Today we pick up where we left off yesterday as we break down Saturday’s offensive standouts. Without further ado, let’s dive in.
Editor’s Note: Check back with this article throughout the day — as I produce more All-22 cutups, I’ll update this article to include more analysis
Carter Cruises:
On a day where Justin Fields didn’t throw an incomplete pass and DJ Moore scored his first touchdown in Chicago, who would’ve guessed that the man wearing #69 would’ve been one of the brightest stars on the offense? Ja’Tyre Carter showed off great footwork in both the run and pass game, great hand usage as a pass-protector, and an extra helping of violence as a combo blocker that led to a few destructive finishes.
Nothing dismantles an NFL offense like injuries on the offensive line, so a depth lineman like Carter playing well is the best possible thing that could’ve happened over the weekend. Time will tell if his positive play was a product of legitimate growth as a player (rather than a product of playing the Titans 2nd & 3rd string), but his game against Tennessee was a drastic step up from his late-year showing and that’s exactly what you want to see out of a second-year player.
Ja'Tyre Carter, you have my attention!
The #Bears kept Carter, a 7th round pick, on the 53-man roster throughout 2022 and he showed us why on Saturday. He's got good feet that create strength in the run game and long arms that latch well in pass pro. Footwork in pass pro looks… pic.twitter.com/3Rxyk3DDlZ
Editor’s Note: In the future, we’ll make have a GameDay post and a Postgame post of some sort — it’s preseason for all of us, and those two articles totally slipped my mind. Thank you for bearing with us as we transition!
It’s official: The 2023 Chicago Bears are undefeated!
Joking aside, the Bears got their first taste of 2023 football as they took on the Tennessee Titans last Saturday and plenty of players showed out for Chicago as they did. The Bears’ offensive starters scored easily on their only two drives (which somehow still set Twitter aflame) and the defense recovered from giving up the opening touchdown to muster 8 sacks, 4 takeaways, and a pesky performance overall.
To break down everything that happened in one article would create an illegible beast, so in an effort to keep things clean we’re going to split the analysis across Monday and Tuesday — we’ll start today with the Defense and continue with the Offense tomorrow.
Editor’s Note: Check back with this article throughout the day — as I produce more All-22 cutups, I’ll update this article to include more analysis
Saturday’s Standouts:
Rookie CB Tyrique Stevenson had as impressive a debut as a rookie could have, especially given that the Bears played so much vanilla Cover 2 and Cover 3 that any outside CB would’ve struggled to shine. Last week on DBB we dove deep into Stevenson’s toolkit, and you could already see a notable improvement in his tackling form on Saturday — despite often needing to charge downhill and make tackles underneath, he completed every tackle he attempted, which is saying something when you end the day with 7 solo tackles!
Stevenson received a warm welcome to the NFL in only his first play, but I loved the resiliency he displayed throughout the rest of the half. He set the edge in the run game, he played sticky in limited man coverage reps, and gave Bears fans plenty to get excited about in his debut action. I love this kid & can’t wait to watch his growth.
Welcome to the NFL, Rookie!
The big gain that #Bears CB Tyrique Stevenson allowed came on a Titans mid-play adjustment — Stevenson blanketed his man early (even cutting in front for the ball) but never saw the WR's spin-to-space coming.
This is not in bad faith. This is not a vain attempt at schadenfreude.
I dove into Jordan Love’s film over the last few months and came to a resounding conclusion: Jordan Love is better than some Bears fans want to believe, and he exhibits a lot of the hallmark traits of a good West Coast quarterback.
He’s got a great sense of timing as a dropback passer, hitting the back of his drop and delivering the ball well with a big arm that lets him attack deep out routes as well as the quick release needed to stay efficient on timing routes over the middle. His years on the bench shine through via quick decision-making, and he clearly trusts his offensive system enough to attack throwing windows that other young QBs simply won’t attack.
In effect, Jordan Love has the tools to be a solid NFL Quarterback, but he’s got a problem — the offensive pass-catchers Green Bay has put around him are soyoung that I struggle to imagine the Packers, a team that may have two first round picks in the QB-heavy 2024 draft, sticking with Love past the 2024 bridge extension he just signed.
Green Bay’s biggest issue is that they purged all of their offensive ‘glue guys’ at once this offseason:
Allen Lazard was a key run-blocker and the primary X-receiver within the Packers’ system
Robert Tonyan was a reliable weapon in late-down situations and one of the twin engines of the Packers 12-personnel looks
Marcedes Lewis was far and away the best run and pass blocking TE on the roster (and the other twin engine of 12-personnel)
And Randall Cobb, though only a role player, knew the Packers’ system well and connected with Rodgers constantly on key downs
These 4 veterans accounted for:
44% of the Packers’ 2022 receiving yardage
41.5% of their 2022 targets
198 total games of Packers experience
And in their departure Matt LaFleur said goodbye to the final 4 skill players he had built the Packers’ offense with when he joined the team in 2019.
Replacing that production & experience wouldn’t be an easy feat for any organization, but the Packers chose to fill the vets’ shoes in as extreme a way as you could’ve imagined — they replaced all 4 players with rookies, and there’s no set of players more inconsistent in the NFL than 1st year starters.
I like a lot of the players Green Bay selected in their 2023 draft class, namely Michigan State WR Jayden Reed and South Dakota State University TE Tucker Kraft, but every young player is going to go through rookie growing pains within next year’s Packers offense and when the pass-catchers make mistakes I think Jordan Love will (unfairly) get handed the blame.
Did Reed run the wrong route? No, Jordan Love just didn’t throw an accurate ball.
Should that route have been run at 7 yards rather than the 5.5 yards Musgrave cut at? No, Jordan Love just missed him.
Every offensive failure will somehow bubble back to the 1st year starter replacing a first-ballot Hall of Famer, and at the end of the year Green Bay fans will ‘suddenly’ realize that packaging their 2024 first round picks together for a new rookie Quarterback makes more financial sense than waiting until the end of the 2024 season to either draft a new rookie QB or extend extending Love again.
I walk through all of this and more in the video below, complete with some of the best film-work I’ve ever done at this point in my career — if you’ve got a few minutes on this fine Friday, I highly recommend it! But if not, I’d love to hear your take all the same.
Devin Hester was my first favorite Bears player growing up, and as a young boy watching Bears games with my dad Hester became the icon that represented exactly why, no matter the score, we never gave up on a game until the final whistle blew.
It didn’t matter if our Quarterback had turned the ball over 6 times, and it didn’t matter if the offense couldn’t get a first down, because the Bears’ defense would eventually force a punt and Devin would get us the points back. Truly, he was ridiculous — the league had never seen someone like him, and with the changes made to returning rules the league likely never will again.
Now that we’re just a few days away from the Bears’ first preseason game, take a day to trek down memory lane and remember one of the most sensational rookie seasons ever played in a Bears’ uniform — it’s absolutely wild to think that the organization spent a 2nd round pick on a Return Specialist (I learned that today, for all these years I assumed he must’ve been a 4th or 5th round pick), but suffice to say they got everything they could’ve hoped for from him and more.
Who will be the Bears’ next sensational rookie? If we’re lucky, we’ll get a clue on Saturday. But until then, sit back and remember the unbelievable moments that ‘Anytime’ Devin Hester brought fans around the world. Truly, he was ridiculous.
Happy birthday to Devin Hester, the Greatest Return Man to Ever Do It — and future Hall of Famer. pic.twitter.com/ielqA2VNXZ
As Saturday’s preseason game approaches, the position battles across Chicago’s roster are bound to heat up — and no battle is burning fiercer at the moment than Tyrique Stevenson’s duel with Terell Smith for the starting Cornerback spot across from Jaylon Johnson.
The two long, physical corners approach the position with very different styles and draft pedigrees — Stevenson, picked at #56 in a trade-up with Jacksonville, stood out at the Senior Bowl due to his skills as a man cover corner. With explosion in each step, firm hands, and a quick trigger for the football, Stevenson controlled man coverage matchups throughout his time in both Mobile and Miami while still showing enough awareness in zone coverage (especially as a flat defender) to make sure you knew he could handle his assignments.
Smith (pick #164), on the other hand, stands out for his work as a zone defender — while not the most explosive corner in America, Smith manages the spatial relationship between him and his WRs exceptionally well. He’s not as quick when triggering downhill and he lacks the natural explosion that Stevenson possesses, but his awareness as a DB is advanced enough that I’m not surprised the Bears tried him at Safety. For all we know, that may still be part of the Bears’ plan for Smith.
Given the daily battle for the starting spot, the next 3 Saturdays could play a pivotal role in deciding the Bears’ Week 1 starter. On account of that, I’ve pulled together the post-draft film reels I made covering Tyrique Stevenson to help you get to know the young Bears’ corner before he suits up this weekend. Check them out and let me know what you think!
Reel 1: Stevenson has the size, speed, and versatility to thrive in both Man and Zone coverage, making him a nice fit within the Bears’ defense. He plays an aggressive style of football that should help him challenge QBs and WRs alike.
Today I want to talk about Darnell Wright, but before we get started I want to show you a clip from the 2021 preseason — specifically, pay attention to the Lions’ RT #58. Watch his hands, his feet, and his overall demeanor on this snap.
That’s now-Pro-Bowler Penei Sewell, who had one of the worst preseasons in recent memory immediately after getting drafted #7 overall in the 2021 draft. In this clip, you can see that his initial footwork is off (he false-steps badly at the snap), he misses his punch, and his feet get so tangled as he tries to recover that he can’t stop his EDGE rusher from easily turning the corner and hammering his QB.
Sewell’s entire preseason was U-G-L-Y. If you believe in PFF Grades, they marked him as a 38.6 overall grade & a 27.0 pass-block grade across the preseason (remember, 60 is their replacement-level benchmark), so it wasn’t an issue of a single bad rep. Sewell clearly wasn’t comfortable at Right Tackle early and, in a cruel NFL filled with professional football players that can’t afford to miss chances at production, that discomfort led to hesitancy and that hesitancy led to defeat all too often.
What did this mean for Sewell’s rookie season? Better yet, what has this meant for his career so far? In short, absolutelynothing — with that in mind, I want to caution Bears fans against overreacting to tenth overall pick Darnell Wright’s play this weekend, especially if he doesn’t immediately look like an All-Pro.
Football is back this weekend, baby! Thank goodness!
Since it’s impossible for us to know what players & teams are working on during camp sessions, “evaluating” the videos we see from practice (especially the videos from practices without pads) feels rather silly. Thus, after reading Training Camp reports for ~2 weeks, I’m ready to watch downs where the stats get recorded.
The Preseason may not count towards the Bears’ overall record, but it’s full of:
Padded Reps
In a game-like setting
Where we can assume that players all over the roster are going to try their best to win each down (as opposed to workshopping new techniques that they haven’t yet readied via practice)
That’s not a perfect recipe for glimpsing the future of the 2023 Bears’ season, but it should be more than the scraps we get through Twitter X on the day-to-day.
The players seem to take the preseason seriously (well, as seriously as you can take a team you aren’t game-planning for) as evidenced by the comfortable play of QBs like Patrick Mahomes preseason (222 yards and 3 TDs while completing 18 passes on 26 attempts), Tua Tagovailoa (179 yards and 1 TD while completing 15 passes on 16 attempts), Geno Smith (256 yards and 0 TDs while completing 39 passes on 45 attempts), and plenty of other QBs where strong preseason showings very quietly signaled good things to come.
Don’t take the above paragraph too seriously, preseason performance certainly isn’t a sure thing, but this time of year is all about fun anyways — let’s have some this weekend!
I can’t wait to see what surprises Saturday afternoon has for us. Will Chase Claypool carry his camp dominance into the game? If the starters don’t play, does that mean multiple series of Tyler Scott, Ja’Tyre Carter, and other young guns? At which position (and when in the game) will Terell Smith get his first reps? My mind is racing just thinking about the possibilities.
I won’t mince words: with Yannick Ngakoue now signed in Chicago, the Bears’ defense is officially complete.
They may not end up as the NFL’s best defense in 2023, but with a pass-rusher that can threaten the edge on 3rd downs the Bears have a reliable path towards getting off the field on defense. Ngakoue brings speed and a variety of pass rush moves to Chicago’s EDGE room, and every one of them will be needed throughout the 2023 season.
Yannick’s pass-rushing production speaks for itself — with 9.5 sacks last year, 19.5 sacks over the last two years, he’s a consistent threat on the edge of a defense.
But how does he win? What tools does he use to get the better of the Offensive Tackles he faces? Why was he a Free Agent for so long? What drawbacks does he bring with him to the Bears’ defense?
I dove into Ngakoue’s tape in an effort to answer all of those questions and more and threw together a short breakdown video — check it out and let me know what you think!
Here’s my issue: I don’t want to wet blanket everyone else’s wet blanket attitude, but we’re talking about football practice. This builds on Tuesday’s article, but the toughest part about this time of year is how much we, as outside observers, could never know about what’s going on in practice.
Is Justin Fields working with new throwing mechanics for the first time? Is Fields going out of his way to force tighter-window throws than usual in effort to get comfortable on gotta-have-it throwing downs? Would he have attempted these throws if he wasn’t wearing his red jersey? If he would’ve, does that make the practice picks (that many NFL pundits think are a consistent sign of pushing limits in Training Camp) better or worse?
Personally, this week has felt full of unnecessary hand-wringing by anxious Bears fans — I get it, we’re all dying to know whether Justin Fields has taken that elusive QB “next step” or not, but unfortunately we’re going to see our answer displayed on the practice field over the next few weeks.
Procedurally, I like hearing that the Bears are working Fields as a pure passer (sounds as if they aren’t letting him scramble in 11-on-11 or 7-on-7 drills and the defense isn’t leaving a spy to cover him, which tests Fields’ arm as much as possible) and trust that they’re doing all they can to help him succeed at all levels. Whether he does or not is up to him.
In the meantime, I treated myself to a bit more of DJ Moore’s tape and had a lot of fun digging up gems. Here’s a few of my favorites:
1. DJ Moore is the whole package as a WR, and on this route he:
Beats his CB across his face
Powers through contact as he releases
Bursts downfield before recognizing the pass is underthrown
Stiff-arms his DB downfield to subtly push off and create a football-sized bucket for Darnold to throw into, which he collects for the TD.
Today I want to take a closer look at play caller Luke Getsy to see what we can learn about how he masked and/or contributed to Chicago’s struggles. With that in mind, I looked at how Chicago’s play calling compared to the rest of the NFL at difference down and distance scenarios. All statistics are from Pro Football Reference’s Game Play Finder.
Two quick important notes:
In order to keep game situation from skewing the data, I only looked at the first three quarters.
I also explored data only between the 20s to avoid field position impacting the play calls and how defenses played.
1st Down
Let’s start with a look at 1st down, which is about the most neutral situation an offense can be in. The table below shows how frequently and effectively the Bears ran and passed the ball compared to their NFL peers. Chicago’s rank is shown, and any values in the top 25% are highlighted in green, while those in the bottom 25% are highlighted in red.
