Chicago Bears: 3 burning questions heading into Week 4
By Ryan Heckman
Will James Daniels supplant a struggling Eric Kush?
In Week 1, the Bears running game looked fine against the Green Bay Packers. Jordan Howard ran 15 times for 82 yards and, per Nagy, should have gotten more run. Week 2, though, saw a little bit of a change on the ground.
Against the Seattle Seahawks, Howard was hit in the back field on several occasions and struggled to get anything going. Many of the negative or neutral runs by Howard were blown up due to poor blocking from the left guard position. In Week 3 at Arizona, it was more of the same.
Eric Kush is the veteran. He’s been there, he’s done that. I get it. But, the Bears drafted James Daniels out of Iowa in the second round and, whether or not he’s reportedly “ready” for the NFL doesn’t sit well with me anymore.
The Bears are only going to win games if they run the ball effectively and stick to the run. Fortunately, they didn’t shy away from it against the Cardinals and Howard received 24 carries — impressive, considering the Bears were down double-digits early.
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It might be time to throw Daniels in there at left guard. Even center Cody Whitehair has improved from week to week and is not the most pressing issue up front anymore. Kush has been bad. He’s coming off a two-penalty game. There is no way around it. I want to see if Nagy takes the necessary chance in putting his rookie out there in hopes he can kickstart the ground game.