My college coach always said after games and before film sessions that nothing is ever as good as it seems, and nothing is ever as bad as it seems after a game. The more I’ve watched film, the more I believe he’s right. I went into the Bears/Bengals tape thinking I would get a lot of bad from Nate Davis. While he certainly didn’t have his best game, it wasn’t necessarily his worst either.
Davis had a few rough plays in the limited time that the first team saw, but for the most part, he was just ok. He didn’t make any plays that stood out positively likeĀ Teven Jenkins did last week, but heĀ wasn’t constantly getting beat, either. So before I focused on a couple of plays, he didn’t perform all that well. I felt like I needed to say that while it wasn’t his best day, I’m not sure it was his absolute worst either.
Again, I like to preface these posts by saying that we can take a pretty fair educated guess at what a lineman’s assignment is on a given play, but the only ones who 100% know for certain are the Bears players and coaches.
Nate Davis Play 1
This play is a fairly simple one-on-one pass protection, but Nate Davis gets a flat-out beat. I like that his first step is slightly inside to protect that inside gap, and he sticks with Kris Jenkins for a few seconds, but he just cannot get beat on that spin move. As Jenkins drifts outside, Davis leans with his punch. Jenkins feels it and spins, and because Davis is leaning, he’s off balance, and Jenkins gets by him. No one is going to win every one-on-one pass rush rep, but for a seasoned NFL veteran going up against a rookie, that’s not necessarily the way you want to get beat.
Nate Davis Play 2
This one is pretty short and sweet. Davis is pulling to the left for a kickout block on whoever the endman is on the line of scrimmage, and that ends up being the blitzing linebacker. First, and I’ll say I’m not sure if they’re coached this way or not, but I doubt it. Davis’ split from the center is way too tight and gives away that he might be pulling. Offensive linemen, when pulling, tend to tighten their splits just a touch to get them closer to the target. In this play, Davis is just too close to the center. His pull step left isn’t great as he doesn’t gain any ground left; he just kind of picks it up and puts it down, or what’s called a false step.
Now, pulling for a blitzing linebacker on the end is a lot tougher than pulling for a DE who has contain, so I’ll give him that. But on the pull, Davis just kind of tries to lean with his left shoulder and chip the LB. Maybe that’s because it’s a tough block, and he wanted to just get a piece of the LB, but still, it’s just a complete whiff, and that linebacker forces the RB right into the tackle.
Coleman Shelton Play
This one I’ll preface by saying an open-field block on a screen is one of the most difficult for an offensive lineman, but for a smaller, quicker center like Coleman Shelton this just wasn’t very good. It’s just your standard slip screen for running back out to the left side. Shelton does a great job of quickly getting out into the flat – most linemen are coached to count to one, then head out into the flat. But once he gets out there, he overruns the target a bit and gets completely swum by the linebacker.
Again, it’s one of the most challenging blocks for any offensive lineman. Blocking a better athlete than you in the open field like that is a really tough ask. But getting beat inside without getting any sort of a block on the backer isn’t great, either.
Bears OL Review
All in all, the starters were fine in this game. Not great by any means, but not awful either. I highlighted some of the bad simply because it was a little more glaring than the good. This group will significantly influence how far the can go this season. While efforts like this won’t likely be good enough to beat very good teams consistently, they’re also good enough to get by if this was their “bad” game.
