Bear Digest

Numbers fail to support fears over Bears signing Trey Smith

Both analytics and simple numbers crunching establish Trey Smith as the best route for the Bears to go at guard once free agency begins.
Gene Chamberlain|
Trey Smith waves to fans walking to the Chiefs locker room. The Bears have the opportunity to pursue Smith but is it the right thing to do?
Trey Smith waves to fans walking to the Chiefs locker room. The Bears have the opportunity to pursue Smith but is it the right thing to do? | Denny Medley-Imagn Images

In this story:

Chicago Bears

With so much cap space available to the Bears now and Kansas City guard Trey Smith expected to be there in free agency for the highest bidder, it only seems logical Chicago GM Ryan Poles will make this a primary emphasis.

While it's easy to make this assumption about Smith because he is the highest rated offensive lineman on almost every free agency analysis out there, there are also reasons to wonde if it's the right thing for the Bears to do.

It's not as clear cut of a decision when analytics alone are brought into the equation but applied math can make it more obvious.

Trey Smith's yellow flag

Smith is made to order for the Bears, who have had right guard as a problem area since they moved Teven Jenkins to left guard. Smith is a top blocker who has played right guard through his entire NFL career and did it well.

Those who dislike the analytics of Pro Football Focus will find it irrelevant but the site does detailed grading of offensive linemen and this isn't entirely common.

What they say about Smith isn't entirely complimentary, but there is another study suggesting Smith is the way to go.

Smith's grades for he Super Bowl and two playoff games this year were red flags, or at least yellow ones.

Out of the 34 guards who got into NFL 2024 postseason games, Smith graded out only 22nd. His run blocking was 22nd and pass blocking 25th.

Smith's Super Bowl performance earned a good deal of criticism but he was tasked with blocking Jalen Carter. Few succeeded at this in 2024, and he actually had his best blocking day of postseason against Carter. It was the first two playoff games where Smith really struggled. He had a 63.2 blocking grade in that game.

In the other two playoff games Smith was given 48.3 and 49.5 for overall grades, including a 29.6 as a pass blocker in the win over Houston. As the lower numbers suggest, that's bad.

Yet, Smith has been in 13 playoff games in his four years and only in one other game before 2024 did he have a PFF grade below 60.

In the regular season, Smith graded 14th among 50 guards who played the most. It actually was only four spots better than Jenkins, but Smith played 550 more snaps, tying teammate Joe Thuney for the most plays in the NFL among guards at 1,288. Smith was just two better than Jenkins in 2023, ranking 11th, but again with a lot more plays, 211 more.

In 2022 Jenkins rated high above Smith, who was 18th. Jenkins was third that year, but again Jenkins had the injury factor and had only 576 plays to Smith's 1,039.

Dependability is part of the reason Smith is so highly thought of -- he has missed only one possible NFL start.

Smith does not excel as much as a pass blocker as he does a run blocker, even though he did not give up a sack this past season according to PFF. ESPN doesn't rate him among the top 20 interior linemen for pass blocking but he is sixth for run block win rate among all centers and guards (75%).

The question isn't so much about Smith's skill set as it is about whether Poles should be signing free agent offensive linemen. It's usually considered a stop-gap approach.

When PFF isn't doing subjective analytical work, they can come up with a fairly solid bit of good old-fashioned objective numbers crunching.

Ryan Smith, in an article looking at why building offensive lines through the draft is better, had to admit it's not entirely bad for a team to have one dominant free agent in the bunch.

The problem with the Bears is it looks like they'll be rebooting their line with at least two free agent starters because they badly need an experienced center like Drew Dalman.

"The top OLs are built through the draft, and those teams have used premium early-round picks to do so," Ryan Smith wrote. "Addressing OL through free agency does have its value but more so in the form of a player filling a single hole, not multiple positions."

Smith took a look at the offensive lines for the Eagles, Lions and Buccaneers and called the three the league's best. The Lions drafted four of their original five starters for 2024 and three came in the first round.

The Eagles and the Lions filled their right guard spots in free agency, like the Bears would be doing.

The Buccaneers had two first-rounders and two second-rounders but signed free agent left guard Ben Bredeson after he was a fourth-round pick, Ryan Smith noted.

Bears need patience with draft picks

One other interesting item in the story does involve PFF hocus pocus with grades, but that is how it takes a while for those drafted rookies to make headway.

On 43.9% of players drafted in Rounds 1-3 over the past five years had PFF grades above 65.0 as rookies. Only 58.7% of them had grades above that level by Year 2, but by Year 3 almost two-thirds (65.1%) had grades of 65.

So if the Bears did take the draft approach, they'll have to be content with watching players develop for a year or two before they get desired results and with Smith they would be getting what they want immediately.

It might be that way at center, too, if they chose to sign Drew Dalman or Ryan Clark.

The Bears are in good position to bolster their offensive line either way they choose, but if they go the draft route they might want to also consider bringing in veteran place holders at first because it could be a while.

In that respect, no one could fault them for throwing all of the money necessary at Smith, who whould hit the ground, running so to speak.

Doing this with more than one position can mean not becoming

More Chicago Bears News

X: BearsOnSI

Published
Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.