Rich Campbell at the Chicago Tribune quotes Kyle Long on his struggles at right tackle:
“I had my struggles individually, and I did some things that I can keep my head up,’ he said. ‘I thought I played pretty hard. You’ve got to move on and make progress every week.”
He did, indeed. For instance, on a fourth-and-goal safety Sean Richardson was unblocked on his blitz through the line. Long took responsibility for the protection bust. He also gave up a sack to former Bear Julius Peppers. But as most people can tell he’s probably going to be pretty good at tackle eventually. Long wasn’t the problem yesterday.
Moving Long to tackle created a hole at right guard that was filled by veteran Vlad Ducasse. And Ducasse definitely ws the problem with a below average performance that was punctuated by two pre-snap penalties. Had Jordan Mills done that he would have been crucified this morning.
Putting Long at tackle didn’t solve the Bears offensive line problems. It traded one problem for another. The guess here is that we see Patrick Omameh at guard next week. We can hope he will be better. But not too much. Omameh was cut by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who have one of the worst offensive lines in football. If he didn’t fit in there, I’m having a hard time believing that he’s going to be an improvement here.