I have been thinking abo♛ut for the last three days:
I am genuinely surprised with how poorly the Chicago Bears’ offensive line is playing. Changes need to come … and soon. Unfortunately, the free-agent spending spree can’t happen for another 175 days — which is when the new league year begins and free agency opens its doors. The Bears don’t have 175 days to figure out how to make their offensive line better. They have to do it now. Otherwise, all of the offseason work that was put in with the hopes of being a playoff team in 2024 was all for naught.
The bad news is that I do not have a magic elixir that will make the Bears’ offensive line problems disappear overnight. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t paths to improvement that can start taking place as soon as this week against the Indianapolis Colts.
The most extreme plan
Before we dive into this mess, I need to highlight something: Some of the NFL’s best and brightest minds didn’t see this coming. Pro Football Focus graded the Bears as going into the regular season. The folks at The 33rd Team also had the Bears . Sharp Football’s offensive line rankings put Chicago’s football team at 12th . The team at Pro Football Network had going into the year at 19th. But even that would be in the respectable middle-of-the-pack range, which would mark a significant improvement from what we’ve seen the first two weeks of the season.
To see how the Bears are performing when cꦺompared to what the preseason forecast was suggesting is quite jarring. And it is a reminder of how difficult it can be to properly analyze and project offensive line play.
With that being said, retired Bea🐟rs lineb🔜acker Lance Briggs has an idea on how to shake things up:
There is a part of me that thinks firing Offensive Line Coach Chris Morgan isn’t feasible. But because I’ve lost count of how many times a hitting coach or pitching coach has been shown the door as the fall guy, I can’t rule out something like that happening for an offensive line coach in the NFL. Then again, the Bears just gave Morgan a promotion in the offseason by adding the Run Game Coordinator title to his business card.
Perhaps a firing is a bridge too far. Maybe start by giving the run coordinator gig to someone else. Putting new eyes on old problems isn’t the worst idea.
The Bears should make some substitutions
I understand that shuffling the chairs on the Titanic isn’t going to satisfy a chunk of you. But it might be Chicago’s best plan of attack to fix its offensive line woes. With that in mind, here are a handful of ideas the Bears could conceivably kick around:
Dip into free agency
There are important questions to be asked about bringing a free agent off the streets. How long will it take them to get up to speed? Are they really an upgrade? Why are they still a free agent? If this list from Erik Lambert is any indication, the free agency route doesn’t look too good:
Start scouting for next year
Sometimes, you need to know when you’re beat. And while the Bears should focus on the present, there are people employed at Halas Hall who are responsible for getting a leg up on the future. Perhaps some of these offensive linemen Jacob Infante lists could be on the Bears’ radar:
Bears scouts should see what this group of offensive linemen is doing wrong and vow to not bring in dudes who are like that moving forward. Maybe this team needs to switch up its scouting or coaching game when it comes to the guys in the trenches because something clearly isn’t working.
