Underrating the Bears Offensive Line
The great assumption and even rumors about this coming NFL player acquisition season focus Bears attention on two areas in particular.
One is the defensive line, which is rather obvious considering how poor they were at stopping the run and rushing the passer in 2022.
The other is offensive line. In fact, Kevin Fishbain of The Athletic reported the offensive line emphasis as a buzz going around at the Senior Bowl.
Comments made by GM Ryan Poles and coach Matt Eberflus later in the season and postseason have seemed to lock in the team's desire to keep tackle Braxton Jones and guard Teven Jenkins at their positions.
Pro Football Focus had both rated in the top 20 their positions, regardless of the side of the line where they line up and Jenkins was even ranked third in the NFL.
So this left center, left guard and right tackle as spots where the Bears might be looking for upgrades.
If ESPN's assessment of battles along the line of scrimmage are accurate, perhaps only right tackle is a spot the Bears look to upgrade. It doesn't seem like Poles has arrived at the same conclusions.
"As a unit, I thought the run game was really good," Poles said at season's end. "But we have to get better at pass pro. They all know that. And they’re up for the challenge.
"For those who aren’t here, we got to continue to bring in players who can help us do that."
Surprising Bears Rankings on O-Line
Bears left guard Cody Whitehair comes out looking a great deal more valuable in ESPN's assessment of the line than he does in Pro Football Focus'.
Whitehair was ranked third in the NFL at 77% for run block win rate. Only the Eagles Landon Dickerson (80%) and Ravens' Ben Powers (79%) ranked better than Whitehair. Jenkins wasn't even ranked in the top 10, although he was ranked third in run blocking by PFF.
Not only that, but Whitehair ranked fifth for ESPN's pass block win rate (96%).
The ESPN metrick tells how often a pass blocker can sustain their block 2.5 seconds or better.
Whitehair is the second-highest paid Bears player with a cap hit of $14.1 million for this season. The average paid by NFL teams for left guards is $10.1 million according to Spotrac.com.
Assumptions the Bears would seek to replace Whitehair immediately in free agency with a player younger than 31 might be premature if he's playing at this level.
A few other surprises include Sam Mustipher at center and Braxton Jones at left tackle.
Mustipher often gets targeted by Bears fans in social media for a few bad plays but his overall season in 2022 rated as solid with the analytics types on the internet. PFF had Mustipher rated 18th among centers overall, or nearly in the center of the league, and it was his career-best grade at 63.4. His 65.5 grade as a run blocker was 16th overall and also a career best.
PFF has Mustipher graded much lower as a pass blocker at 32nd in the league.
ESPN, however, sees it much differently and gave Mustipher the ninth-highest pass block win rate at 95%.
Mustipher is a restricted free agent and the Bears really need to make a decision on him this year because he was undrafted. They most likely would not tender him at $6 million first-round tender or $4.3 million second-round tender but the right of first refusal level is $2.627 million, so they must decide to give him this level at the least.
If not, he becomes an unrestricted free agent.
They have Lucas Patrick under contract for another year and he was originally expected to be the starting center before a pair of unfortunate injuries limited his season to seven starts, and all but 10 plays coming at one of the guard spots.
One other surprise is how high Jones is ranked by ESPN. Jones made the All-Rookie team for Pro Football Focus so perhaps this is no surprise to some, but the shocker is ESPN says he had the eighth-highest pass block win rate for all tackles at 93%.
Jones admitted often this past season how he has trouble with bull rushes and struggled greatly against Detroit in the second Bears-Lions game. But add that ESPN figure with the fact Jones was PFF's 10th-best run-blocking tackle regardless of the side of the line, and it would appear there is no way the Bears would want to replace their starting left tackle.
As a rookie fifth-round pick, he is an inexpensive left tackle yet there is great interest among fans in signing left Orlando Brown Jr. of the Chiefs, who could be a free agent. Brown was way below Jones as a run blocker according to PFF and according to ESPN's pass block win rate he is well above Brown in this category. Brown's strength is supposed to be pass blocking but he didn't break the top 10 for pass block win rate among tackles.
The Underrated Bears Offensive Line
It all adds up to a Bears offensive line with underrated players, and one figure from ESPN probably indicates this better than anything else.
The Bears offensive line was ranked second in the league for pass block win rate behind only Kansas City.
This is the same team that gave up a league-high 58 sacks. The Bears were No. 1 in rushing and ESPN has them as strong at run block win rate, but not as high as they are at pass block win rate. They were ranked fifth in run block win rate.
All of this helps to explain why PFF has the offensive line ranked 14th overall when they seemed to struggle so much at pass blocking and at scoring or moving the ball in general.
It paints a much different picture for where the Bears need to look in free agency or the draft, although the right tackle position definitely comes out the biggest loser for the Bears in these analytical assessments.
Considering right tackle Riley Reiff is a free agent, it's the position to expect they'll point at the most for the draft or free agency.
Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven
