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.

https://twitter.com/Colts/status/1431393883141849093

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, absolutely nothing — 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.

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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.

To Help Pass The Time…

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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!

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Based on reports from around Chicagoland, the offense struggled in yesterday’s practice — so much so that Justin Fields mentioned in his presser that “It’s really good to have days like this.” and that in his opinion it’s good for the offense to go through adversity in these early stages of training camp.

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.

He’s the real deal, should be fun next year.

https://twitter.com/robertkschmitz/status/1686412508934840320

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I don’t know about you, but I loathe uncertainty.

Will Justin Fields take the next step this year?

Can any of the Bears’ young DL step forward and save their pass rush?

Chicago will finally beat the Packers on Week 1, right?

Questions like this eat at me whenever I think about the 2023 season, and for good reason — each question’s answer is a massive domino that could swing Chicago’s year.

But as excited as I am that the Bears are back in pads today at Halas Hall, I want to caution everyone from drawing any hard conclusions from these football practices — after all, Training Camp isn’t the indicator we tend to want to make it, for better and for worse.

Us fans, so starved for football after 7 long months of offseason, want to take every video clip and use it as proof of QB progress, the skill of a rookie WR, or even the efficacy of a Defensive Back, but in reality these football practices are so full of chaotic experimentation, new installs of offensive/defensive terminology, coaches pushing boundaries, and rapid chemistry-building on both sides of the ball that mistakes become common (even intended) and lead to sloppy practices like the Bears had just yesterday.

To some, Fields throwing multiple INTs in a practice may seem like cause for alarm. On that note, take a look at early reports from the 2021 Cincinnati Bengals’ first day in pads and see what beat reporters had to say about the soon-to-be AFC Champions:

woooooof https://t.co/uhLNcoVAWy pic.twitter.com/ZPyjftScBk

— charles (“you look good” – andy reid) mcdonald (@FourVerts) August 4, 2021

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Happy Monday everyone! Get set for another week of Bears’ camp with extensive Saturday notes written by our own Johnathan Wood here:

Our first episode of Dissecting a Drive covered a drive so early in the year that the Bears offense (& Justin Fields’ play within it) felt juvenile compared to where they finished the 2022 season — so much changed schematically after their win over the Patriots that to claim that Chicago’s 2023 offense will look anything like it did early in 2022 feels foolish.

With that in mind, I charted the evolution of Chicago’s offense by taking a look at the Bears’ 9-play opening drive against Buffalo late in the year to continue prepping for what Luke Getsy may do with the 2023 Bears — in this drive, we see:

• How the threat of Justin Fields’ legs dictated Sean McDermott’s initial defensive calls
• The space Luke Getsy was able to open up by using those adjustments against Buffalo
• How Luke Getsy used Fields to gain blocking advantages in the running game
• A few nice examples of the Bears’ comprehensive Boot rolodex
• And much, much more

Check it out and let me know what you think!

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The wait is finally (almost) over — Bears training camp is (nearly) upon us!

Rookies have reported to Halas Hall already, Veterans report tomorrow, and practices officially start Wednesday — that means more content is coming for all of us that starved through the dog days of the offseason, and it’s the perfect time to start previewing  what I think will be the best storylines to follow throughout camp this year.

For starters: How will Roschon Johnson fit into the 2023 Bears’ RB room?

Before the Draft took place, the 2023 Bears’ RB room was well-rounded in theory but a bit over-specialized in practice:

• Khalil Herbert is a fabulous runner and a perfect system fit, but both his pass-blocking and pass-catching can be outright liabilities when the offense gets behind the chains
• D’Onta Foreman brings experience to the Bears as a hard-nosed one-cut RB, but offenses have avoided asking him to catch the ball since he first he got to the league and I doubt the Bears will expect much out of him in that phase of the game
• Travis Homer is a capable Special Teamer and all-around 3rd Down RB, but unless the Bears deviate from 2022 (where Herbert & Montgomery rarely substituted mid-drive, opting to rotate between offensive possessions) it may be hard to get him on the field for passing scenarios outside obvious 3rd downs

All of these RBs are talented players that produce well when playing to their strengths, but as of early April none of the RBs looked ready to take on an old-school 3-down role within an offense that’s utilized 3-down runners (Christian McCaffrey, Aaron Jones, etc) to great effect — if an RB can capably sell Play Action, block on dropbacks, produce when handed the ball, and catch the ball when it’s thrown to him, this offensive scheme rewards him handsomely with open space and yardage galore.

Enter Roschon Johnson, a 22 year old out of Texas with remarkably little tread on his tires due to sitting behind phenom runner Bijan Robinson for all but his freshman year. This 6’2″ 220+lb has all the traits you’re looking for on tape, including:

• A quick first step that helps challenge tackling angles from the moment he takes the handoff
• A clear preference for playing North-South (as opposed to East-West)
• The explosion to get to wide lanes when needed (3rd clip is a great example of him exploding laterally multiple times while staying downhill throughout)
• The contact balance to grind out extra yards and a wicked stiff arm to boot
• Experience blocking in both standard pass sets and less orthodox sets (ex: on the move)
• Solid hands, though his tape lacks opportunities in the pass game due to circumstance

And if you ask me, he has an opportunity to play in Chicago very quickly if he makes an impression in Training Camp.

This city is going to LOVE Texas RB Roschon Johnson.

He's a true 3-down RB with the explosion to make hard cuts & the contact balance to break tackles en masse. He gets downhill, finishes carries, and he blocks (!) on pass downs.

Should boost the #Bears PA pass game. FUN player pic.twitter.com/5OBnZHE4tE

— Robert Schmitz (@robertkschmitz) May 8, 2023

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Happy Friday everybody!

Like most football fans, I’ve always been enthralled by the concept of play-calling — the idea that one man pulls the strings behind the actions of 11 superathletes and that, at least in the eyes of many, the very fate of each football game rests on his shoulders and his matchup with the play-caller across from him. Even typing that out gives me chills!

But as cool as the concept of play-calling is, the opaque nature of the role makes it equally frustrating for football fans: “Why can Andy Reid’s team spin around in the huddle and still score touchdowns at will but my team can’t even pick up a 3rd and 1?”

Questions like this are poison for fans of teams with bad offensive or defensive units (like the Broncos, Cardinals, and early-season Bears on offense, Browns, Las Vegas, and the Bears again on defense) and can make fans feel like the football gods are out to get them — for any Chicago fan that lived through the Nagy era, you know the horrible feeling I’m talking about.

So how do we evaluate the Bears’ play-callers in 2023? I aim to do just that with a video series I’ll be running throughout this upcoming season called Dissecting a Drive — once a week, we’ll take a look at a key offensive or defensive drive (some good drives, some bad ones) and go through the ins and outs of each play-call to try and parse out which parts of the offense are a credit to Luke Getsy and which parts of the offense are as simple as good (or bad) players making a good (or bad) play.

In an effort to practice with the new video format, I took a look at an old drive from Week 5’s Bears game against the Vikings — in it, we see:

• A pair of really nice run designs that use pre-snap and at-snap motion to scheme leverage for Chicago’s blockers
• How Justin Fields can make a “wrong” play-call “right” (as well as how he did the opposite)
• A visual example of how important every yard gained or lost is within each 3-down series
• And much, much more

Check it out and let me know what you think!

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Rookie LT Braxton Jones came out of nowhere in the Bears’ 2022 OTAs and, against all odds, he managed to become the only Chicago offensive lineman to start all 17 games in the season and was named to the PFWA All-Rookie Team along with Jack Sanborn and Jaquan Brisker. For a 5th round tackle, a rookie season doesn’t get much better than that.

But Offensive Tackle in the NFL is a cutthroat position, and unfortunately for Jones he picked a rough Offensive Line to play all 17 games with — Justin Fields was sacked a league-leading 55 times in 2022 (on a staggering 14.7% of his dropbacks), and big #70 was on the field for every last one of them. The sacks weren’t all his fault, but he had plenty of growing pains as a pass-protector that cost the Bears downs in the process.

Yet as the season progressed, Braxton continually shined in the run game and proved himself to one of the Bears’ best blockers in open space. Luke Getsy clearly noticed this and leaned on Jones more each week, calling most of the Bears’ pitch/toss runs to Braxton’s side and watching his offense succeed as he did. By the end of the year, rookie Braxton Jones had asserted himself as the Bears’ de-facto run game captain and, despite injuries to his unit, continued to lead the Bears each week as they ultimately out-rushed the rest of the league.

Now a second-year pro, Braxton is already an established rushing weapon at a premium position whose current contract is cheap enough (~68th highest paid Left Tackle in the league) to afford the Bears the resources to stock talent at other positions. That’s great! But in a passing league, is a budget LT that’s great in the run game enough to succeed?

I took a deeper look into Braxton’s tape and put together a video that covers:

• Braxton’s impact in the running game
• Braxton’s growth as a pass-protector
• The schematic ways that Luke Getsy assists Jones when matched up against an elite pass rusher
• The cap/draft cost of attempting to replace him
• And much, much more

Check it out and let me know what you think!

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I’m in the process of working up a Braxton Jones video that I hope to have ready by Monday — in the meantime, here’s a breakdown I threw together yesterday about a funky formation wrinkle Luke Getsy used to catch the Lions’ linebackers flat-footed on subsequent plays.

Formation gimmicks are fun, hopefully we see Getsy use offensive design to press the advantage more often in 2023.

Here's a fun design wrinkle from #Bears OC Luke Getsy — after a bootleg run for a 1st down, Getsy shifted LT Braxton Jones to the right side of the OL and thus caught the Lions' defense over-adjusting.

Turn your sound on and I'll break down how a little WR motion goes a long… pic.twitter.com/AaqjVAYE2v

— Robert Schmitz (@robertkschmitz) July 13, 2023

Extra Media

As we get closer to training camp, something tells me we’re going to hear the terms “1-Technique” and “3-Technique” thrown around a lot when discussing Gervon Dexter Sr and Zacch Pickens — in case you don’t know what those terms mean, I’ve got just the video for you! And if you do know what they mean, here’s a nice ~10 minute reel of defensive lineman dominating.

Check it out!