Wednesday, February 15, 2012

The Thrillionaire: Chicago Bears Offensive Line Analysis


It’s no secret that the Bear’s biggest flaw is their offensive line’s
lack of ability
. Sure it could be said that Chicago was able to make
changes, and improve their play during the course of the season.
However I’m not sure that the line did improve, rather it was Cutler’s
game management that masked the poor play.

During the first five games of the season the Bears offensive line allowed 18 sacks. Then in the fifth game of the season Cutler had enough and famously cussed out Martz, and abandoned his play 
call. Over the next 4 games Chicago
changed up the offensive philosophy, and passing game plan closely
resembled roshambo (1,2,3 shoot) thereby allowing Cutler to get rid of
the football before the immanent pressure was allowed 
to reach him. A
philosophy that only allowed 4 sacks over 4 games. Then, Cutler broke
his thumb and in comes Caleb Hanie. Martz reverts back to the 5-7
step drops that plagued our stagnant offense, and over the last 7
games the Bears allowed over 25more sacks (7 in a game… twice).
In last year’s shortened offseason, the Bears wanted to address their
offensive line issues. So they got rid of Greg Olsen (our best
receiver) to find a more blocking friendly tight end, let go of
captain Olin Kruetz, and drafted a tackle Gabe Carimi with their first
round draft pick. The end result was the offensive line looked like
Madonna’s vaginal rejuvenation surgery. Sure you made some
improvements visually, but the main problem’s still stand. The 4
sacks over 4 games stat prior to Cutler’s thumb injury looks like a
pretty young flower, however at the core you’re stuck with a cobwebbed
chalkboard at the bottom of an abandoned coalmine. The free agency
market for offensive linemen is bare my friends, and we’re putting our
offensive faith, in a man who’s partially responsible for our
shortcomings.

Tice, formerly the offensive line coach, is now our offensive
coordinator (a job he has never had before)
. But I’m going to look on
the bright side. The secret to any offense’s success: continuity.
Most upper echelon NFL teams will be heading into the 2012-2013 season
having had the same offensive coordinator for 3 or more years. Jay
Cutler is about to have his fourth new offensive coordinator in 5
years with the bears
. At least Jay (most likely) won’t have to spend
another offseason learning new terminology. Additionally, Tice like
Cutler, is not a proponent of the 5-7 step drop, and is a fan of the
max protect passing offense. So I look for improvement this year
offensively, mainly due to a gameplan that should be built around the
skillset of a healthy Cutler. Essentially it’ll be more in spite of
the coaching changes than because of.

Next: Stayed tuned for my Round 1 NFL MOCK DRAFT 1.0!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Are you franchising Forte?

thethrillionaire said...

I think they will if it comes down to it. I'd personally like them to avoid it. I don't see a deal getting done over the weekend, so I'm afraid its unavoidable. As much as Forte doesn't want them to apply the tag, the team can franchise him with the leverage that their intent is to buy time for the two sides to come to an agreement on a long term deal. If they apply the tag and end up with a one year dear, then I forsee an absolute disaster on our hands.