Bears O-Line, They Are Who We Thought They Were

That was my first thought after watching the Bears first preseason game.  I’m not one to overreact to preseason games, especially the first one when four of our best players didn’t even sniff the field, but our offensive line continues to unimpress.  J’Marcus Webb played well into the fourth quarter and had a false start and gave up a sack.  Chris Spencer gave up a sack in limited action.  UDFA James Brown, a player I’m admittedly a fan of, played very poorly at LT in the end of the 4^th quarter giving up one sack and being at least partially to blame for another one.  RT Gabe Carimi surprisingly failed to generate any push in the running game while he was in.  In general, the interior of the line allowed pressure up the middle repeatedly.  All in all, it was one preseason game.  The fact remains though, that they’ve thus far given me no reason to believe they’ll be anything but bad this season.  Until they do, I’ll be working with that assumption.

Other notes from the first game:

Shea McClellin looked ok.  He flashed his speed and relentlessness in getting his first sack as a pro.  He did, however, get run over on the Broncos first touchdown and he clearly needs to play with better pad level in the running game.  He also needs to develop counter moves to beat O-linemen, but that will expectedly take some time and be a work in progress.  Summary:  he has good speed, a high motor and struggles in the running game.  He too is what we thought he was, at least for now.

Alshon Jeffery played pretty well.  He used his size well and displayed good hands.  He needs to continue to use his hands better to beat press coverage, but he looks like he could be a contributor sooner rather than later.

Major Wright made an interception on a tipped pass, but was later removed due to a hamstring issue.  His durability continues to be a concern.

I was hoping to see more of Evan Rodriguez, but most of his usefulness during the season will be through personnel mismatches.  The Bears will achieve this by moving him around from as in-line tight end to the slot to H-back, etc.  Since the Bears won’t gameplan until the third preseason game (and even then in a limited capacity), I don’t expect to know exactly how (or how much) we’ll utilize him until the season starts.

In the end, it was just the first preseason game.  It was quite ugly, but that is to be expected when Jay Cutler, Matt Forte, Brian Urlacher and Julius Peppers all sit out.  The most important outcome was that nobody was injured and the Bears should’ve gotten some good film to look at and work off of as they prepare for next week’s game in Washington.