Losing James Daniels for Season Tests Inexperienced Line Depth

There could be trouble ahead for the Bears if a report about James Daniels' pectoral injury is true.

According to Tom Pelissero of NFL Network, Daniels tore his pec muscle and will miss the rest of the season.

The Bears put Alex Bars into the game in the second half after Daniels' injury and he was up against a defensive line which included Ndamukong Suh, Vita Vea and William Gholston.

The veterans got the best of Bars at times, which exposes the overall inexperience the Bears have with their line depth.

"It's a tough situation to roll into if you're Alex, coming in against that stout D-line," Bears coach Matt Nagy said. "I think that, again, effort-wise it's good. There's some technique things (to correct) here or there. But for the most part, I was happy with how he (played)."

Vea sacked Nick Foles once when Bars had him.

Pro Football Focus issues grades for players based on their own scoring system and have Bars at 49.8 after 32 snaps on the year, 31 of them in Thursday night's game.

A 49.8 is very low.

"He had one or two in there," Nagy said. "There was one (sack) in there that they got; that's a part of this game. But I have a lot of confidence in him. Just depending on what it is with James, it'll have to be the next-man-up mentality."

When Bars came into the game, the Bears didn't lose a lot in the running game. They were bad all night no matter who played.

They had seven rushes for 19 yards in the first half and seven for 16 in the second half. Bars played 31 snaps and Daniels 32.

The difference came in the passing game with the sack allowed. The Bears line in general was poor in the second half with three sacks allowed.

Daniels had been fairly effective this season at left guard overall with one penalty and no sacks allowed. Pro Football Focus had given him a 65.8 rating, which is above average. It's the second-lowest grade for Bears offensive lineman. Center Cody Whitehair has a 63.8 rating.

Bars is 6-foot-5, 314 pounds and came into the league as an undrafted free agent last year. He spent part of the year on the practice squad and the final five games on the 53-man roster, then made the roster this training camp.

The Bears' other option if they didn't want to use Bars as a starter would be Rashaad Coward, who started 10 games last year and played right guard. He is the backup right guard.

Rookie Arlington Hambright, their seventh-round pick this year, is the third-string left guard.

Daniels is also the backup center so it could lead to practice squad center Sam Mustipher being on the 53- man roster at some point.

There are some unsigned veteran free agent guards available like former Viking Josh Kline, and two former Bears who know this offense—Eric Kush and Ted Larsen.

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