Chicago Bears general manager Ryan Poles had one focus this offseason: fixing the roster up front on offense for quarterback Caleb Williams.
There were three notable moves Poles made to ensure this happened. He signed Drew Dalman in free agency and made two trades for Jonah Jackson and Joe Thuney.
These were seen as aggressive, but necessary moves that needed to be made by the franchise after allowing an NFL-high 68 sacks a season ago. This has not worked out well at all so far because of one of those trades.
Jackson has been wildly disappointing to start the season
One of the two big trades made in the offseason for the Bears was striking a deal with the Los Angeles Rams to acquire Jackson. The Bears gave up a 2025 sixth-round pick to bring Jackson to Chicago.
There were high hopes and expectations for Jackson entering the season. Outside of left tackle Braxton Jones, everything seemed perfectly fine with the offensive line and looked poised to make major improvements.
Yikes were Bears fans wrong about that.
Jackson has been one of the worst offenders on the offensive line in terms of penalties. In the Bears' Week 1 loss to the Minnesota Vikings, he was called on two false start penalties, a common problem during training camp for the team that lingered into the regular season. He followed that up with a bad holding call in the Bears' 52-21 blowout loss to the Detroit Lions last week.
Through two games, who has the lowest Pro Football Focus grade among the Bears linemen? If fans guessed Jackson, that would be correct.
PFF Category | Grade (Through Two Games) | Ranking (Out of 88 Guards) |
|---|---|---|
Overall | 47.4 | 78th |
Pass Blocking | 48.4 | 68th |
Run Blocking | 50.5 | 66th |
While he hasn't allowed any of the six team sacks this season, he has allowed five pressures, which ranks 72nd among guards in the NFL. Yeah, not exactly encouraging numbers for a guy Chicago is paying $52 million for the next three years.
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Could things improve? Sure, they definitely could, and they definitely have to if Chicago wants any hopes of making a run for the postseason after the 0-2 start to the year.