheless, I think it would be a mistake to ignore his strengths in terms of what he adds to the roster, at least until we see if Iyiegbuniwe has what it takes to replace his solid play on the field. My guess is that we’ll see a lot of Kwiatkoski before the season is over.