Beating Down Bears Offensive Linemen

The offseason criticism of the Bears offensive line has been non-stop and with a week and a half until training camp it doesn't seem likely to stop.

USA Today

Apparently the Bears offensive line must hope the sum of the parts is greater than the individual players.

The offensive line has been given a major slap in the face by Pro Football Focus in preseason assessment while ESPN.com did them no real favors, either.

Pro Football Focus ranked the top 32 players at each position in the league and the Bears had only two offensive linemen who rated in the top 32. Only one of those rankings could have been considered a compliment and it's for a player who has never even played his position in the past.

Bears guard James Daniels was ranked the 23rd best guard by PFF, which sounds like he's at least in the top half of the league. However, he's playing this year at a position he's never played, right guard.

Talking about Daniels' play last year, PFF said "Chicago's offensive line fell to pieces in 2020 and it was dragging the play of Daniels down with it before injury added to its toll, as well."

This might be one of the least informed of many out-of-town stupid comments PFF has ever made.

Daniels went out for the year in the fifth game of the year. The offense was cruising then compared to what happened after his injury and others. The line play didn't drag down Daniels' play at all in the first five games. When Daniels went out, the Bears were 4-1 on the year. They came back with a win the week after Daniels left, as well.

It was after Week 5 when the disaster of COVID-19 and injuries really took a toll. By then, Daniels was long gone.

It's good for the Bears at least that Daniels is regarded this high. However, it's uncertain where all this love for Daniels is coming from because they've never given him an overall grade higher than 69.9 (2019). Last year they had him at 65.8, which was barely above where they had Germain Ifedi (65.5).

That was the good news.

The bad news for the Bears was they didn't have Cody Whitehair ranked in the top 32 at guard.

They also have rated Sam Mustipher as the 28th best center. Considering there are only 32 starting centers, this would not be a compliment.

Neither of their tackles, rookie Teven Jenkins nor Ifedi, were in the top 32, either.

The slam by ESPN was from Seth Walder when he did the annual pass block win rate travesty. It's an undependable metric at best.

They projected the Bears at 57% or 19th overall. Actually, 19th isn't too bad considering the changes they've made on the line and taking into account that last year they finished tied for 17th/18th in sacks allowed anyway.

They had Mustipher ranked 30th and when Whitehair played center he was ranked 28th. Ifedi was 62nd last year among their guards, but isn't a guard. With Jenkins thrown into the mix, how they've come up with a percentage or grade at all is uncertain at best. It's a total guess.

Pass block or pass rush win rate are metrics few in Chicago will pay much attention to now after it was claimed Robert Quinn was the best in the league at pass rush win rate, and he came to Chicago and produced two sacks.

The only certainty for this season from all of the critiques and analysis is the Bears offensive line has plenty of incentive from all of the slights they've received this offseason.

Incentive doesn't build wins, though. It only provides fuel.

Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven