How do the Chicago Bears wide receivers stack up against the Philadelphia Eagles
One of the more underrated aspects of the Chicago Bears win over the Minnesota Vikings is that Allen Robinson was on the sidelines, and Taylor Gabriel and Anthony Miller did not play much, leaving with injury questions.
While the two were set down Matt Nagy was positive about their availability for the playoffs. With that in mind, the Bears offense should be humming at full strength. How do their receivers matchup with the Eagles cornerbacks?
Before looking into the cornerbacks it is worth noting that the Chicago Bears do an excellent job of moving their receivers around to find the matchups they want. Anthony Miller is in the slot more than the other two, but Robinson and Gabriel shuffle in and out of the slot as well. Mitch Trubisky also does a great job of distributing the passes around to all three evenly. This will come into play when dissecting which cornerbacks the Bears should target and with who.
The Philadelphia Eagles will play sides with their cornerbacks with Avonte Maddox on the left side, and Rasul Douglas on the right. Maddox is a rookie from Pitt, who we highlighted here as a player who profiled similarly to Bryce Callahan.
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Maddox lines up on the left side and has been the teams best cornerback to date. He is allowing an 60.7 passer rating and 7.4 yards per target, though. On the other side Douglas has allowed a 103 passer rating and 10.1 yards per target.
Both players provide an advantage for Allen Robinson. Against Avonte Maddox, Robinson has a supreme size advantage. Robinson stands at 6’3″, and Maddox is just 5’9″.
Rasul Douglas lacks deep speed, so trying to get Robinson on Maddox and Gabriel on Douglas is a nice idea. However,with Maddox playing well, the Bears can also move Robinson over to Douglas side.
Douglas allows 17 receptions on 19 targets on out routes and slant routes. Allen Robinson lives with those two routes, and is 14-20 for a touchdown on those routes.
In the slot the Eagles have a familiar name in Cre’Von LeBlanc. LeBlanc has allowed a 100 passer rating this season, 7.7 yards per target. It is worth noting that Sherrick McManis has only allowed 4.7 yards per target this year.
Either way, the matchup between LeBlanc and Miller will be worth watching. Miller is banged up, but is the better athlete than LeBlanc. If he can win this matchup, it will put a huge stress on their defense.