Bear Digest

Bears Offensive Line Reaches New Low According to Analytics

The nine-sack game brought the Bears offensive line down to a new low level in the view of Pro Football Focus, as Caleb Williams has been sacked 38 times this year.

Gene Chamberlain

Down goes Caleb Williams again thanks to linebacker Anfernee Jennings, and there were eight other sacks of him on Sunday.
Down goes Caleb Williams again thanks to linebacker Anfernee Jennings, and there were eight other sacks of him on Sunday. / Mike Dinovo-Imagn Images
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The team built by a general manager who was an offensive lineman reached a rather dubious milestone Sunday thanks largely to allowing the New England Patriots to sack quarterback Caleb Williams almost at will in a 19-3 loss.

Pro Football Focus this week graded the Bear offensive line 31st overall. They have now dropped a full 20 spots down from where they started this season in the PFF offensive line rankings.

The Bears managed to drop five spots since last week alone, to be next to last. Only New England's offensive line is graded lower, which seems a bit confusing considering how much better the Patriots looked last week than the Bears.

The Bears line is graded even worse than the Browns, who have allowed five more sacks (43), but have distributed the pain between three quarterbacks: Deshaun Watson (33 sacks), Jameis Winston (9 sacks) and Dorian Thompson-Robinson (1 sack). The Bears have allowed the second-most sacks (38) in the league, all of them of Williams.

Not surprisingly, reserve center and fullback Doug Kramer struggled playing left guard for the Bears last week after Teven Jenkins left with an ankle injury. PFF gave Kramer a 34.1 grade for the game, the team's lowest grade for all players. His pass-blocking grade was 11.3.

PFF deems only four of the nine sacks the Bears allowed to be directly the fault of their offensive line. But four sacks allowed was tied for the most any NFL offensive line allowed last week.


Not all the offensive line analytics news was bad for the Bears and neither is the real football news.

Matt Pryor played right tackle in the game for the first time this season and PFF graded him at 74.1 overall. He had the offensive line's highest grade.

Right now the trend is looking up for tackles Darnell Wright and Braxton Jones to return from knee injuries as both practiced Wednesday on a limited basis. No doubt this would restore some of their blocking ability.


Twitter: BearsOnSI

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

BearDigest.com publisher Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.