Bear Digest

One Stunning Assessment of Bears Offensive Line

The Chicago Bears offensive line brought in centers Ryan Bates and Shelton Coleman but remains otherwise intact and has received a surprising grade from Pro Football Focus.

Gene Chamberlain

Chicago Bears tackle Braxton Jones approaches the dummy to throw a block at minicamp. PFF has ranked the Bears offensive line 11th overall.
Chicago Bears tackle Braxton Jones approaches the dummy to throw a block at minicamp. PFF has ranked the Bears offensive line 11th overall. / Kamil Krzaczynski-USA TODAY Sports
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Grades and offseason rankings only carry so much weight as it's on-field production actually counts the most.

However, the grades Pro Football Focus says it does are based on film from games and they produced a rather shocking result regarding the Bears. PFF has graded their offensive line the 11th best in the league and not only that, but ranked ahead of both Green Bay and Minnesota.

In their rating of offensive lines posted on July 1, PFF's Zoltán Buday discounts the fact they had problems against Green Bay's offensive line in the season finale. It's the same Packers line that helped fuel the late-season streak of three straight wins to put Green Bay in the playoffs.

"The Bears' offensive line, as it got healthy, was one of the top units in the NFL toward the second half of the 2023 season," Buday wrote.

Injury problems have hurt the Bears offensive line for two seasons. They had 18 in-season switches to their starting offensive line in those seasons, 19 counting a switch from the changeover from the 2021 line to the opening day 2022 line.

Last year, left tackle Braxton Jones missed six games on IR following neck surgery resulting from a Week 2 injury. Guard Teven Jenkins missed the season's first four games on IR with a leg injury. At the same time, guard Nate Davis missed two games due to the illness and death of his mother and four games later at midseason with an ankle injury. Former center Lucas Patrick has knee and ankle issues and also a concussion. Right tackle Darnell Wright played through a painful shoulder injury that had him wearing a sling and using one arm on many of his blocks. Former guard Cody Whitehair was benched during the season

"Center Ryan Bates is expected to complete the unit and bring it to the next level," Buday wrote.

Bates is involved in a starting battle with former Rams starter Coleman Shelton. The team also has third-year player Doug Kramer involved in this, making it a three-way situation at camp. But Kramer in the offseason was working mostly with the backup group.

The only other major acquisition for the offensive line was drafting Yale tackle Kiran Amegadjie in Round 3 but he hasn't practiced in the offseason due to rehab from quad surgery and GM Ryan Poles said he didn't anticipate the rookie would be in starting line plans this year.

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"In Braxton Jones and Darnell Wright, Chicago has a promising young offensive tackle duo," Buday wrote. "And Teven Jenkins has performed extremely well since moving to guard, earning 70.0-plus PFF overall grades in 2022 and 2023."

The Bears gave up 50 sacks or more each of the last three seasons with Justin Fields at quarterback. Last year Fields missed four starts and half of another game with an injury and while undrafted Division II rookie QB Tyson Bagent played the sack ratio was only 3.4%. It was 10.7% of pass plays for Fields, and that was his career best. It only indicates the line might be better at pass blocking than previously thought.

Earlier this offseason, the website Pro Football Network had the Bears offensive line graded 10th best, but behind every other NFC North team.

The grade constitutes an improvement of 10 spots over where PFF had the Bears line graded last year heading into the start of training camp.

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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.