The offseason is winding down as we are now firmly in training camp and shifting into preseason mode, but before the real games start I want to sneak one last series examining part of the roster to give us a better sense of what to expect in the 2024 season.

I’ve spent quite a bit of time looking at the offense in the last few months, as we’ve learned together about new OC Shane Waldron, the WRs, the TEs, and expectations for rookies Caleb Williams and Rome Odunze. However, I’ve completely ignored the offensive line, and want to spend a little time this week focusing on the big boys up front who will be tasked with protecting the quarterback and opening lanes in the run game.

We already looked at the interior yesterday, and will shift gears to the tackles today.

Side note: If you read yesterday’s article, this one will follow the exact same format and have identical table setup, so hopefully the familiarity makes digesting all of the data a little easier. 

Pass Protection

Let’s start by examining pass protection, which is the most important part of an offensive lineman’s job. The Bears have two locked in starters in Darnell Wright, who are both back from 2023. The table below shows how they help up protecting the passer compared to 68 OTs (2.1/team, so roughly starters) around the NFL with 300+ pass blocking snaps. A few quick notes:

• All data is from Pro Football Focus (PFF).
• True pass sets are intended to remove plays designed to minimize the pass rush and make the OL’s job easier, such as screens, play action, and rollout.
• Pass blocking efficiency measures overall pressure allowed, but weights sacks more heavily than other pressures. A higher number is better.
• In a 68 player sample, 34th would be the middle rank, while cells highlighted in green indicate they ranked in the top 25% (top 17) and red indicates the bottom 25% (52nd or worse).
• Two other players are also included, though they don’t have ranks indicated because they did not qualify with 300+ pass blocking snaps in 2023:
  • Larry Borom had 225 pass blocking snaps for the Bears last year, and will be competing to keep his role as the swing tackle in 2024.
  • Borom’s main competition is Matt Pryor, who didn’t play much in 2023 but had a combined 583 pass blocking snaps across 2021-22, which are included here.

Side note: sorry if there are formatting issues with the table. You can view it in full by clicking on it. 

A few thoughts:

• Before we dive into the data, I want to acknowledge this is all somewhat subjective, and different places define pressure differently.
  • There is also a difference in what is asked from players. Some tackles get more help from tight ends, running backs, or guards, and some teams get the ball out more quickly than others.
  • That’s why I try to look at multiple metrics, including the PFF grade, which is based on how well somebody watching the film thinks they performed while hopefully taking some of that context into account.
  • When interpreting this data, I tend to think about it less in terms of any one number being an absolute, and more look at the collective rankings compared to other tackles to get a general feel for how well they fared.
• With that in mind, neither starting tackle looked very good in 2023, though it’s worth noting that both saw their grades rank slightly higher than the pressure and efficiency rates.
  • This suggests some of their struggles may have been due to context around them, most notably that it’s much easier to give up pressure when your QB has the longest time to throw in the NFL. According to Next Gen Stats, Fields took an average of 3.23 seconds to release a pass, while the median passer was around 2.8 seconds. That’s nearly an extra half second for the offensive line to hold up.
  • Of course, Caleb Williams famously had a long time to throw in college as well, so that task likely won’t change much in 2024.
• I find it interesting that Darnell Wright fared better relative to his peers in true pass sets. These are the more difficult assignments for offensive linemen, and point to the high ceiling that Wright has in pass protection if he can continue refining his technique and approach.
  • It’s also worth noting that Wright suffered a shoulder injury in week 6 that severely limited his use of one arm for several weeks.
  • This didn’t change his overall data much, but had a significant impact on his performance in true pass sets, which are more challenging assignments that require more from the offensive lineman. His snaps/pressure in these dropped from 11.2 to 8.3 and his PFF grade went from 70 to 59.
  • If he can sustain his pre-injury numbers, that puts him solidly above average in the most difficult pass protection situations.
• Braxton Jones has an opposite pattern from Wright in that he performs better relative to his peers in all plays than the more demanding true pass sets. This matches a pattern from his rookie year in 2022.
  • It seems safe to say that pass protection is not Jones’ overall strength at this point, and he’ll likely need to improve in this area in 2024 and 2025 if he wants to earn a 2nd contract as Chicago’s starting left tackle.
• I do find it interesting that the % of snaps in true pass sets – which ask more of the offensive line – significantly increased from 2022 to 2023.
  • In 2022, that number hovered around 35% of overall pass snaps, one of the lowest marks in the NFL. In 2023, it jumped more than 10% to be around league average.
  • That suggests the coaching staff stopped doing as much to try and protect the linemen in pass protection.
• Looking at the backups, neither Borom nor Pryor inspires much confidence if they are called into action. This isn’t a big surprise, as there aren’t enough quality starting tackles in the NFL, so backups are usually bad.
  • Perhaps rookie 3rd round pick Kiran Amegadjie can win the swing tackle job and prove an upgrade over either of these two players, but he’s missed the entire offseason and part of camp with an injury and making a huge jump from Yale to the NFL, so expectations for his rookie season should be muted.

Run Blocking

Let’s switch now to run blocking, where there is less quantifiable data to go on, and I unfortunately have nothing but PFF grades for the players. PFF does split the data into gap and zone runs; you can read more here for information about the difference, but generally zone runs make the lineman responsible for a specific area and let the running back read where the hole is, while gap runs aim to clear a hole in a specific gap.

The table below shows how Chicago’s two tackles graded out compared to 70 NFL tackles with 200+ run blocks in 2022, plus has data (but no rankings) for Larry Borom and Matt Pryor like in pass blocking above. In a 70 player sample, 35 is the average, cells highlighted in green indicate they ranked in the top 25% (18 or better), while red indicates the bottom 25% (53 or worse).

A few thoughts:

• Before we get into the grades, I want to look at the trends in gap and zone usage.
  • This is not a reflection of how good a player is, but instead how a team likes to operate in the running game, and we see here that the Bears generally ran less gap and more zone than the NFL average in 2023.
  • Since Chicago has a new OC, it will be more relevant for 2024 to note what usage patterns Shane Waldron brings with him from Seattle.
    • He was the play caller there from 2021-23, and in every season they were around 60% zone and 28% gap, so we should expect to see an even higher rate of zone runs in Chicago going forward (this matches what we learned when looking at the tight ends earlier this offseason).
    • Accordingly, zone run blocking performance will be the more important factor to look at for the rest of this series.
• Darnell Wright was pretty consistently right around average in both gap and zone, which is a solid foundation to work from as he seeks to improve. With his physical tools – both in ability to move in space and sheer size and strength – I would anticipate Wright has the ability to become an absolute mauler in the run game.
• Braxton Jones also ended up around average in overall grade, but he had a notable split between gap and zone, as he was really good in zone and struggled a bit in gap runs.
  • This is a reverse of what happened in his rookie year in 2022, when he was great in gap and average in zone.
  • In an ideal world, hopefully he can combine the best of those 2 years and be a dominant overall run blocker in 2024, but at a bare minimum repeating his plus zone performance from 2023 would be great given the new offense’s heavy reliance on zone runs.
• Looking at the backups, we once again see that they generally grade out well below the average starter across the board. This is no surprise, and is why these players are backups.
  • It is worth noting that both players have had decent seasons in the past.
    • Borom played 528 snaps in 2022 and graded out around average in both run and pass blocking.
    • Pryor’s stats are averaging 2 years where he played around 500 snaps each year, but he had vastly different years. In 2021, he did well in pass protection but awful in the run game, and that pattern flipped in 2022.
  • The real takeaway with these players is not that they’re incapable of playing well, but rather that they’re not consistent enough that you can count on them performing adequately when they do play. You don’t know what you’re going to get.

Lessons Learned

There’s been a lot of data and commentary above, so let’s wrap up down here with a few easy to digest main takeaways:

• In the pass game:
  • Darnell Wright struggled some as a rookie, but a shoulder injury likely contributed to that, and there are a few hints in his data that show the potential to be a really good pass blocker.
  • Braxton Jones continued to struggle in year 2, including getting worse as the assignment got more difficult. He needs to make significant strides to even be viewed as an average pass protector.
• In the run game:
  • The Bears should be expected to heavily utilize zone runs under new offensive coordinator Shane Waldron.
  • Darnell Wright graded out around average in both gap and zone runs, but has the physical tools to significantly improve here.
  • Braxton Jones served as a strong run blocker for the 2nd year in a row, though he was better in zone than gap in 2023, which was a switch from his 2022 rookie season.
• Looking at the potential backups, Larry Borom and Matt Pryor have both shown the ability to perform adequately in both the run and pass game in the past. However, they have also had significant stretches of abysmal play in the last few seasons, making it hard to know what you’d get from them if they are pressed into action.