Film Review of Chicago Bears offensive line Week One

One of the big questions entering week one was how the offensive line would hold up. Against an elite defensive line led by Nick Bosa, there were plenty of questions about how the Chicago Bears unit, which has been trying to gel together this summer would fare.

Overall Justin Fields dropped back to pass 23 times. Four times, the offensive line caused him to bail the pocket and scramble, then he was sacked twice and had 17 pass attempts.

After reviewing the film, below are some of the highlights.

The first thing that you can see below is the help created by David Montgomery and Cole Kmet. The duo chipped and helped the tackles before going out into their routes. This is something we wrote that Matt Nagy did far too often, even with a weakness at tackle. It was good to see Luke Getsy use the extra chips on the very first pass attempt.

"View post on imgur.com"

Still, the first pass was a loss for the Chicago Bears, mainly thanks to Cody Whitehair. Look at the veteran against Arik Armstead. The tackles got the help they needed, but Armstead beat Whitehair clean and was in the backfield to force an incomplete pass.

In total, on the 19 pass attempts, Luke Getsy gave him left tackle help on 10 plays, and his right tackle got help on five of them. It was clearly something he wanted to do.

The play below is the second pass of the game. Larry Borom gets some help from Ryan Griffin, which leaves the rest of the crew in one-on-ones. Unfortunately, Teven Jenkins and Braxton Jones lost their matchups. Javon Kinlaw beat Jenkins, Samson Ebukam beat Jones, and they met at Justin Fields.

"View post on imgur.com"

The third attempt of the game is a chance to look in at Braxton Jones. The 49ers wanted to test the rookie and run a stunt at him with Ebukam running inside, and Charles Omenihu stunting out at him.

The move worked, as Braxton Jones got sucked into blocking Ebukam to the interior. However, he was late to pick up the stunt and Omenihu was able to get to the quarterback. Larry Borom did not win his rep, either, but this is definitely an area where Jones will have to improve.

"View post on imgur.com"

On the next few passes, they ran a screen and used a play-action bootleg to help the offensive line. Then, there is the play below, which features Nick Bosa going against Braxton Jones. The two only saw each other with no help for Jones a small handful of times. However, when Bosa got the one-on-one he took advantage and beat the rookie for the sack.

"View post on imgur.com"

After a couple of more screens, we see the play below. This one will get fans excited. First, Larry Borom is lined up against Nick Bosa. Borom does a good job, but the finish from Teven Jenkins is what gets this play added to the post.

Jenkins sees that Borom is on Bosa and knows he needs to help. Borom is doing well, but one quick shot from Teven Jenkins finishes the play and leaves Bosa on the ground.

"View post on imgur.com"

The play below winds up being the touchdown pass to Dante Pettis, but you can see that in the film review, the coaches will be pointing things out to both tackles. In this play, Kmet and David Montgomery are helping with chips on the edge.

The issue is that the 49ers are running stunts. Nick Bosa and Drake Jackson get chipped, but in reality, they just get pushed into the interior, which is where they were rushing anyways.

Both tackles followed the edge rushers as they were chipped, and it left both of them steps behind Omenihu and Armstead as these two defenders stunted outside. Justin Fields made the play happen, but both tackles were drawn in and failed to pick up the stunt.

"View post on imgur.com"

The last play that we will highlight is below. It speaks to what Luke Getsy was trying to do to help his tackles. Bosa is lined up on Jones, and by the end of the rep they are dueling one-on-one. However, you can see that before the snap that the Chicago Bears have three tight ends lined up on the side of Bosa.

Bosa has to be ready for all of them to chip, or to take him on. You can see that he has to take a step away from all of the tight ends before getting into his rush with Jones. That extra step buys Jones the time to get set and ready for Bosa, compared to seeing Bosa scream off of the edge on the snap.

"View post on imgur.com"

From there, Jones held his own, and Justin Fields could get the pass off. Overall, the offensive line was not great. Everyone had their losses, and the young tackles struggled with stunts in particular.

However, of the 19 plays, you saw the majority of them involve Getsy getting his tackles extra help. They also ran four screens, five play-action passes, and four bootleg plays all to get Justin Fields to throw the ball quickly, or move him in the pocket.

The Chicago Bears game-planned around their offensive line, which is something you did not see last season. It makes dealing with the struggles much easier.