Tough Call Facing Bears with Bobby Massie
The Bears could face one of the tougher calls they've had to make on lineups after this week.
They'd love to be making it because it would mean there is a next week.
It's right tackle Bobby Massie's return to the starting lineup. Massie has been given the OK to begin practicing this week after going on injured reserve in Week 9 due to a knee injury.
Before they'd even need to make a decision on activating him, they'd have to be certain his knee was fine.
However, if it is and they immediately put him into the lineup at his normal right tackle spot they could disrupt an offensive line which has been possibly the key factor in getting the Bears back within a victory of the playoffs.
They've been together now since the first Green Bay game.
Matt Nagy pointed to the impact earlier this week while discussing his team's turnaround.
"On top of that too, the last thing is, I'll go back to the offensive line," Nagy said. "That was the first game that we had these five guys on that offensive line in Green Bay, and we’ve been able to keep that a constant up until today."
When Massie was still starting and with Nick Foles at quarterback, the Bears had rushed for 28, 35, 63, 49 and 96 yards in a five-week stretch. They struggled on for two more games of 56 and 41 yards after Massie left the lineup and then they used several other players at other line spots, as well.
Then in Week 12 they ran for 121 yards against Green Bay with their current offensive line of Germain Ifedi moved to right tackle, Alex Bars playing Ifedi's spot at right guard, Sam Mustipher at center and Cody Whitehair shifted from center to left guard. With that lineup, they've rushed for an average of 151.4 yards a game. They've never been below 121 yards in that stretch.
"I don't know if we had much choice," line coach Juan Castillo recalled. "People were hurt, they're on COVID (reserve), it really is who the five guys left standing and what happened is, a lot of times in life, I'm sure you've had, when you get an opportunity and you take advantage of it."
It was Bars and Mustipher taking advantage of the opportunity.
"These are the things that happen sometimes," Castillo said. "People get opportunities. Those are two quality kids that have got an opportunity and done the best of it."
If they decide they don't want to disrupt that interior chemistry between Whitehair, Mustipher and Bars at the left guard through right guard spots, then it becomes a matter of whether they think Ifedi can do a better job at right tackle than Massie could do after missing half the season.
This is the eternal question in football of whether a player can lose a job because of an injury running headlong into another old saying: If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Castillo tried to equate situations like this to Lou Gehrig and Wally Pipp with the 1920s New York Yankees, but caused a few chuckles when the names eluded him.
"I'm not a big baseball guy but somebody missed a game and then he came on and he was a hall of fame guy," Castillo said.
It's often been speculated that both Bears tackles could get dumped next year for salary cap purposes, although no one with the team has said anything like this yet. Both have contracts offering big cap savings if this happens.
So a decision at right tackle could have longer-laster ramifications.
The Bears will have to decide if Massie is Pipp, or they could put Ifedi back on the bench after they had liked his play at guard earlier in the year.
Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven
