One of the more exciting situations from the Chicago Bears preseason opener was Trestan Ebner. Ebner opened the game as the starting kick return man, which could lock him into a nice role to start his rookie season.
Still, as a runner, he also flashed as the most explosive running back and even caught passes out of the backfield. It was a nearly perfect debut for the rookie, but one area will have to be touched on soon.
That is pass protection. In the play below you can see that the safety creeps down into the box, and blitzes off of the edge. Ebner is staying in for pass protection, but does not see the blitz shown pre-snap and ends up standing around taking no one as the quarterback gets sacked,
It is fair that Nathan Peterman probably should have thought about the fact that his running back is a sixth-round rookie and is probably still raw in pass protection. An experienced back may have seen that, but Peterman should have still made an alert of some sort.
Either way, this is now the base and something for Ebner to work on as he becomes a complete all-around back. He has to be more aware of what pieces are moving around him pre-snap.
This is important because his role as a rookie will come as a pass catcher. In college, you can get away with your pass-catching back being just a receiver, but in the NFL, if you want to get onto the field for passing downs, you have to be able to pass protect at times.
Because Ebner was a gadget player so often he did not get many reps in this area, and this is one of the rawer areas of his game. With that in mind, it should now be the most important thing for fans to focus on, because if he can grow here, they are going to get him on the field more and more.