Prior days explored the tackles and guards, and today will focus on center, with a bonus glance at tight end and wide receiver blocking.

Center

Let’s start with center, the last position on the offensive line and an area that has been held down exclusively by Sam Mustipher for the last two seasons.

Pass Blocking

The table below shows how Mustipher held up in pass protection compared to the 39 centers around the NFL who had at least 200 pass blocking snaps. All data is from Pro Football Focus (PFF), and true pass sets are intended to remove plays designed to minimize the pass rush, such as screens, play action, and rollout. Cells highlighted in green indicate a rank in the top 25%, while red indicates the bottom 25%.

There’s really only one takeaway here: Sam Mustipher is awful in pass protection. Every column that’s not red just missed the cutoff. (Every Bears fan already knows this, so I don’t think we’re breaking any new ground.)

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I wish people would go back and look at what the “camp stories” were in years past and notice how none of them correlate to anything that subsequently happens in the regular season.

• Teven Jenkins said, “I want to be here in Chicago, so I’m playing wherever they want me to play.” This is absolutely the best-case scenario for the team. Jenkins is talented and the Bears don’t have a ton of talent along their offensive line.
• Liked this Tweet from Kevin Fishbain: “Bears OC Luke Getsy on rookie LT Braxton Jones: “You get into the pads and there was zero intimidation. Going against Robert Quinn your very first one-on-one pass rush, right? It’s an intimidating thing. He stepped up and did a great job. He’s answered the bell.” If the Bears are going with their best five up front, Braxton will be in that group.
• Injuries to N’Keal Harry and Byron Pringle. Not good. The Harry injury sounds somewhat serious. (I think it was unlikely Harry was going to play a significant role in 2022 anyway but he at least provided something to watch in the practice games upcoming.)

Thoughts on “Man Caves”

I don’t get ’em. Never have.

The way I understand the man cave is you take a room of your house, usually in the basement, put a bunch of televisions in there, cover the walls with your memorabilia, and that’s where you go watch sports.

My first question is, why is this necessary? Why can’t you just watch sports on the same television you watch Turner Classic Movies? And what happens to the room when sports are not on? Is it the room empty? Isn’t that a massive waste of space?

But my other problem might be that I don’t have any memorabilia. I find memorabilia, quite honestly, stupid. Other than the original Super Bowl Shuffle album and my childhood Jim McMahon shirt, every other thing I have with Chicago Bears on it was given to me. I couldn’t fill the shelf in a linen closet with memorabilia, let alone a cave.

If you have to create a space in your house to get away from other people and just watch sports, why not just go to a sports bar? At least then you have someone else serving you the beer and food and there’s no clean up. Hell, you might even meet another likeminded human being and strike up one of those friendships people keep talking about.

Even the word “cave” denotes the neanderthal, man at his most primitive, reducing the (male) sports fan to his most base self. I must have own room to yell about football. Woman, you stay upstairs! One of the things I have cherished about my years at Josie Woods with Maciej, Reverend Dave, Steph, etc. is the conversations in the commercial breaks about soccer, politics, food, movies, whatever. If I ever had a “cave” in my apartment, I’d use the massive television to screen The Umbrellas of Cherbourg for my friends.