The Chicago Bears should probably start the transition to Roquan Smith
Coming into the Chicago Bears season opener, it was expected that Khalil Mack would play much more than Roquan Smith, despite both missing the entire preseason. In fact, Smith only finished the game with eight snaps. However, in his eight snaps, he proved that he needs to see more. A lot more.
On his first snap of his NFL career, he compiled a sack. Khalil Mack led him into it but it was a great start for the rookie. On eight snaps, Smith had three tackles, one for loss, his sack and had another quarterback hurry. That is some efficient work.
The fact of the matter is that while we have not seen him in extended stretches within the speed of the game, being thrown in cold due to an injury and picking up like nothing changed should show that the speed is not a factor.
Roquan Smith processes the game extremely fast. While it was smart to ease him along, he showed in just eight snaps that it may not be necessary.
Nothing Nick Kwiatkoski did was bad on Sunday. However, he did not do anything to impact the game either. In eight snaps, Smith made a bigger impact on the game. So, while it is to no fault of Kwiatkoski, it seems clear that Smith is the upgrade and that he should get on the field sooner than later.
Teams who start 0-2 rarely make the playoffs. Monday night is not must win, but they probably need to win that game. It would be a bad decision to let the talent of Roquan Smith sit and waste for another game. Something tells me that it won’t.