There's No Doubt It's Cody Whitehair's Bears Line Now
For seven years Kyle Long was viewed as the leader of the Bears' offensive line.
Even as a second-year or third-year player he commanded the respect associated with line leadership.
When Ryan Pace took over as general manager and set about bringing in new linemen, Long remained and was the highly respected veteran presence who was more of an emotional or highly charged leader than one who did it by example.
Long is gone.
It's Cody Whitehair's line now, if it already wasn't anyway.
Centers often are viewed as a line's leader. This only certifies it for Whitehair.
"He always puts the team first," quarterback Mitchell Trubisky said of Whitehair last year. "In here early; last guy to leave. Just a selfless player and does his job on the field."
Whitehair has been a guard, a center, a guard again and then a center again and hasn't complained. It's not easy switching positions back and forth regardless of the standard NFL line coming from coaches that guard and center are similar positions.
If they were that similar, then why did James Daniels not work out at center last year?
Individual success on the offensive line is not always quantifiable statistically. Trying to fix statistics to an offensive lineman's play rarely works because the line is an entity unto itself.
It's the whole group working or failing together, at least when it comes to run blocking.
The people at Pro Football Focus have tried bringing their grading system to offensive linemen and it's probably better than any other way of independently measuring indvidual offensive line success.
When you see what they've done with Whitehair's grades, it's easy to understand why the Bears need to have Whitehair at center this year.
In the games he's played guard, Whitehair had a respectable 68.1 grade. In the games when he has played center, he's at 79.8. On their scale, 79.8 is very high.
Whitehair has been a borderline Pro Bowl player for the last two years when he played center. About the only weakness apparent in his game while at center was an occasional errant shotgun snap, but he continued working at this and seems to have improved.
Handling blocking assignment changes at the line of scrimmage, the line calls, has been easy for him.
Often coaches and personnel people overthink situations. The Bears flipped Daniels and Whitehair last year because it was said by both Pace and Matt Nagy that they would be at their "natural positions."
It turned out to be a classic case of not leaving well enough alone.
Daniels wasn't ready to be a starting NFL center yet as a 21-year-old. Whitehair has proven better at center than guard.
They had reasons but there's no doubt now they already had a good enough center in Whitehair and there's no reason to change something when it works.
Anticipate the leader of this line being located right at it's heart in 2020.
Cody Whitehair at a Glance
Kansas State C
Height: 6-foot-3
Weight: 309
Key Numbers: The Bears ran for 814 yards in the season's second half and were 5-3 with Whitehair at center, and ran for 644 yards while going 3-5 in the first half with Whitehair at guard.
2020 Projection: A possible Pro Bowl season with a PFF grade hovering near 80.
Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven
