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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Eberflus on Borom: “He’s been consistent. He’s been relatively consistent. He’s doing a good job in there. Right now, he’s in that position as a starter. He’s got competition behind him and we’ll see what happens and see if he can sustain that execution all the way through.”

— Courtney Cronin (@CourtneyRCronin) August 21, 2022

The Bears know who they are. And that is refreshingly unlike them.

It would have been easy for Eberflus, Poles, Chris Morgan, etc. to plop their recently-signed veteran offensive linemen into the starting lineup and lean on their experience to stabilize the position group. Riley Reiff and Michael Schofield would not have elevated the 2022 OL to the status of good (or even almost good) but it would have elevated the floor of that room’s potential to not terrible.

But that is not what this leadership did. In the last week or so they slid Teven Jenkins inside, a projected move that caused consternation from the player earlier in the year. To say Jenkins has thrived would be an overstatement, but the Bears are excited by what they’ve seen thus far and Jenkins has wholly bought in to the project.

And, while most of us believed Larry Borom was just place holding for a resting Reiff, Eberflus announced publicly that the former is actually now the starter. (See Courtney’s above tweet.) Is there still competition for the job? Of course. But it’s Borom’s to lose and that is no small thing.

This is a franchise operating with a plan; making roster decisions with the future squarely in mind. The Bears don’t gain anything for 2023 and beyond if Reiff and Schofield play meaningful snaps in 2022, outside of perhaps giving Justin Fields a bit more reliability up front. Playing Jenkins and Borom on the right side gives the Bears a full season to evaluate two potential starters.

Will that come with some growing pains? Of course. But the end result of growing pains is growth. And the potential upside of playing these two on the right side is having the right side solidified for the foreseeable future with two players under 25 years old.

If Jenkins flames out, you turn to Schofield. If the Borom party becomes unruly, Reiff is ready to clean up the mess. Young talent on the field. Veteran experience on the bench. This is how a team at this stage of the process should be constructed.

But that requires the organization acknowledging where they are in the championship process. The Bears – by making the moves they have along the offensive line – are showing us all they are who we think they are.

As training camp progresses, there are a myriad of outlets to find information on the comings and goings at practice, specifically those paid to attend and report on the practices. What I’ll try to do is add some color to the proceedings here. Sometimes that will be in the form a longer post and sometimes – like today – just bullet points.

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• Adam Hoge was the first place I saw this telling quote from Jaylon Johnson, re: the new staff: “The way they hold us accountable is crazy, compared to what we’re used to.” At the end of the Nagy era, this became a major issue with ownership. They could not understand why Allen Robinson was continually given playing time while obviously having no interest in playing. They could not understand why Mario Edwards was continually given reps, mindless penalty after mindless penalty. One text from someone close to ownership wondered if the football team “lacked integrity”. They did.
  • And I am going to do my best to ensure that is the last mention of the previous regime. At some point you have to move on. The Bears did that in January. Bears fans have to follow suit.
• The signings of Riley Reiff and Michael Schofield are interesting, but I’m still interested in how the Bears intend to deploy Teven Jenkins. Several folks inside the building believe Reiff will start at left tackle and Jenkins best path to playing time is at right guard. (They’re paying Reiff to start. They’re paying Schofield zero guaranteed dollars.)
  • This could set the stage for a camp battle between Braxton Jones and Larry Borom at right tackle. But the Bears sincerely like Jones.
• Conditioning alert! Every Bear passed what is notoriously a pretty rigorous test. Roquan Smith has opened on the PUP list, suffering from what most economists call “light bank balance”.
• Schofield’s press conference was terrific. The guy seemed genuinely thrilled to be playing for his hometown team. He also admitted he wanted to be a receiver when younger because of Marty Booker.
• DBB appeared on Wednesday’s edition of The Irish Bears Show. You can see the entire appearance by CLICKING HERE.

Oh, and the Loch Ness Monster could be a real thing.

Evaluating Justin Fields is the most important aspect of the 2022 season, but it would’ve been impossible to do if he was constantly on his back. While neither Riley Reiff nor Michael Schofield are actual difference makers along the offensive line, they are capable bodies who should help keep Fields upright in 2022.

Going into the season with some combination of Sam Mustipher and late-round draft picks at right guard and Larry Borom and a late-round pick at left tackle would’ve been asking for disaster. The inevitable outcome would have been an injury to Fields and a Fields injury is the worst 2022 outcome possible.

Nobody should mistake the late activity as a great success. The Bears still have one of the worst starting offensive lines in the league. But it probably isn’t the worst, which it was five days ago. Bears fans have seen Reiff enough to know that he’s a below average offensive tackle. The same can be said for Schofield at right guard. Both players were on teams who made considerable moves to upgrade their offensive lines this past offseason.

In both cases, the players possess some position versatility. If one of the young tackles — Tevin Jenkins, Larry Borom or Braxton Jones — breaks out, Reiff can switch sides or move inside to guard. (The team reportedly guaranteed him $10 million, so you can bet he will be playing somewhere.) Schofield could move to right tackle if none of the tackles perform at a capable level.

Both players should also be familiar with the scheme as both played in the wide zone under Gary Kubiak. Reiff did so in Minnesota and Schofield began his career with the Broncos when Kubiak was the head coach.

The signings aren’t long-term fixes, and they don’t make the Bears Super Bowl contenders, but they should help keep Fields healthy and nothing is more important.