Chicago Bears: 3 Winners from Week 5 vs. Raiders

Week 5 Winner No. 3: Chicago Bears offensive line

With an honorable mention here going to Damien Williams and Khalil Herbert for stepping up big time with David Montgomery out, a lot of the credit for the Bears’ success in the run game goes to the offensive line. Juan Castillo sent out a disciplined and well-prepared group to dominate the line of scrimmage in the run game.

The line played with purpose and everyone seemed to be getting after it on the run blocking. The Bears used tight ends well and even had Alex Bars as a motion tight end due to not having J.P. Holtz. Bill Lazor was committed to the run game even without Montgomery and it paid off as Justin Fields did not have to do too much to win the game. We will surely start to see better numbers from Fields, but he has been able to be a complement to the run game in the last two weeks and it is nice to see how the offensive line has been leading the charge.

The strength of this line is definitely in run blocking, but they looked better in pass protection for the most part. It is still not where you want it to been and Fields is still taking too many big hits, but there were not any free blitzes going unblocked like last week. That shows that the communication is better across the line as well as Justin Fields learning to understand different pressures.

Credit goes to the offensive line for dominating this game from the start and showing an angry, tough side that we have not seen much of this week. We will see what the report is on Germain Ifedi and if he will miss time, but the Bears have some good depth so not to worry. A great effort from the entire line led to them being big winners this week, as well as Matt Nagy and the defense.