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Bear Digest

Sam Roush Lets Ben Johnson and the Bears Duplicate Rams' Innovation

The Bears can make good use of their rookie third-round pick from Stanford merely by adopting what they saw from L.A. in their playoff loss last season.
Gene Chamberlain|
Sam Roush tries to outrun UCLA's Oluwafemi Oladejo. Roush's selection in Round 3 can be a Bears offensive key.
Sam Roush tries to outrun UCLA's Oluwafemi Oladejo. Roush's selection in Round 3 can be a Bears offensive key. | Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images

Of all the draft picks made by the Bear last week, none perplexed as much tight end Sam Roush in Round 3 at No. 66 overall.

When a team in need of a better edge pass rush ignored it completely for center it was understandable because at No. 57 the edges available failed to suit their needs. At No. 60, they traded down and then came up with Roush.

A third tight end in Round 3 with so many other needs seemed like a luxury move a Super Bowl winner might make, but not a team climbing like the Bears are.

As with anything they're doing, Ben Johnson has a reason and it should now be apparent.

The use of 12- and 13-personnel packages, or two-tight end and three-tight end packages is all the rage and something Johnson had already caught on to while in Detroit. He continued it last year with the Bears, although they were more focused on the two-tight end approach.

According to Sumer Sports Solutions, the Bears finished sixth in using 12-personnel packages with 360 plays or 32.64% of their offensive plays. They probably didn't get the most out of their 12-personnel usage, or at least what Johnson would like. They ranked eighth in EPA within 12-personnel.

Their final game of the season may have opened up Johnson's eyes to something for this season that takes it all a step further.

All the personnel package rage

The Bears lost the playoff game to the Rams, who did something completely wild last year to get to the NFC championship game. They went beyond 12-personnel and heavily into 13-personnel.

The Rams use 12-personnel 30th most often at 9.58% but played in 13-personnel 30.48% of the time or 331 plays. It was an incredibly high number, more than twice as many as the team using it the next most, Pittsburgh (14.17%). The Rams' offensive  EPA in 13-personnel was No. 1 in the league at 77.43. No one else was higher than Buffalo' 19.69 EPA.

Johnson got an eyeful with that film of the Rams while preparing for that playoff game. It's obvious he wants to take the team to a much higher 13-personnel usage and merely signing back Durham Smythe or leaning on practice squad types like Stephen Carlson wasn't going to suffice.

He went out after possibly the best blocking tight end in the draft, one who also had plenty of experience catching it. And that was Roush.

Get ready for three-tight end usage to the hilt this year, whether it's in the running attack or the passing game.

"Again, we're top five in 12- and 13-personnel," GM Ryan Poles said after taking Roush. "If something were to happen injury-wise to Cole or Colston (Loveland), all  of the sudden you're changing a lot of stuff, a lot of game plan stuff that is kind of your bread and butter.

"We feel good about that room and the guys that are in there.”

That was last year. Now Johnson is going to want to take it a step further. They're not going to say what the plan is but they don't need to do that. If it wasn't to use 13-personnel a great deal, they could have simply taken a tight end in Round 5 or 6. They wanted a better one, a blocker.

The Bears used 13-personnel ninth most last year, for only 94 plays or 8.5% of the time. They were ninth in EPA when they did use 13-personnel last year (2.24).

They're going to be looking to use it more and then climb at how effective they are using it. Roush is the key.

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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.

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