Watch: Chicago Bears CB Artie Burns struggles to replace Kindle Vildor
The Chicago Bears had enough of Kindle Vildor, who blew multiple assignments against the Tyler Huntley-led Baltimore Ravens. Vildor struggled all season, and last weeks loss was the final straw, as the team chose to start Artie Burns over him.
Most of the reaction was that things could not get worse than Vildor, especially after his last game. However, in the first half of the Detroit Lions game, Burns let fans know that the coaches were not crazy to trust Vildor over him.
On the first third down the Lions faced, Jared Goff moved the chains with a 16-yard completion to Josh Reynolds. Then, Goff dialed up the deep ball and connected with Reynolds for 39-yards.
https://twitter.com/NFL/status/1463927877594861572?s=20
Josh Reynolds got him with the double move there. The reality is that Burns was a bust when the Pittsburgh Steelers reached on him in the first round back in 2015. Fans thought it was a reach at the time, and Burns never played well for the Steelers.
He was in competition with Vildor, Tre Roberson, and Xavier Crawford, and initially lost a roster spot to Crawford. However, Crawford is a slot corner and has been injured since then.
The Bears needed to be embarrassed by a backup and see multiple injuries before trusting Burns. It is fair to admit that Burns did settle in after the first drive, but he was obviously attacked early in the game. For as much as he settled in, it could be argued that the Detroit Lions did not go after Burns as much they could have.
Next. If Matt Nagy goes, Ryan Pace should too. dark
It will be interesting to see how the Chicago Bears handle things with the extra days off from this Thanksgiving game. Burns may be able to show that he deserves more snaps after the early meltdown, but the Lions are a bad team, so to even struggle for a bit against them is questionable. Still, you know what you have in Kindle Vildor.