Chicago Bears should keep current OL alignment

The Chicago Bears offensive line combination may have been the best of the year

Coming out the bye week the Chicago Bears decided to shake up their offensive line by moving Cody Whitehair to guard, Germain Ifedi to tackle, and inserting Alex Bars and Sam Mustipher into the lineup. While the Green Bay Packers are not an elite defense, and the Packers offense gave their defense a cushion all game, it is fair to note that the combination was likely the best the team had all season.

It was evident on the first run of the game by David Montgomery that holes are usually not that big for him. It was helped by his long run, but Montgomery set a career-high for yards gained before contact against the Packers. The only other game that was close was last year against the Chargers.

Montgomery also picked up five first downs on the ground, which is his fourth-best performance in that area. Coming into the game the Bears had a 30.7% success rate on rushes, and that number was 40% in Week 12, an obvious season high.

The line was not only getting a push in the run game, though. While fans claim that the line is so bad that Mitch Trubisky and his legs are needed, it also just so happens that Trubisky played with James Daniels healthy and this current iteration of the line as well.

On Sunday, Trubisky had a 6% pressure rate when he dropped back. While you can say that Trubisky helped create a lack of pressure, we have highlighted that he also makes decisions that back him into pressure.

Beyond that, he has faced pressure on 20% of his dropbacks for his career. The 6% of dropbacks in which he faced pressure was a career-low, beating the 7% pressure rate caused by the Bucs in 2018. The Cowboys had an 11% pressure last year, as his third least pressured game.

While the 2018 Bucs game and 2019 Cowboys are looked back as highlights of Trubisky’s career, the Sunday night debacle may just be a sign of lost hope.

Nonetheless, when the line is creating pockets as long as the Bucs game in 2018, you know something good is happening. In the past four games, Foles has faced pressure 23, 17, 20, and 34% of the time.

There is a huge difference between the way the line had been playing and the way it did against the Packers.

It can be argued that just getting Rashad Coward out of the line up helps. It also has returned Cody Whitehair and Germain Ifedi to more natural spots. Sam Mustipher played well, and Alex Bars had minimal mistakes.

Perhaps, as the final five games play out the Chicago Bears figure out a thing or two about their line. At the very least that would be a bright spot to take into the offseason.