Bear Digest

Darnell Wright and Bears rising offensive line facing real challenge

The NFL sacks leader and one of the league's most feared defensive linemen should be sufficient to have the focus of an offensive line now regarded among the league's best.
Gene Chamberlain|
Running back Kyle Monangai runs through the blocking from Darnell Wright and Cole Kmet Sunday in the Bears' win over Cincinnati.
Running back Kyle Monangai runs through the blocking from Darnell Wright and Cole Kmet Sunday in the Bears' win over Cincinnati. | Joseph Maiorana-Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears

Kyle Monangai had a favorite run from his 176-yard debut as a starting running back for injured D'Andre Swift.

Those who watched the game will remember it well because of Darnell Wright's role in it and the way Monangai got in the middle of a pile that was being pushed.

"I broke a tackle at the line of scrimmage during a wide zone and if you noticed, Darnell was kind of in my way," Monangai told reporters after the game. "We laughed about it after the fact, but that was probably my favorite one, just because we were pushing the pile. And we talk about that—getting extra yards after contact.”

Getting in Monangai's way and then nearly committing a holding penalty at the end of the run before taking his hands off a defender could have been the only things Wright did wrong—or almost wrong—in the game. His career-best 94.1 Pro Football Focus blocking grade overshadowed even his 95.5 run-blocking grade on a day when the entire offense line posted strong blocking days.

“The guys up front are moving people," Monangai said. "If  you watch the film, the line of scrimmage is moving. They were doing double teams, single blocks. They did their job (Sunday), at a high level. That’s the simple answer as to why the run game was what it was.”

Wright's performance was the best run-blocking grade by PFF last week in the NFL for linemen, and Joe Thuney had the best pass-blocking grade in the league for the week. As a result, the Bears offensive line has climbed to seventh in PFF line rankings heading into the second half of the season.

Wright had a series of incredibly vicious blocks in the game, including one pancake block of Shemar Stewart on fourth-and-1 rather comical to everyone on Chicago’s side except possibly receiver DJ Moore, who inadvertently wound up on the bottom making it a pancake stack.

He also had the attention of everyone with a 325-pound cartwheel in celebration while trailing the play on Colston Loveland's game-winning TD catch.

It's all fairly impressive considering the Bears line was in the bottom third of the league earlier in the season.

It wasn't just a case of one game beating up on a weak defensive line that fueled the Bears offensive line’s ris, although they definitely did beat up on a bad team. They had already ascended to 11th in the rankings before facing Cincinnati.

The question facing the improved Bears line is whether they can continue their ascension against a Giants team that really is much better than a 2-7 record indicates, especially on the defensive line. What else can you say about a team that played the Eagles twice, the 49ers, the Chiefs, the Chargers and the Broncos other than they've been challenged?

The thought of looking past the Giants on the offensive line is almost comical considering when they do look at those across from them Sunday they’ll see beastly Dexter Lawrence and NFL sacks leader Brian Burns.

It shouldn't be hard at that point to remember how far they've come since the early weeks of this season.

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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.