Will Lucas Patrick Move to Center?
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What Bears head coach Matt Eberflus hasn't revealed, sometimes becomes apparent, obvious, or comes to light during the weekly interviews with coordinators.
On Thursday, the offensive line was a hot spot.
1. No Move of Lucas Patrick This Week
In a round-about way, offensive coordinator Luke Getsy said alternating Teven Jenkins and Lucas Patrick will continue this week at guard. There will be no move yet of Patrick to center because the Bears aren't yet fully comfortable with Patrick snapping the ball after his thumb surgery early in training camp.
"It's definitely not the operation part of it," Getsy said. "Lucas is fine with that. I think it's like you (media) said: 'you’re coming off of that type of injury.'
"I mean we've got to keep building up and when we feel really good about it then we can make a real decision of are we going to move him to center full time or not? But right now I don't think we're to that point just yet of feeling that comfort."
It gives center Sam Mustipher more time to prove he should remain at center. He's been improving, if you go by Pro Football Focus grades.
It also gives Teven Jenkins more time to prove he should be the starting right guard, although he took a step back last week with a poor Wednesday practice that led to Patrick starting and getting 65% of the plays last week.
2. It's Possible Jenkins Could Start
Because of the poor Wednesday practice last week, Jenkins didn't play as much or start. However, he hasn't had that poor practice this week.
The Bears aren't saying he'll start, but at least they indicate the problem of last week didn't occur again, so he hasn't been ruled out early as starter.
"Yesterday was actually one of our best Wednesdays we've had since we've been here, so that part of it was a plus," Getsy said. "It just goes into like coach (Matt Eberflus) talks about: 'You've gotta bring it every day.' So those that do are gonna have opportunities, and I think coach, just, he believes in that and we're all on board with that."
3. Bears Blitzing?
Of course defensive coordinator Alan Williams wasn't revealing game plans but it was pointed out to him that the team rarely blitzes and Eberlus said this week he would like more heat on the quarterback.
The Bears have six sacks.
"I would like to think that we have some things in our back pocket that we haven't shown that may come out at the proper time," Williams said. "And I don't know if there's such a thing as too many sacks, or too many pressures. There's no such thing. That's like a car too fast or too much money. You can't have too much or too many. Yeah, so we always want more pressure."
Not that the Bears will admit it, but the Giants are a team they should pressure because they've had problems on the offensive line and have allowed 13 sacks, third most in the league.
So it's possible they may not even need the blitz again this week.
4. Not Faked Out
Special teams coordinator Richard Hightower doesn't think of the fake punt that worked for Houston as a case of the Bears being surprised. They matched the Texans' personnel for the fake.
"They executed," Hightower said. "It's fourth-and-what? One? Fourth-and-inches? It's tough to stop a quarterback sneak, punt-fake, anything there. It can be stopped for sure but we just didn't stop it there."
The blockers did the job, the way the Bears wanted their own blockers to get the job done at the goal line against Green Bay in the fourth quarter.
"They just got under us," he said. "That was all. They just got under us."
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