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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Yesterday, we explored the tackles, where Braxton Jones looks like a solid starter. Today, we will look at the guards.

Pass Blocking

The Bears had four guards play meaningful snaps last year, and the table below shows how they held up in pass protection compared to the 77 guards around the NFL who had at least 200 pass blocking snaps (Lucas Patrick did not have enough snaps to qualify, so his ranks are where he would have fit if he did). 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 they ranked in the top 25%, while red indicates the bottom 25%.

A few thoughts:

• Like we saw with the tackles, the Bears minimized the amount of true pass sets in order to protect an offensive line that they didn’t trust to hold up in protection. And like we saw with tackles, they generally had good reason not to trust the line, as there’s a whole lot of red and not a lot of green in this chart.
• Looking at individual players, the top three aren’t too bad. Nobody really stands out as being all that good, but they’re mostly around average to maybe a bit below average.
• Lucas Patrick, on the other hand, was horrible. I know he struggled through injuries last year, but he was legitimately one of the worst guards in the NFL.

Teven Jenkins got a lot of hype from Bears fans last year, but he seemed to struggle a bit as a pass protector, especially in true pass sets. Of course, it was his first season as a starter, so it’s possible that he improved as the season went on, like we saw from Braxton Jones yesterday. The table below looks at his performance when splitting the season into four-game intervals. Jenkins got hurt during the season in 2022, so he only played five games from Week 9 on, and those are all put into one sample.

Here you can see that some improvement was made as a pass protector, at least based on PFF’s grades. This is especially evident in the true pass sets, which is where Jenkins most struggled. Hopefully that progress can continue going forward.

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Free agency is right around the corner, and the Bears have money to spend. In order to best understand which positions they need to prioritize, it helps to examine who they have coming back. I already did that at both defensive end and defensive tackle, and this week the focus shifts to the offensive line. That starts today with a look at the tackles.

Pass Blocking

The Bears had three offensive tackles play meaningful snaps last year, and the table below shows how they held up in pass protection compared to the 79 tackles 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 they ranked in the top 25%, while red indicates the bottom 25%.

A few thoughts:

• The first thing to notice is that the Bears utilized true pass sets at among the lowest rate of any NFL team last year. This indicates the lack of trust they had in their offensive line. To think of it another way, the Bears helped their offensive line in pass protection more than pretty much any NFL team.
• The rest of the data makes it pretty clear why the Bears didn’t trust their tackles to hold up in pass protection. All three of them ranked below average in pretty much every category.
• This data is especially concerning for Braxton Jones, who graded the worst of the three but is generally expected to be Chicago’s starting left tackle in 2023. However, he was a rookie in 2022, so perhaps he showed growth throughout the season. To check that hypothesis, the table below shows how he graded if you split the season into four-game samples. (Five games at the end of the year. Curse you, 17th game for messing up the easy sample breakdown!)

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With the first pick and the possibility of getting more selections, all eyes are going to be on the Chicago Bears in Indianapolis this weekend.

In the second year of the Ryan Poles and Matt Eberflus regime, we have a better idea of what kind of players the team is looking to add. Beyond just the standard answer they give regarding players who fit the mental makeup they want, the Bears brass reiterated some of the physical attributes for which they are looking.

Here are four things to look for:

Quarterbacks

The Bears once again refused to offer unwavering commitment to Justin Fields as their quarterback and on Tuesday morning Poles made it sound as if the team is keeping its options open.

The door might only be open a crack, but if the Bears weren’t at least considering drafting a quarterback with the first overall pick, there would be no reason not to slam it shut. The idea that they need to make teams think they’re going draft a quarterback simply for leverage doesn’t make any sense. The only team that might panic is Houston, which would be more nervous about the idea the Colts are going to take a quarterback.

Compare it to the Eagles last year who, when rumor about interest in Russell Wilson or drafting a quarterback surfaced, said “there’s no doubt about it” when asked if Jalen Hurts was the team’s future at the position.

Nobody honestly expects the Bears to take a quarterback, but their refusal to say “this is Fields’ team” is weird. When teams are confident in their quarterback, they are almost always willing to broadcast that to the world.

The most likely explanation is that the Bears would be happy going forward with Fields as the quarterback, but would like to see if they can upgrade. There’s nothing wrong with that.

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In part one, we found that the Bears actually had a respectable pass rush for the first part of the year, but trading Robert Quinn had a profound impact, leaving them with the worst pass rush of any NFL team in the last five years post-trade.

In part two, we found that Trevis Gipson is a quality second defensive end, but only if there is a quality starter opposite him, which the Bears will need to find this offseason.

The Inside Men

The Bears had four defensive tackles with at least 150 pass rush snaps in 2022, and three of them – Armon Watts, Angelo Blackson, and Mike Pennel Jr. – are free agents, so it will be very easy to remake this position substantially if they want to.

The table below shows how those four performed in a variety of per-snap metrics, including how they ranked compared to the 104 defensive tackles league-wide who had at least 150 pass rush snaps. All data comes from Pro Football Focus (PFF). (Side note: Pass Rush Productivity is a unique PFF stat that accounts for all sacks, QB hits, and pressures on a per-snap basis, with an added weight given to sacks; a higher value is better.) Values in the top 25% are highlighted in green, while those in the bottom 25% are highlighted in red.

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Every Bears fan knows the team had a terrible pass rush last year, which is why they have been heavily rumored to be interested in high-priced free agent defensive linemen and highly regarded pass rushers at the top of the draft. But to better understand what the Bears need, let’s first look at exactly how bad they were last year, and what they have returning. That will help figure out exactly what they need to add in order to bring their pass rush up to par in 2023.

Team Pass Rush

All of this data will be pulled from Pro Football Reference, which has advanced statistics going back to 2018. That gives us a sample size of five seasons, or 160 teams.

However, I found that pass rush has varied quite a bit from year to year, with the average pressure rate fluctuating between 22% and 26% and the sack rate between 5.9% and 6.8%. In a simple effort to scale statistics for a between the years comparison, I looked at the sack or pass rush differential. For example, in 2022 the average pressure rate was 22.3%, so a team generating pressure on 23.3% of dropbacks was 1.0% above average, or would have a pressure differential of 1.0%. That same 23.3% would be 2.0% below the 25.3% average in 2021, so it would get a -2.0% pressure differential that year.

The table below shows how the Bears fared in the major pass rush stats compared to all 160 teams since 2018. Areas where they ranked in the top 25% are highlighted in green, while those where they ranked in the bottom 25% are highlighted in red.

As you can see, it’s not pretty. Chicago’s pass rush was among the worst in the NFL over the last five years in every category. This shouldn’t be a shock to anybody who watched the Bears last year.

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Bears fans enter the 2023 offseason full of optimism, and for good reason. The team currently has:

• Justin Fields, who took a big step forward in 2022, and looks poised for bigger things in 2023 and beyond.
• The first pick, which can be traded for a host of picks because they don’t need a QB.
• The most cap room in the NFL by over $30 million.

The 2022 season may have seen the Bears stumble to a league-worst 3-14 record, but fans are rightfully excited about the possibilities for improvement heading into 2023. Recent NFL history, however, tells us that we should temper our expectations for just how much better the Bears will be next year.

One Awful Season

Let’s start by looking at teams who had one awful season, similar to Chicago’s three wins in 2022. Over the last 15 years, dating back to 2008, there have been 33 teams who had 3 or less wins in a season. Here’s how the next year went:

• Average of 5.9 wins, median of six.
• Eight of 33 teams (24%) finished above .500.
• 11 of 33 teams (33%) had four or fewer wins.

That’s not very encouraging; fewer than one in four teams finished with a winning record, and more than one in three still lost at least 75% of their games the following year. If you’re more of a visual person, the graph below shows the range of wins for the teams in this sample.

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It isn’t a coincidence that the teams playing in the Super Bowl are among the best at getting pressure on the opposing quarterback and keeping their quarterbacks clean.

The Philadelphia Eagles’ defense put up video game numbers, finishing with 70 sacks during the regular season, taking quarterbacks down on 11.2 percent of their drop backs, according to Pro-Football-Reference. The Eagles had the most sacks in a season since the 1987 Bears (also 70). The 1984 Bears hold the single season record with 72 and the 1989 Minnesota Vikings totaled 71. Four Philadelphia defensive linemen had more than 10 sacks, led by 2022 free agent addition Haason Reddick’s 16.

Who was second in the league in sacks? The Kansas City Chiefs, 55, a total that would typically lead the league. The Chiefs also had a dominant individual as defensive tackle Chris Jones managed 15.5 sacks. The rest of their pressure was spread out across the defensive roster.

But the teams also kept their quarterbacks relatively clean.

The Eagles were eighth in the league in pressure percentage allowed at 17.7%, while the Chiefs were 16th at 19.4%. It must be noted, however, that both teams have quarterbacks who hold onto the ball. Kansas City tied for the league-high with 2.6 seconds in the pocket, while Philly came in at 2.4.

The Bears have a lot of work to do.

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This is the 2nd in a 3-part series looking at David Montgomery. In part 1, we saw that Montgomery is bad at running the football. Today, we’re going to explore his impact in the passing game. 

Receiving

Let’s start by looking at how effective each Bears running back is catching the ball. The table below shows a host of advanced statistics for Montgomery and Herbert, as well as how they compared to the 67 running backs who ran at least 100 routes in 2022. All data is from Pro Football Focus, and values in the top 25% are highlighted in green, while values in the bottom 25% are highlighted in red.

A few thoughts:

• This is a complete reversal from the running data. David Montgomery is one of the better receiving backs in the NFL, while Khalil Herbert is one of the worst.
• Montgomery’s efficiency here makes sense. Even though he’s slow for a running back, he’s still faster than most linebackers, who are the defenders typically covering him. And when he does break a tackle, he doesn’t have the whole defense already flowing to him from nearby, so he’s able to pick up more yards. Throwing him the football is a way to get him the ball in space, which lets him take advantage of his strengths while minimizing the lack of speed that makes it hard for him to get to open space on a handoff.
• I find it very odd that Montgomery saw so few pass targets considering how bad Chicago’s WRs were and how good he is as a pass catcher. And this isn’t just due to the Bears not passing much; Montgomery was solidly below-average in routes run/target, which means the ball didn’t go his way very often even when they did throw it.
• Khalil Herbert is a mess here, which is why I don’t think the Bears can count on him as their primary running back going into 2023, regardless of how good he is running the ball.

Pass Blocking

Catching the football isn’t the only part of the passing game a running back impacts; they are also tasked with helping in pass protection. Let’s take a look at how effective Montgomery and Herbert were in this area, once again using PFF for statistics. Ranks are compared to 59 running backs with at least 25 pass blocking snaps, and once again top 25% values are highlighted in green, while bottom 25% are highlighted in red.

A few thoughts:

• These are small sample sizes, so it’s hard to say too much definitively about the data. But I did find it interesting that Herbert was asked to block more frequently than Montgomery when they were on the field for passing plays, even though Herbert is a worse pass blocker. I am going to guess that is largely due to Montgomery being so much more useful as a pass catcher than Herbert.
• I put blocking grades in here because there’s just not much data otherwise. I find it odd that Montgomery and Herbert had similar blocking grades despite Montgomery giving up 4 pressures on 54 blocking snaps, compared to 4 on 32 snaps for Herbert.
• No matter how you look at it, Montgomery is an adequate pass blocker, but doesn’t seem like anything special. Herbert, on the other hand, seems to struggle here a bit as well.

Tomorrow, a potential role and contract for Montgomery.

After four productive years in Chicago, David Montgomery is now a free agent, which leaves the Bears in the difficult situation of trying to figure out how much they are willing to pay to keep him around. On the surface, he has the case to command a sizable contract. Since entering the NFL, Montgomery has 915 carries (6th in NFL) for 3,609 yards (10th) and 26 rushing touchdowns (15th). Montgomery has also contributed 155 receptions for 1,240 yards and 4 touchdowns, bringing his rookie contract totals to an impressive 4,849 yards from scrimmage and 30 TDs.

Of course, volume stats don’t tell the full story, so this week I want to take a closer look at David Montgomery’s performance to see if we can get a better idea of how good he is, and thus how large of a contract he might be worth. We’ll start today by looking at his contributions in the run game, follow-up tomorrow with a look at his role in the passing game, and finish with an examination of what a realistic free agent contract could look like.

Advanced Rushing Statistics

Volume stats are nice, but to really understand a player’s value, we need to examine their efficiency. Thankfully, we have a whole host of data available to us, including a number of advanced statistics.

Before we look at the data, I want to mention that RYOE is Rushing Yards Over Expected, which is based on both the position and the movement of all 22 players on the field at the time of handoff. Basically, it projects how many yards an average NFL running back would get in a given carry based on historical data, and then compares how that specific running back did on that play. RYOE % is then the % of carries where a back exceeds the expected rushing yards.

The table below shows how Montgomery fared in a host of advanced rushing statistics compared to 48 running backs with at least 90 carries in 2022. Khalil Herbert’s statistics are also shown for good measure. All RYOE stats are pulled from Next Gen Stats, while yards before run, after run, and broken tackles are from Pro Football Reference. Any values in the top 25% (top 12) are highlighted in green, while those in the bottom 25% are in red.

A few thoughts:

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