Chicago Bears’ poor roster construction was on display in the loss to Minnesota
By Todd Welter
The offensive line has been awful in pass protection in the first five games. Fields has not had a lot of time to throw the ball as he is typically under pressure.
Sometimes it is Fields’ own doing as he tends to hold onto the ball too long. Fields was much more decisive with the ball against the Vikings and he still had to bail out of the pocket a lot because of how many times defenders were getting into the backfield.
Poles did not do much to upgrade a bad offensive line from last season. He chose to pursue one-year deal-type veteran players. None of them panned out. Dakota Dozier was lost for the season during minicamp with an injury. Reilly Reiff and Michael Scolfield were brought in right before training camp. Scholfield was cut and Reiff is the backup tackle.
Poles tried to sign restricted free agent Ryan Bates but he constructed the contract in a way that made it easy for the Buffalo Bills to match.
Lucas Patrick was brought in on a two-year deal to be the starting center. He injured his hand early in training camp which has forced incumbent Sam Mustipher to continue as the center. He has not played well at all this season.
Mustipher is constantly getting beat in pass protection. He was awful last week against the New York Giants.
Bears C Sam Mustipher Allowed 7 HURRIES. That is hard to do from the C position. He graded out w a meager 8.3 pass-blocking grade on PFF. If Lucas Patrick isn’t ready to move to C soon I’d look to make a roster move. #DaBears #Bears #Chicago
— Clay Harbor (@clayharbs82) October 3, 2022
Cody Whitehair is on injured reserve and that has forced Patrick to play guard which means the Bears have to roll with Mustipher at center.
Mustipher had another poor day at the office. He snapped a ball too early to Fields that was nearly a fumble and it is leading to many fans hoping the Bears make a change.
The Chicago Bears’ salary cap problems that limited how much Poles could spend in the offseason. The Bears did have some young players on the line worth rolling the dice on in Larry Borom and Teven Jenkins. Braxton Jones was added to the roster in this year’s draft.
Going with youth on the line means it will take time for these guys to get up to speed. The growing pains have been three losses and Fields running for his life.
Fields ran for 47 yards against Minnesota. A lot of that was because he had to escape a pass rush. The other reason was the wide receivers were not always open in key situations.
#Bears QB Justin Fields accounted for 255 of the team’s 288 total yards. That’s 89% of the team’s total offense that went through its QB. It would have been even more if not for that horrible block in the back call.
— Aaron Leming (@AaronLemingNFL) October 9, 2022
This team needs weapons & a better OL.