SBNation.com User Blog: Steve Ronkowski

Bears Playbook - Marquess Wilson's West Coast Style

Steve Ronkowski — Tue, 21 May 2013 00:35:03 -0000

After Phil Emery's first two picks - Kyle Long and Jonathan Bostic - the pick that intrigues me most is Marquess Wilson. Declared a potential first-rounder at various points in his college career, he pulled a Chilo Rachal and walked away from his team in the middle of last season. His draft stock plummeted accordingly, but the Bears took a chance on Wilson with the team's final pick.

I'll leave Wilson's off-the-field claims of abuse at the hands of head coach Mike Leach - claims that Wilson later recanted - for others to debate. Let's assume the kid learned from his mistake. What are Marquess Wilson's chances of sticking to the roster? Can he be a Brandon Marshall-esque draft steal, or is he destined to become another Dane Sanzenbacher and "drop" off the roster?

At the start of Washington State's biggest game of the year - their chance to upset Pac-12 rival Oregon in Week 5 - Wilson looked more like a Sanzenbacher than a Marshall. Like many a Jerry Angelo WR pick, he started off the game with four straight drops, each of them a catchable ball:

Facing double coverage in most of these plays, Wilson did do a good job of getting himself in position and attacking the ball. He just couldn't reel them in.

After this very slow start, however, Wilson turned it on and ended up the lead receiver in the game. If and when the seventh-rounder takes the field, he's not going to be facing a press corner and a deep safety - that honor will go to Brandon Marshall. Wilson needs to fit the role of a #2/#3 WR in the West Coast Offense to earn a spot on the Bears roster, and for the rest of the game, he showed that he can fit the role quite nicely.

Moving the Pile

In a quick-passing offense like Marc Trestman's, it's up to the WRs to squeeze every yard possible out of the play. Wilson's no speedster - he runs a 4.51 40 - but what he lacks in speed he makes up for in strength. In this play, he ran a quick curl underneath the corner and made an easy four yard reception:

With the first defender already having a hand on him, Wilson turned it upfield to get every extra inch he could. Ultimately, Wilson took three defenders for a three yard ride to finish the play.

Against the softer coverages you would anticipate Wilson getting in the NFL, his ability to power through tackles like this could pay major dividends. When receivers can turn four yard catches into seven yard gains, the offense will be in many more comfortable, short-yardage second and third downs.

Make Your Own Space

If Wilson's going to be seeing single coverage, he's got to be able to get himself open. A lot of this work gets done through coaching, as many WCO routes are designed to force DBs to cover deep and then take the "free" yards underneath the coverage.

It's up to the players, however, to sell the DBs on the deep route. On a play-action third down play like the one we'll look at next, the defenders have to think deep ball first - they can't get sucked in early and let a touchdown pass sail over their heads. Knowing this, Wilson perfectly sold the deep route and then cut it off to end up wide open. As the ball is snapped, you can see him go immediately into a full sprint, sending the Oregon defender across from him into an equally hasty retreat:

The cornerback doesn't bite on the action in the backfield, but Wilson's moves in space proved to be just as deceptive. Having set up his defender to guard against the long ball with his hard sprint off the line, Wilson deftly cuts his route to the sideline.

It's hard to do this sort of fake-out justice with stills, but YouTube's got me covered for video on this one. Wilson ends up following the yellow line to make playbook-perfect pivot on his five yard square out route, but his long strides and hip movement sold the DB on the go route shown in red. Wide open, Wilson reeled in the ball for the first down:

Taking Advantage of the Deep Ball

Short, quick passes are a great way to get first downs, but the long ball is a better way to put points on the board. Jay Cutler can laser balls 15-20 yards down the field quite easily, and at least on this play, Wilson looks ready to get underneath them. While he did struggle early in the game on a couple of these intermediate routes with some bad drops, this next play is what the Bears are hoping Wilson will bring:

Wilson set a line towards the sideline twenty yards downfield. Battling the Oregon defender most of the way there, Wilson got himself into position in front of the DB by the time the pass was thrown. The pass, however, was lofted way up into the rafters, giving the defender plenty of time to see the ball in flight and make a play on it.

With a well-thrown ball, Wilson could have jetted ahead of the defender and been wide open. With the ball a bit short, though, Wilson slowed himself down and adjusted his body to be in position to make the catch. Better still, Wilson's read and adjustment of his route left the defender with only one option: to flail after the ball in an attempt to break up the pass.

Wilson showcased his ability to get his body in position to make the catch, and ended up with seventeen yards on this one.

Can Wilson earn a roster spot on this Bears team? If he lives up to his original billing, he certainly can. If Wilson's penchants for drama and drops comes back to the fore, however, he'll be yet another seventh-rounder that didn't make the cut. Even with this downside in mind, I can't help but like the pick - if Wilson realizes even some of his potential, he can contribute to this team on offense. With a skill set that should fit nicely into Trestman's offense, Marquess Wilson has all the upside you could want.

Bears Playbook - Jon Bostic Vs. the Mobile Quarterback

Steve Ronkowski — Tue, 07 May 2013 12:58:54 -0000

The knocks on second-round pick Jon Bostic are accurate - he comes up a bit short in covering faster RBs and TEs in deep coverage. The biggest weakness in the Bears defensive armor last season wasn't its pass coverage, however. The Bears biggest defensive problem was their inability to contain the new generation of mobile quarterback. Add on a win against Colin Kaepernick's 49ers and a stop against the Seahawks' Russell Wilson, and the Bears still would have been sitting at home the first week of the playoffs... because they were on a bye.

Welcome Jonathan Bostic to the Bears. He is not a prototypical Tampa 2 MLB, to be sure. What he lacks in the pass coverage abilities of a Brian Urlacher in his prime, however, he makes up for with the work he does on the other side of the line of scrimmage. Emery was right to praise Bostic's football intelligence. At least in the game his Gators played against seventh-ranked South Carolina last season, he was able to out-read and out-hustle the Gamecocks.

First, let's look at Bostic in coverage to see what everyone means about Bostic's weakness in this area. The play is a simple four verticals by South Carolina. Bostic reads it all the way, and slides his way back into the zone underneath the receivers to the QB's left:

In this second look, you can see the issue. Bostic has the best straight-line speed of any inside linebacker in this draft, but it just doesn't translate that well into his drops yet. He read the QB's eyes and "felt" the receivers behind him, but he's still a bit out of the path of a potential pass, imagined in red. A step or two faster or a step or two more to his right, and he'd be more where you want him.

What Bostic lacks in speed in his drops, however, he makes up for in his speed getting back to the play afterwards. At least in this game, he never once had a short pass completed against the players he covered close to the line, and the slow-moving SC fullback here was no exception. Bostic sees Connor Shaw roll to his right after the pocket breaks down, and the linebacker rallies into a strong coverage position against Shaw's only dump-off option.

The ability to come back to the play is critical to defeating offenses designed around mobile QB, and Bostic was able to jam a passing lane at one moment and then rally into a short coverage the next.

Here's a more deadly version of Bostic doing just that. The Gators' D shut down Shaw (he of the 158.1 season QB rating) so badly he was benched, so this play had new QB Dylan Thompson roll to his left and look for the open man. At the snap:

Bostic rolls into zone coverage about ten yards off the line of scrimmage, but as soon as he reads Thompson's roll out, he changes directions and sprints into to force the pass:

Again, Bostic's speed moving forward is what kills them. He closed quickly and shut down any chance Thompson had to run the ball, and left Thompson no choice but to throw it away:

Last but certainly not least, there's the old "college play" itself - the read option. Russell Wilson declared that the Bears defense was vulnerable to this play "all day" during his 2012 matchup against Chicago, but Bostic has the antidote. The simple reason many in the NFL thought the read option wouldn't work at the pro level is that the play can be defeated by an intelligent, athletic defense, and Bostic brings both of those to the table. The first job of the middle linebacker is to make a read at the snap, and Bostic had this one sniffed out perfectly:

Quick review of the read option: the offense leaves a defender unblocked, and the QB reads this defender. If the defender goes after the QB, the RB gets the pitch, but if the defender takes away the RB, the QB keeps it. When the read player is a defensive end, he'll generally try to push the play inside to his linebackers, but when the linebacker is left unblocked, he'll force the run to the outside. Bostic did exactly that: he quickly closed in on the QB and forced the pitch.

With Bostic's speed in his favor, however, the weak angle taken by the RB wasn't going to get him to the edge in time. The linebacker made South Carolina regret trying to option him out of the play by getting a tackle for a loss on this one:

Bostic is not a great coverage linebacker, but you'd have to think that coaching can help him translate his speed running forward into hustle moving backward. You can't really coach pure speed, however, and Bostic has plenty of that. Drafting Bostic was the perfect response to the Bears' greatest defensive weakness last season, as the linebacker looks more than capable of reading and reacting to mobile QBs. He's no #54 - at least not yet - but Jon Bostic has the football intelligence and straight-line speed he'll need to man the middle of the Bears D.

More from WCG on Jon Bostic:

What's the Plan for Bostic?

Pre-Draft Evaluation of Jon Bostic

Bears Select Jon Bostic at #50

Five Questions With Alligator Army about Jon Bostic

Bears Playbook - Kyle Long, Offensive Weapon

Steve Ronkowski — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 02:36:45 -0000

Love the pick or hate it, we can assume Kyle Long is already pencilled in to start Week 1 at guard. While Long is not long on football experience, he has impressive athletic abilities that will translate well into the blocking schemes of Aaron Kromer. Let's take a look at a couple of ways Kromer can exploit the amazing mobility of Long and how Long did in similar situations on the field for Oregon.

The Screen

Long's most impressive trait - the reason Phil Emery was so enchanted with him - is his speed. I had one of the games last season that he started at guard - USC vs. Oregon - cued up before the first round was over. His in-line blocking abilities are solid, but what jumps off the tape is his ability to be at any spot on the field when the play calls for it. In other words, the big guy can move.

While Long will ultimately have to make his living going against DTs and DEs at the line of scrimmage, his speed marks him for a perfect lead blocker on plays like the screen. Not only can he get to the point quickly, he can keep up with the linebackers and DBs he will face once he's there.

This Kromer play from 2012 is a perfect sell to the Packers defense. Drew Brees bootlegs out to his right, and three offensive linemen sneak over to the left. With all Packer eyes on Brees, Kromer has gotten exactly the matchup he wanted: his guard can quickly pop the one linebacker in the way to break the RB out in the open with only two DBs in between him and pay dirt.

Long's speed makes him more than capable of beating linebackers to the point of attack in plays like these, and what he does once he's there can and will be improved by coaching. Let's look at him on the screen, this one to the right:

Again, the guard is the key blocker on this screen. Long has to run from the left guard spot to the right slot at the snap, and he gets there with time to spare.

The right defensive end sniffed this one out pretty well, but Long's hustle got him to where he needed to be.

Long rallies to stop the defensive end from regrouping and making the tackle, and the wide receiver gallops on for fifteen.

The Pull

Aaron Kromer uses his guards as a lead blockers as much as anyone else in the NFL. Faster guards are required for successful pull blocks: they not only have to get across the formation, but they have to beat any linebacker who reads the play to the point of attack. Here's a Kromer play to show what I mean:

The left guard is going to hustle across the formation at the snap and block the first player he sees. In this case, that player is linebacker AJ Hawk (50), who reads the run and heads in to engage the blocker or make the tackle.

We'll ignore that the H-back on the left wing at the snap blew his block and let Clay Matthews into the backfield untouched, but you can see the guard (highlighted) is taking his sweet time about getting to the edge. Matthews beats him to it, but Hawk's got a clear advantage in positioning. For this play to succeed, you need a guard with hustle.

Long has that hustle. Here he is on a pull block, running straight at the camera while the ball is being handed off:

And here is Long and the running back a moment later:

Even though the USC linebacker had a full view of the play developing, Long races into his position and is able to get his running back past the linebacker and set up a nice first down gain.

The kid can hustle, as you see later in this play. By the time the back is six yards downfield, Long (circled) is once again ahead of him trying to throw another block.

One of the main complaints against the Long pick was that the team reached for a linesman when there were so many offensive "weapons" still on the board. The way I see it, however, Long is an offensive weapon - his athletic ability can pay major dividends in the run and pass game. Trestman will be able to count on Long to be where he needs to be at the right time, and Kromer can help him improve at knowing what to do once he gets there.

Is Long the polished product at guard that Chance Warmack and Jonathan Cooper are? No, but that's why those two went in the top ten overall and Long fell to us. Still, if Long did nothing between now and the first snap of the regular season, he would be a more-than-serviceable option at guard based on his performance against USC. With a bit of coaching from Pro-Bowl-maker Aaron Kromer, however, he can develop into something a lot more than adequate.

Predicting Alshon Jeffery's Second Season by the Numbers

Steve Ronkowski — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 01:04:10 -0000

The Bears media has been all abuzz with news about Alshon Jeffery's off-season work with Brandon Marshall. With Phil Emery's second draft starting in less than 24 hours, is his second pick ever as GM ready for a breakout season? Wild, uninformed projections are part and parcel with draft season, but I wanted to take a more robust view of the situation. This week, I'll be taking a look at every wide receiver taken in the first two rounds of the draft from 2004-2011 to see what factors most influence sophomore improvement.

First, the raw data. I had a couple of different ideas that I wanted to test out with these numbers:

Do GMs get it right? Do WRs that are drafted in the top ten overall perform better than WRs taken later on? Also, do higher draft picks improve more in their second season than less valued WRs?

Does a rising tide carry all ships? Of great interest to Bears fans, does improved quarterback production lead to greater WR improvement in his second year?

Is there a "mentorship" effect? Does having a high-performing WR on the roster when a new WR comes aboard lead to greater WR performance and improvement?

My data set is admittedly not the most robust, but I'm not aiming for statistical significance so much as getting a general sense of whether these three questions can be supported with data and not just conventional wisdom.

First up was to see how well the overall pick spent on a wide receiver lined up with his performance. Here was the first interesting conclusion that I found. Here are two graphs comparing WR yardage production as compared to his pick number:

The rookie numbers are pretty much all over the place, but the data tightens up a bit in the second season. That draft status becomes destiny by the second season is supported by the statistical correlations between the variables - a WR's sophomore numbers (both yards gained and catches) each have a .08 greater correlation to draft pick than the rookie numbers.

In other words, a lower-picked rookie can surprise opposing defenses for a season or a higher-picked rookie might have trouble adjusting to the NFL game, but in the end, GMs have some grasp on who the best talents will ultimately be.

There's also a small trend suggesting that top receivers picks will see greater improvements in their second season:

If we were to rely on draft pick alone, where would the numbers suggest that Jeffery would end up next season? Jeffery was taken with the 45th overall pick. Take the average of every WR taken between the 35th and 55th picks, and you get a rookie average of 307 yards, pretty close to Jeffery's actual 367. Unfortunately, the average within this selection range for second-year yardage - 343 yards - is also pretty close to Jeffery's rookie numbers.

Dig a bit deeper into these numbers, however, and you'll find that a few "bust" players in this range are dragging these averages down significantly. Take out the four biggest busts in the data set, and the numbers seem more optimistic. The rookie average - 354 - is very close to Jeffery's actual performance, and the sophomore average - 414 yards - gives more room for hope. Still, the improvement numbers vary widely - there are top ten picks who didn't improve at all their second season, and picks in the sixties whose yardage totals increase by over 500 yards their second season.

You don't need to muster an army of statistics to predict the Bears offense will improve this season under Marc Trestman. The above averages suggest that Jeffery will improve on his numbers by less than 100 yards, but will an improvement in the overall offense put Jeffery over the top?

The results are surprisingly inconclusive.

There is a small trend that shows that improved QB numbers lead to greater WR improvement, but the trend is small indeed.

If Cutler finally breaks the 4,000 mark next season, it's not a guarantee that Jeffery will have a 1,000 yard season. It's reasonable, however, to imagine Jeffery falling into the large clump of players sitting just above the trend line on the "improved" side of the x-axis, with the group of more than ten players whose second season numbers went up more than 200 yards while QB play improved by around 500 yards. The rising tide can carry all ships, but it's not guaranteed to carry them all that far.

While it is obviously impossible to quantify the effects of having an older receiver as a mentor, it is possible to compare a draft pick's improvement in his second year to the performance of the top receiver on the team during his rookie year.

The numbers are all over the place on this one, but there are a few clumps of data worth noting. First, you have the dots in the lower left - players who were on a team where the #1 WR didn't top 800 yards and who regressed in their second season. Often times, these second-year players were the #1 in both seasons, and simply didn't have what it takes to be a real #1. Defenses figured them out, and their production dropped.

The other big clumps of data - on the upper right - is the situation Jeffery finds himself in. There's group of players who have only small increases in performance with a 1,000+ yard #1 on their team, and a slightly smaller group who improved 400 yards or more across from a 1,000+ yard #1 WR. You'd like to put Jeffery in that second group, but this data suggests that Jeffery has a decent chance of taking a step forward and very little chance of taking a step back.

If Jeffery takes a bigger step forward than 50 yard average improvement for picks around his, it'll be precisely because this "mentorship" effect has asserted itself. All that training Jeffery's been doing this off-season with Brandon Marshall? It should help him stay healthy for all of his second season. If Jeffery stays healthy for 16 games - without any improvement in per-game performance - he's due for a 587 yard season. It would be a significantly larger improvement than the averages suggest, but well within the bounds set out by the data.

I'll set that number as the over-under. Place your bets below, follow me on Twitter, and see you back here soon with a "Bears Playbook" look at the new draft picks. Are we on the clock yet?

Poll

Alshon Jeffery - 587 yards in 2013. What you got?

Over

532 votes

Push

53 votes

Under

19 votes

604 votes | Poll has closed

Bears Playbook - The Joe DeCamillis Punt Game

Steve Ronkowski — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 03:06:00 -0000

Kick returns and punt returns might not look at that different on TV - the fast guy catches the ball and runs straight at the other team until he gets tackled or scores, right? Many of the blocking principles once the kick is away are the same, true, but the punt return squad has to be just as effective "blitzing" the punter as well as blocking the other ten players to do their jobs well. Throw in the NFL record holder for punt return touchdowns into the mix, and Joe DeCamillis has every chance to keep the Bears special teams special.

A team is going to send a few of their players after the punter almost every time. You never know when the ball will end up on the turf instead of in the air, and sometimes those blocks actually work. It's not a good idea to go all-out after the punter, however - while there's a small chance an all-out block attempt will succeed, there's a much larger chance that the return man will be destroyed by the other team. As it is, you'll generally see DeCamillis call something like this first play, a blend of downfield blocking and punt-blocking:

The punt returner is going to work towards the left sideline on this one, so the three Cowboys on the left of the line are going to block the three Eagle players opposite them as they move down the field. Meanwhile, the other side of the line is either going to block the kick or at least stack up players at the line of scrimmage to keep them away from the return. No block on this one, but both ends of the line did succeed in setting up for a good return:

You can see both the wall of blockers on the left and the mess of players on the right. Both of these outcomes play into DeCamillis' hand - by occupying four Eagles at the line, the rest of the Cowboys were able to create a well-defined lane to the left sideline. Below, see Dwayne Harris about to receive the ball. Notice how those initial blocks on the left have opened up a whole side of the field.

With the blocking in place, all Harris has to do is hit the gas and hope for the best. His one lead blocker is there to take care of the first Eagle to arrive on the scene, and then it's off to the races.

While this one angle looks promising, it was not to be. The Eagle stepping over the 40 above is able to slip inside the Cowboy's block and get just enough of a hand on Harris' leg to stop the return. Successful or no, plays like this show how DeCamillis will work the field for Hester - block some guys, distract others, and hope that Hester can take care of the rest.

Sometimes, it's often better for a team to play more for the block than for the return. The Cowboys found themselves in two situations like this later in the game. In this first one, the Dallas D had stopped the Eagles eight yards shy of midfield, meaning it would take an perfect punt for the Eagles to net over fifty on the play. Perfect time to go after a block, or so DeCamillis thought:

Just like a blitz on defense, the punt block is rooted in deception. Here, the Cowboys motioned in a player to first feint a rush to the punter's right before motioning over to the opposite side. The look at the snap was something like this:

Again, think of it as a blitz. The Cowboys have overloaded the area around the long snapper and left guard with three attackers, meaning someone should be able to skate through untouched. While the move by #25 on the Cowboys was nothing but a bluff, the Eagles' blocking was confused enough that #70 was able to get tantalizingly close to the punter before the kick got away:

Even though the block never materialized, DeCamillis' read of the situation was correct. The kick ended up with a little too much under it - a result of the pressure, perhaps - and sailed over the head of Dwayne Harris on the ten. Unlike Hester, Harris made the wise decision of getting the twenty free "return yards" by letting this one bounce into the end zone. The flight of the ball is in orange:

DeCamillis would be wise to teach Hester this lesson, as there is something to be said for never fielding a punt inside the ten.

There are times that call for an all-out block, like when there are under ten seconds in the half and the opposing team is backed up deep in their own territory. Here's how that play looks:

DeCamillis attacked this punt formation in two ways. Again drawing on blitz principles, the Cowboys started by showing an overload to the punter's left. This overload is going to draw the personal protector away from the right wing of the formation, which is what DeCamillis wants. He's hoping to create two one-on-one matchups for the two edge rushers to the punter's right. You can see that the Cowboys deception got the better of the Eagles:

The two men coming around the right edge of the formation have a decent enough shot at the ball, as does the push coming straight up the middle. Again, the Eagles were able to slow them down just enough to get the punt away, but the Cowboys' #54 had a good shot at it:

So that's the punt return game as DeCamillis drew it up in Dallas. Will he be as aggressive going after the block with a more deadly return man? Depends on just how deadly Hester (or his replacement) proves to be. Punt-blocking is a low-percentage affair, but so are punt return touchdowns. If you want to judge how much faith DeCamillis has in Hester, watch to see how much he goes after the punter. If the Bears dedicate their efforts to blocking the punt, they're saying they don't think Hester is going to get it done. If the Bears make only token attempts to get after the punter, however, they've cast their lots with Hester. Either way, if DeCamillis can get Hester to stop fielding punts inside the five, I'll be happy.

Bears Playbook - The Resurrection of Devin Hester?

Steve Ronkowski — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 02:57:32 -0000

When I broke the news to Devin Hester that the Bears had just traded up to draft WR Alshon Jeffery around this time last season, he was still fired up for what he could do on offense and welcomed the competition. One mediocre season on offense and coaching change later, and that competition got the best of him. So much so, Hester is now giving a thumbs-up to his return to "return game specialist."

The final results from the Devin Hester Experiment are in: it was a failure. While Lovie Smith saying that Hester was an #1 receiver was about as reassuring as "Rex is our quarterback," the former coach gave him every opportunity to get the job done. Hester's stat line tells the tale:

	REC	YD	TD	YD/REC
2007	20	299	2	15.0
2008	51	665	3	13.0
2009	57	757	3	13.3
2010	40	475	4	11.9
2011	26	369	1	14.2
2012	23	242	1	10.5

Lovie backed the idea of Hester as his team's featured WR. Angelo paid the man accordingly, handing him a $40 million deal in 2010. Lovie and Angelo were put on the bus (running!) for making personnel decisions like this. To put Hester's numbers after his WR payday in perspective, actual #1 receiver Brandon Marshall put up 2012 numbers - 118 rec, 1508 yds, 11TD - surpassing all of Hester's production under this contract. In short, Hester just didn't have it.

The last gang got ran out of town because they just didn't know offense - they couldn't draft it, couldn't sign it, and couldn't coach it. Hester's contract was merely a symptom of that greater problem. Thankfully for Emery, most of Hester's money was loaded on the front of his contract, and his cap hit for 2013 is slightly under $3 million. At that price, Emery and new head coach Marc Trestman are willing to give Hester one last shot at returning to his ridiculous ways as a kick returner.

This is where new special teams coach Joe DeCamillis enters the picture. DeCamillis is a plenty-adequate replacement for Hester's old boss, Dave Toub. First, let's look at the average kickoff return yards and ranks of DeCamillis' Jaguars ('07-'08) and Cowboys ('09-'12) teams as compared to Toub's Bears squads:

	DeCamillis YPR	Rank	Toub YPR	Rank
2007	22.7	16	18.4	32
2008	22.7	18	24.9	5
2009	22.0	20	25.0	3
2010	21.2	23	25.2	2
2011	23.3	20	21.7	28
2012	20.6	29	19.8	32

The roller-coaster rankings for Chicago clearly show Hester's up and down career in the return game. When both he and Johnny Knox were hot from 2008 to 2010, the numbers were great, and when Hester cooled down, the Bears fell fast.

DeCamillis' rankings show what happens when a team overlooks the third phase. In Jacksonville, DeCamillis molded Maurice Jones-Drew (26.2 ypr in '07) and rookie Brian Witherspoon (24.0 ypr in '08) into consistent return men. The top-heavy Dallas roster, however, was never long in return aces. DeCamillis had some success with Felix Jones ('08), Bryan McCann ('09-'10), and Dwayne Harris ('11), but two of those three have 40 times well into the 4.4s. Even the fastest of that bunch - McCann with a 4.35 - doesn't even approach Hester's straight-line speed.

Hester's straight-line speed is only dangerous when he actually runs in a straight line, however. Hester's career needs a shake-up, and DeCamillis is known as a take-no-prisoners kind of coach. With Hester now in a contract year and Phil Emery feeling no sense of obligation to Lovie Smith players, Hester will have to prove it now or prove it for someone else next season.

To get some idea of what the new coach will be doing in front of Hester, let's look at one return play where #23 would have prospered. Kickoff coverage units have two goals: never give up the edge, and maintain a wall of defenders up the middle. As such, coverage units send two players along each edge and six men up the middle. For a return to work, the receiving team must either sneak around one of the edges or punch a hole right in the middle.

The key to knowing which of these two options are in play is the blocking of the up-men. With DeCamillis, if the first line of blockers tries push an edge man in, the return is going up a sideline, but if they push a middle-man out, the return is headed up the gut.

On this return from 2011, DeCamillis opted for the latter. He had an up man stay at midfield and lay just enough of a block on the first inside defender to chip a little hole in the Eagles' wall. See the edge zones and the sole midfield block:

Dallas was able to create a crease along the left hash thanks to that one block. Put bodies on the rest of inside coverage, and you'll start seeing daylight:

Now all that's left is for the return man to hit the hole and start sprinting. Below, notice the numbers difference between the returner's right and his left - that one chip at the start of the play worked wonders. Also, notice that the return-man isn't going to run "behind the wedge," as so many announcers are keen to declare. The point isn't to run through that final line of blockers, it's to run past them:

The Cowboys wedge blockers blew the coverage open by sealing off as-yet-unblocked right side. With the middle now open for business, Dwayne Harris cashes in by sprinting to the left of the wedge.

Then it was off to the races, but Harris didn't have the horses to beat them all. He gets dragged down from behind around midfield, but this blocking might have been enough for someone with a little more speed. Long story short, Hester's blocks should be there.

DeCamillis is no hand-holder, but Hester has been coddled for far too long. Instead of pouting, Hester should have been happy that the old gang was sent packing. That old gang, after all, should have been on Devin's case for his lackluster performance the last two seasons. Hester can certainly do damage in the return game with his speed. It's less certain that he'll be mentally ready to turn in around - literally and otherwise - but Hester is saying the right things. With only one playbook to study and a coach who will throw the book at him if he doesn't execute, it's do or die for Devin. Let's just hope the ones looking dead out there aren't wearing Bears colors in 2013.

Bears Playbook - Pardee and Payton's Greatest Game

Steve Ronkowski — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 02:14:49 -0000

After George Halas led the Bears to a win in the 1963 NFL Championship, times got rough in Chicago. The Bears fell into the longest playoff drought the franchise has ever experienced, missing the post-season for eleven straight seasons. Enter Jim Finks. Finks was hired by Halas in the middle of the 1974 season to take over as general manager of the franchise, and the man did not disappoint. Finks first pick in the 1975 NFL draft happened to be the best running back in NFL history, a certain Walter Payton.

Finks' coaching hire - Jack Pardee - was no slouch, either. Pardee had cut his football teeth under old-school football guru "Bear" Bryant while playing for him at Texas A&M. He went on to a 13 year career as an NFL linebacker, and Finks hired him as the Bears head coach only two years after he retired as a player.

Pardee and Payton

Pardee was able to make the switch from player to signal-caller without missing a beat. The 1975 Bears were 4-10, but the Bears hit the .500 mark the next season. With Finks continuing to put the pieces in place, 1977 would prove to be Pardee and the Bears' breakout year. After surviving a tough 1977 schedule with a 4-5 record, Pardee's Bears would face their greatest roadblock to the division title: the reigning Minnesota Vikings.

The 1970s Vikings were feared for two reasons - the stellar play of Hall of Fame quarterback Fran Tarkenton and the beastly play of their defensive line, the so-called "Purple People Eaters." The Vikings defense knew what they had to do to beat the Bears - stop Walter Payton. Pardee had a plan of his own, however. If you can't get through the heart of a defense, run around it.

Pardee's plan worked. The first play from scrimmage, and Walter was already off to the races:

Pardee knew he wouldn't get far trying to block Vikings defensive line coach Buddy Ryan's front four, so he had QB Bob Avellini pull the left tackle and guard to open up the edge for his star running back. Here's the play as Payton received the hand-off:

With fullback Roland Harper clearing out the right defensive end and the pulling offensive linesmen taking care of the second level of the defense, Payton was able to get deep into the secondary before finally getting shoved out of bounds:

This 20+ yard first play was far from the last time that the Soldier Field crowd would be treated to the sight of Vikings defenders trying to chase down the phenomenal running back. Pardee was a gambler of a coach, and found himself on the losing end of a fake punt and fourth-and-goal attempt in the first half. Despite losing these two scoring opportunities, Payton rumbled in for one touchdown and drove the Bears down the field to set up a late second quarter field goal, giving the Bears a 10-0 lead at halftime.

While Payton's offensive line was getting the better of the Vikings defensive line, the Vikes' big uglies punched back early in the third. They broke through the Bears punt-protection, recovered the blocked punt, and ran it in for a touchdown to make the game a competitive 10-7. Pardee didn't veer from his ground-and-pound, touchdown or nothing approach, though. The scoreboard remained unchanged through the third quarter thanks to a Bob Avellini fumble on yet another fourth-and-goal, but Walter Payton had tacked on another 80+ yards to his 131 first half yards with edge runs like this pitch:

On this 20+ yarder, Pardee once again wisely chose to go around the Vikings front instead of through it. He pulled his left tackle and tight end on this pitch out to Payton, who then needed only one cut to get into the open field and chunk off another pile of yards for the Bears:

With the fourth quarter winding down, Payton had hit the 200 yard mark, but he still had a little something left in the tank. On his final big play of the day - a draw that perfectly lured in the defensive line - #34 started out by zooming past the first two defenders and then leaping over the third:

With the big guys in the dust, Walter hit his next gear and slid past the next two defenders on his way to the edge:

With his receivers now leading the way, Payton turned down the sideline and made it past yet another Viking:

Seven proved to be one too many for Walter, however:

This seventh Viking finally got the job done by getting just enough of a push on Payton to force his toe out of bounds, but the Bear had inflicted 58 yards of damage along the way. Walter would get his final yards of the day on another fourth-and-goal attempt at the end of this drive. While Payton didn't get to paydirt from the 6, his final 4 yards cemented a new single-game rushing record: 275 yards. The Bears defense held off the final Vikings drive, giving Chicago the tie-breaker that eventually decided the division and earning Pardee the biggest win of his career.

Pardee wound up leaving the team after a one-and-done playoff appearance, getting a better deal from his alma mater Redskins than Halas was prepared to offer. Finks somewhat unwisely promoted assistant coach Neill Armstrong to replace him, but Finks stole Buddy Ryan from the Vikings and made him the Bears' new defensive coordinator. Pardee's basic football philosophy - a run-first (and second) offense coupled with an attacking defense - remained in place under this new coaching regime. Armstrong proved unequal to the task of achieving greatness, but his replacement - a certain Mike Ditka - was able to build upon Pardee and Finks' foundation and return the Bears to where they belonged - on top.

Pardee's name does not carry the cache of the two Bears greats who bookended his coaching career in Chicago, but for at least one season, he proved that the post-Halas Bears could still contend for the NFL crown. Jack Pardee also helped carve Walter Payton into NFL history, coaching him past a sub-1000-yard rookie season all the way into the record books.

Somewhere, Pardee and Payton are shaking hands one more time to celebrate a job well done.

Bears Playbook - Trestman, Kromer, and the Tight End

Steve Ronkowski — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 01:53:19 -0000

After the last Bears administration traded away first-round TE Greg Olsen and foolishly placed their hopes on now-former Bear Kellen Davis, Phil Emery has been working overtime to get the position group ready for a big-boy NFL offense. If history is any guide, new acquisitions Martellus Bennett and Steve Maneri will both see plenty of playing time. Let's look at the tape to see how Marc Trestman and Aaron Kromer will put these new Bears to good use.

Marc Trestman didn't like using his tight end as a blocker, and with good reason. With opposing defenses constantly forced to defend three- and four-receiver sets, if they committed extra players on a blitz, someone would come open on a hot read. Still, there were times that the Raiders were forced to use a TE to block. Here's one situation:

If and when there were extra men on the line of the scrimmage, Trestman put his tight end on what is known in playbook-ese as the EMLOS - the end man on the line of scrimmage. With the end man taken care of, all it takes is one heads-up call by the center to shift the blocking over to the side of the blitz.

Trestman doesn't strike me as the type of coach who wants to sit back and try and block blitzes like that, however. In his mind, it's better to attack an aggressive defensive formation with an equally aggressive offensive play-call, since every blitzer makes for one less defender in the backfield. Take the first play from the 2002 AFC Championship against Jeff Fisher's Tennessee Titans.

The Titans showed a blitz to the quarterback's right. In response, Raiders QB Jeff Gannon motioned TE Doug Jolley, but not into a better position to block. Jolley (highlighted) motioned all the way to the wide right, and RB Charlie Garner motioned out of the backfield after this look to give Gannon a total of five receiving options. The ball is snapped, and the blitz comes. This play isn't designed to create five true passing options for Gannon, however - the read was always going to be a quick slant to Jerry Porter in the left flat. But, with five men chasing down Gannon on the blitz, there are now only six defenders in the backfield, four of whom are about to get blocked by Raiders "receivers:"

In this "Best of 2002 NFL Footage" view of the field as the pass is completed, you can see how Trestman tries to maximize yards after the catch on quick passes like this. Porter continues his slant route and picks up some blocks. TE Doug Jolley is able to use his speed to get past the DB across from him and put some hurt on the deep safety:

Instead of bringing a TE over to block the blitz and hope for the best, sending the TE to block down the field on this quick pass moved the Raiders over 25 yards. Believe it or not, the Titans didn't blitz much on first down after this one.

Trestman is also fond of using his TE in the play-action game, and when better to break out the play-action than in a short yardage situation? The Raiders did exactly that on first and goal later in the game:

Doug Jolley is highlighted on the quarterback's right. He starts the play by laying a quick block on the defensive end across from him to sell the edge run to the Titans linebackers, but he rolls away from the block and into the end zone at just the right time to slip past the defense. Here he is wide open and about to get an easy six.

Trestman didn't use many two tight end sets - understandable with Tim Brown, Jerry Porter, and Jerry Rice as his WRs - but Aaron Kromer's Saints offense made heavy use of two TE sets. With two tight ends in the game, Kromer was able to use them to set the edge for his running backs, like in this play against the Packers last season.

TEs Jimmy Graham (80) and David Thomas (89) lined up together on the right of the formation and were the key blockers on this run. Graham blocked the linebacker to the inside, and Thomas blocked the cornerback to the outside. With Devery Henderson (19) swinging into the hole the two TEs created to work as a lead blocker, the play is set up for a nice first down gain:

One problem: Henderson is too busy looking at his own player to get on the onrushing Charles Woodson. Woodson rallies to make the tackle, but the two tight ends did their jobs.

While Kromer found more ways to get two tight ends on the field than Trestman did, both are equally fond of the tight end in the play-action game. Kromer's Saints put on quite the show for the defensive backfield on this next play:

Drew Brees wisely kept an eye on where Clay Matthews was on this third down, because it's a good bet that wherever #52 is, the blitz is probably going to be there too. Brees audibled into an aggressive play to counter the weak-side blitz the Packers were about to send after him. Zone blitz? Flood the zone opposite the blitz with receivers.

At the snap, the blitz comes, and Jimmy Graham (80) plays along with Brees in selling the play-action to zone defender Charles Woodson (21). Graham quickly engages with the defensive end across from him, only sneaking into the flat after the WR has entered into Woodson's zone.

With Woodson's attention held first by the fake toss to the left and then by the receiver running straight at him, Jimmy Graham is manned up with a defensive end. The defender doesn't have a chance against the much speedier TE, who makes the catch and earns the first down before a Packer can even get a hand on him.

First down Saints.

With one or two more upgrades to the offensive line, Trestman should be free to replace tight ends Chip Block and Max Protect in passing situations. And between Trestman's old(er)-school approach and Kromer's knowledge of the Saints' new-fangled offense, the Bears are set to get solid production from their tight ends as both run blockers and pass catchers.

Also, if you made it this far, you better follow me on Twitter at @Ronk_WCG.

More X's and O's: Kromer's Run Game - Martellus Bennett's Skill Set - Trestman's Run Game

Bears Playbook: Aaron Kromer's Run Game

Steve Ronkowski — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 02:24:26 -0000

Phil Emery is doing his part to put together a winning roster for the Bears, but it will be up to Marc Trestman and his staff to put that roster to use. Other than Trestman himself, the man who will be most responsible for taking the Bears offense to the next level is offensive coordinator/offensive line coach Aaron Kromer.

Football fans got more than a glimpse as to how Kromer would "run" things if he was in charge, since he was the interim for the interim head coach during the first six games of the Saints' 2012 campaign. In Week 2 against the Panthers, Kromer's inside zone runs. Here's a prime example from the Saints Week 2 match-up against the division rival Panthers:

The basic premise of the inside zone is to put two bodies on each of the two interior line defenders to bust open a run play inside the tackles. TE Jimmy Graham (80) and Jermon Bushrod (74) are both on islands here, but their competent edge blocking frees up the other four linesmen to double-team the two DTs and push them towards the middle of the formation. With the four defensive linesmen out accounted for, the fullback leads the way and blocks the first linebacker he sees and the running back follows behind.

While this particular play only goes for two yards thanks to a strong response from the Panthers linebackers, notice what pinching in the middle of the defense with two double teams opens up for Saints RB Pierre Thomas. He chooses to follow behind the FB on this play, but the cutback lane (shown in red) should be there for him every time thanks to the work done of the right tackle and tight end.

More on that cutback option in a moment. For now, simply note that Kromer will call variations on the play as his base run option. Zone blocking inside, man blocking outside, with a fullback in as a lead blocker. With a bit better execution, this particular run went for five yards.

The Saints were not a run-first team, but Kromer ran the ball on almost every first down. With the Panthers playing lots of Cover 2 to defend against the numerous passing threats on the Saints offense, Kromer was more than happy to take the free yards available by running the ball right into the middle of these seven-man fronts.

Kromer's not afraid to leave his edge blockers - or at least his elite tight end and respectable left tackle - in man blocking situations. It does put extra responsibility on them to make their blocks, but allows the double teams to open up extra running lanes. If all the blocking holds and the linebackers get caught guessing, the running back will have an open cutback lane and can run towards daylight. That's exactly what Pierre Thomas does on this next play:

The action of the offensive line is nearly identical in this play as it was in the two previous, but Thomas' read makes things happen. With WR Courtney Roby (15) flanking the right side of the line, Thomas has an extra blocker at two different points of attack. The Panthers linebackers react to the motion of the fullback, so Thomas cuts it right.

No run game would be complete without a couple of unusual formations, and Kromer is no stranger to the strange. Against the Panthers, he decided to run a series of plays with a very unbalanced line. Witness:

Highlighted to Brees' right, you can count a whopping three extra blockers. With all this strength on the right side of the formation, the Panthers defense had to respond with a few extra players of their own. This "gimmick" look like suggests a gimmick play, and that's exactly what Kromer gives them. Pierre Thomas executes a run fake to his right, drawing in the safety, but look what the formation and the RB's deception has done to the defense:

The one receiver on the weak side of the formation is all alone - there's not a defender within ten yards of him. Drew Brees misthrows the pass and forced the receiver to juggle the ball, but this play could have been good for a lot more than five yards if the pass was on target.

The Panthers thought they had wised up to Kromer's trickery the next time he broke it out. They brought in a defensive back to patrol the overloaded edge of this formation, but this defensive overshift fared no better than the last. No play action - just a long-distance sprint by RB Pierre Thomas to the strong edge. Here's the play at the snap:

Here's what the play looked like as Thomas finally made it to the edge. His path from the snap is shown in red for clarity's sake, and the cut he is about to make is shown in yellow:

Stretching out a defense across the field with all these extra blockers once again paid dividends for the Saints. With no Panther able to get past the wall of Saints blockers, once Thomas got the edge, all he had to do was cut it upfield to get yet another nice chunk of yardage.

Next week, I'll take a look at the many ways that Aaron Kromer used his tight ends to get a sense of how Martellus Bennett will fit into the offensive equation.

Chicago Bears Playbook: Martellus Bennett's Skill Set

Steve Ronkowski — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 12:54:23 -0000

In a West Coast Offense like Marc Trestman's, the first duty of a tight end is to block. Don't take my word for it, though. Here's how Bill Walsh started his summary of an ideal tight end:

There are those who believe that a tight end with ballast and strength and girth is key to their offensive system because he has as important a role as a blocker as there is. If the tight end can block a defensive lineman on the edge of the offense, then you automatically have a running game just with that single feature.

The Giants proved the truth of this last statement when they faced the Green Bay Packers last season. Bennett made some plays in the passing game - 3 catches for 44 yards - but his best work was done in the trenches.

On first and goal from the Packers 3, the Giants used every one of Martellus Bennett's skills on the edge. First up was the chip block, and Bennett started the play by pushing down DE Erik Walden on his way off the line.

Bennett's quick block sets up this read play. If the defensive end gets up and engages the fullback, Manning can hand the ball off to his running back. Then, assuming Bennett's block on Packer Tramon Williams holds, the RB could then walk in for six. If the defensive end instead decides to go straight after the QB - which he does - the RB can block the DE while the fullback comes open in the flat.

In this second look, Bennett lays a perfect downfield block on Williams. The flat comes open, and it stays that way when Bennett heads out on back-corner fade route - Williams has to stay deep. Too bad the Giants got bad Eli on this one, because he missed the wide open Henry Hynoski, but Bennett held up his end of the bargain.

Bennett's blocking was just as effective at the line of scrimmage in this next play, another short-yardage scenario. Bennett starts with a motion from the sideline to the slot, setting him up to block edge defender Mike Daniels:

It's hard to get a good camera angle on what happens in the scrum that develops at the point of attack on this play, but you can see how effective Bennett's block was by what happens to the 294-pound Daniels:

With Daniels kissing the turf, Bennett looks for the next man to block. He finds DT Ryan Pickett and helps to escort him out of the play:

First down.

The Giants put a lot of stock in Martellus Bennett's blocking skills. They routinely put him on an island to deal with whatever edge-rusher Dom Capers sent his way, and for the most part, Bennett's stock paid dividends. Here's one play where Bennett holds the edge against Dezman Moses while the run goes up the middle:

Sure, Moses is a poor replacement for the injured Clay Matthews, but he's got speed enough to get around a weak block. He comes after Bennett with a quick burst then tries a spin move or two. By the time Moses has finally gotten leverage in this shot, the play has passed him by. Chalk one up for Bennett.

Moses evened the score later in the game. On a strong-side run play, he comes hard at Bennett's outside shoulder. Bennett gets twisted around, and Moses gets past:

With his shoulders turned almost parallel to the sidelines on this one, there was no way Bennett could keep his leverage. Moses cut past him and dropped Hynoski for a gain of only two.

On this next play, however, Bennett's technique was more sound. He gets square to his target - DE Erik Walden - engages, and pushes the defender off his point.

Walden doesn't break free on this one, but RB Ahmad Bradshaw does. He runs behind Bennett's block and into free space, picking up eleven and setting up a first and goal.

While you might not know it from these plays, Bennett can also catch. Again, I will defer to the wisdom of the West Coast master:

[A tight end who can block] is bigger, stronger and naturally is not going to be as quick and agile as the other type of tight end. So naturally you then fashion your passing game with him in the vicinity of linebackers. With that in mind, he must have soft hands...

Bennett's no Kellen Davis when it comes to catching the ball, and thank Halas for that. Here's one play where Bennett does just what Bill Walsh described: beat a linebacker, then make the catch.

Bennett is the primary target on this play, but he starts out by disguising his intentions. He squares his shoulders to the DE and sets his feet apart, faking a block. After putting on this little show for the linebackers, he quickly jumps out of his stance and heads down the left hash.

On this next look, Eli Manning does Bennett a big favor for the TE. With the Packers in zone coverage, LB A.J. Hawk has his eyes on the quarterback, not the tight end. Eli's look towards center field freezes Hawk, giving Bennett an free pass into open space.

The end result? Bennett ends up between zones. The man's blocks are mean, but his hands are Charmin soft.

Bennett secures the pass, and finishes by turning upfield for another five yards.

I won't exaggerate and say that Bennett is a top-tier tight end, but Bennett is definitely an upgrade over what the Bears had former Bears Matt Spaeth and Kellen Davis. Like Spaeth, Bennett is a strong blocker. Unlike Davis, he can catch passes when his number is called. While this combination of skills might not win Bennett any trips to Hawaii, they're exactly what a tight end needs to succeed in a West Coast Offense.

More X's and O's: Trestman's Short Passing Game - Marc Trestman, SB Loser - Trestman's Run Game

Bears Playbook: Nick Roach, Middle Linebacker of the Future?

Steve Ronkowski — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 21:37:13 -0000

Face it: Brian Urlacher's best days are behind him. Urlacher will certainly follow in the footsteps of Bears linebackers Bill George, Dick Butkus, and Mike Singletary into the Hall of Fame, but time and injury have finally caught up to him. The Bears still may sign him to a cap-friendly, short-term deal to keep the middle linebacker position locked down while Phil Emery looks to fill other needs. If Emery decides the old man isn't worth the money he wants, however, the Bears have another answer for the middle linebacker position waiting for them in free agency: six-year veteran Nick Roach.

Roach has done right with his NFL career. He came into the league as an undrafted free agent with the Chargers, but after San Diego cut him before the start of the 2007 season, the Bears quickly scooped him up. Roach slowly worked himself into the linebacker rotation, first at the strong side, and then in the middle when Brian Urlacher went down at the start of the 2009 season. While he struggled to fill the shoes of Urlacher, he did well enough to stick on the roster at the strong-side position in the three seasons since.

Nick Roach got another chance to man the center of the defense when Brian Urlacher went down yet again in the middle of the 2012 season. To succeed as a middle linebacker in a Tampa 2, 4-3 defense, a middle linebacker is called on to defend the run and the pass. Let's look at a few samples of how he did last season.

Defending the Run

If you can't stop the run, you can't be a middle linebacker. Period. Roach was lucky enough to get a chance to try his luck at stopping the best in the game - Adrian Peterson - when the Bears played them in Minnesota. Looking back at the tape, Roach did as well as could be expected.

Here's one play he did make:

The Bears presented a fairly standard 4-3 front to the Vikings, correctly expecting Minnesota to run it from their own 10 yard line. With the four defensive linesmen and fellow linebackers Lance Briggs and Geno Hayes all working the gaps straight ahead of them, Roach was the one player who had to read and react to the play. He read the blocking perfectly, and rallying straight the Vikings' point of attack:

Roach, highlighted above, is the one defender in the front seven who was unblocked, and he took full advantage of his freedom. He got his arms around the under-the-arrow Peterson and dragged him down for a minimal gain.

Adrian Peterson wasn't the NFL MVP for nothing, however. Roach struggled at other times to defend him. Here's one play you can file under "should have made the tackle."

The defense had nearly identical assignments on this next play: everyone in the front seven worked the gap right in front of them except for Roach. Roach made the right read and got himself in the right position, but this time he didn't have the benefit of a free shot at the running back.

Roach got inside the leading fullback on this run play, but he didn't have enough speed or power to beat the block and get Peterson the running back completed his cut. Chris Conte (47) was there to clean things up, but Roach could have made this play with stronger fundamentals.

Defending the Pass

As a strong-side linebacker, Nick Roach is often called on to defend the tight end in passing situations. While his 6'1" height isn't as ideal as Urlacher's 6'4" when matching up against taller receivers, Roach has one thing Urlacher no longer possesses: speed. After testing his mettle against the NFL's best running back, Roach got to go against the one of the best receivers in the league, Calvin Johnson.

Here's one play against the pass that Roach made perfectly. The Lions put Calvin Johnson in the slot thinking that it could get the receiver a favorable match-up, but beating Roach in coverage didn't prove easy. Here's how they lined it all up at the snap:

Roach started the play with a Lovie Smith classic, the "mug the A gap" look. At the snap, Roach quickly retreated, stepping backwards stride for stride with Johnson coming out of the slot. Keeping his eyes on the quarterback the whole time, Roach was able to get to the spot at the same time Johnson did. End result?

Incomplete pass. Roach played it perfectly, making contact at just the right time to defend the pass without drawing a penalty. True, about half of the defense was there in case Roach didn't make the play, but he was at exactly the right place at exactly the right time.

MORE: Urlacher Can't Wait For Next Season

Don't get me wrong - I don't think Nick Roach is suddenly going to become a Pro Bowl linebacker. Still, the guy can play ball. He has done more than adequately at the MLB spot when he was called on, and with a degree from Northwestern, he's certainly got brain power enough to make the on-the-field calls. He comes with a clean injury report, and at only 27, Roach is reaching his prime years as a football player. If the Bears decide they would rather part ways with Brian Urlacher, the team could save its draft picks and dollars to deal with its many other needs by offering Roach a small-money contract.

MORE: 2013 Draft Watch - Linebackers & Bears Linebackers in Free Agency

What do you think? Hit the poll below.

Poll

Would you be okay with Nick Roach as the starting middle linebacker for the Bears next season?

Yes.

216 votes

No.

105 votes

Ditka.

53 votes

374 votes | Poll has closed

Bears Playbook - Marc Trestman, Loser?

Steve Ronkowski — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 01:49:17 -0000

As we've seen over the last couple of weeks, Raiders head coach Bill Callahan and offensive coordinator Marc Trestman knew how to put points on the board. The 2002 Raiders dominated their opponents in the scoring column on their way to an 11-5 record. Former Raiders HC Jon Gruden, however, knew just how to deploy his #1 defense to stop the Raiders in their tracks. Here's how Monte Kiffin, Rod Marinelli, and Tony Dungy's defense put this Super Bowl away before halftime.

Disrupt the QB, Derail the Offense

The West Coast Offense is all about quick passes, so the conventional wisdom is that it can help mask problems along the offensive line. The Bucs knocked that wisdom to the turf with the specific ways they put pressure on QB Rich Gannon. Take a look at this play on the Raiders' first drive of the game:

Tampa Bay defensive line coach Rod Marinelli is well-known for the stunts he runs with his rushmen, but the Bucs didn't run a single stunt in the first half. This is by design, of course - a major key to stopping the West Coast Offense is disrupting its quick passes. Stunts take time to develop, so the Bucs opted to take the fastest route into the backfield every single down. Here, the Bucs tried to get extra mileage out of their four-man rush by confusing the offensive line with the two "blitzers" highlighted above. The blitzers fall back into coverage, but on this particular down, even four rushers was one too many for the Raiders to handle:

The red arrow is pointing out the poor RT, who watched Rich Gannon run for his life from a comfortable seat on the turf. The QB is able to scramble his way into a two-yard gain, but two-yard scrambles don't put six on the board.

The play at left tackle wasn't much better. Here's the very next play:

Again, the Bucs show blitz here - notice the large red arrows pointing out the extra men menacing the offensive line. The real action, however, is out of the left side. Since the whole line shifted its blocking to the right to account for the potential blitz, the LT was on the proverbial island for this play. And as the next look shows, that island was not going at Disney:

While Mikes Martz and Tice weren't afraid of using the running back as an extra blocker on passing downs, Marc Trestman prefers to use his RB as an extra passing option. We see RB Charlie Garner under the red arrow, looking back for a ball that never arrives. Gannon's pass-blocking was so bad that even the quick passes weren't available to him. By knocking Oakland's offense out of sync with these speed-rushes, the Bucs were able to disrupt both the timing and the passing lanes that the Raiders needed to succeed.

Stop The Run "Game"

It's no big secret that the Raiders liked to pass the ball. A lot. Indeed, the Bucs could have simply played their Tampa 2 all game to defend against this obvious passing threat. Gruden knew better, though. To beat the West Coast Offense, his team had to be aggressive against the run as well. Here's the first down play from the series we just looked at:

While the three wide receivers might suggest a pass, the highlighted Raider is an extra 330+ lb. linesman - the Bucs were right to play the run first against such a formation. Instead of countering the Raiders' extra weight with some bulk of their own, Tampa Bay again countered size with speed. They brought a defensive back down to line up across from the TE, and simply had him run around the extra blocker. Charlie Garner was supposed to run directly behind this extra blocker, but the speedy DB forced him to cut back towards the inside. The Bucs defensive line proved stout, all conspiracy theories aside, and the run play went for only a single yard. With the Raiders now in second and long, the Bucs successfully set up for the QB pressures and sacks we saw above. Stop what little run game that Trestman uses, and he'll be forced to put his QB in danger.

Create Interceptions

Rich Gannon was the NFL MVP in 2002, but he looked more like a Rex Grossman than a Peyton Manning in this Super Bowl. While Trestman's passes are generally for short yardage, he does give his QB the option to stretch the field with the deep ball. It's up the QB to stretch the field at the right times, however. This next play was not one of those times:

Gannon looked over and saw the highlighted Buccaneer showing blitz. Since this "Player 1" was safety Ronde Barber, Gannon assumed that this meant that there were eight defenders in the box. Eight in the box means three defenders left to cover three receivers, making it the perfect time to launch a bomb. A quick count of the defensive front shows Gannon's mistake: the Bucs are in a nickel and still had four DBs in coverage. With a defender on each receiver and a safety playing Cover 1, they were well prepared for the long ball Gannon unleashed.

Very well prepared. Back in center field, the safety easily read and intercepted Gannon's ill-advised pass.

This stroll down Super Bowl Memory Lane would be exactly that, except the Bears have two tackles who struggle in pass protection and a quarterback with a tendency towards ill-advised throws. Yes, it is true that the 2002 Buccaneers defense is considered one of the best in recent NFL history. Still, it will be up to offensive line coach Aaron Kromer to make sure that every defense doesn't end up looking like the '02 Bucs because of poor offensive line play. As to Jay Cutler's interception issues, that problem is Trestman's to fix.

Is Marc Trestman an offensive guru? The tape does point to "yes." Scheme alone cannot magically make up for a lack of talent, however. History suggests Trestman can do better than the coaches he replaced, but I won't be buying tickets to the Super Bowl just yet.

MORE X's and O's: Trestman's Short Passing Game - The Mel Tucker 4-3 Defense - Trestman's Run Game

Bears Playbook - Marc Trestman's Run Game

Steve Ronkowski — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 05:01:57 -0000

A bad football coach will have obvious tendencies in his playcalling that an opposing team can exploit, but a good football coach will run a team without any "tells." A great coach, however, does both. Indeed, tendencies become a trap in the hands of the masters: an opponent will realize they keep getting beat because of a particular weakness, but as soon as they patch one hole, the master coach has already started exploiting the weakness created by the adjustment.

I'm not ready to crown Marc Trestman as great just yet, but the guy knows how to run an offense. Last week, we saw Marc Trestman calling short pass after short pass to move the ball against defensive mastermind Bill Belichick. Belichick adjusted his defense accordingly, but it was just the adjustment Trestman wanted.

Look at how the defense is playing the Raiders on their second play of the second half, a second and one:

You would think a team would be wise to be ready for the run on a short-yardage down, but the Patriots are unwilling to believe that the Raiders would content themselves with a couple of yards and a cloud of dust. The Pats only have seven men in the box, and sent their safeties deep to prepare for a deep shot or play-action. With a tight end on the end of the line and a fullback in the game, the Raiders have seven blockers to match the seven Patriots defenders - the Patriots have no numbers advantage to counter the run. With the numbers on their side, all the Raiders had to do was execute.

Notice what's happening around the ball carrier, RB Charlie Garner. Every Patriot in the vicinity has a Raider blocking him, and Garner is able to squeak his way through the line for the first first down of the drive.

The Patriots were probably happy to yield this yard, as a short-yardage run is a much better option than a deep pass over the top of a stout run defense. On the very next play, however, the Patriots look ready for another run. They bring a safety (#6) down to the line on a blitz look, and bring an outside linebacker (#1) to the opposite edge. By loading up the line, the Patriots create a major problem for themselves - they left the slot receiver (highlighted) wide open. If this blitz proves to be more than a bluff, all Rich Gannon has to do is loft a quick shot to his left for a big gain..

New England wanted Gannon to throw his hot read, though. As we see just before the snap, the blitz was merely a bluff.

Gannon and Trestman couldn't have been happier about the Patriots' bait and switch, as the play call was a run the whole time. The Patriots had a perfect coverage against the quick pass, but they had to hollow out the center of their defense to get those bodies in coverage. Once again having blockers enough to put bodies on every Patriots defender, the Raiders charged straight ahead for the second straight play, this time gaining much more than one yard:

An offensive linesman missed a block on the defender trying to tackle Charlie Garner in this final shot, but Garner shakes out of the first tackle and is able to put the Raiders into a second and short situation. The run game is no afterthought in the Trestman offense. Instead, the run becomes the cudgel that the offense beats its opposition with after a defense is put on its heels by pass after pass.

These first two runs are nothing special as far as play design - every linesman blocks the defender in front of him, and the fullback comes in sometimes to lead the running back through the hole. As many noted in the comments last week, there are some other run plays that Trestman likes to call. If a cornerback is always retreating from the line to defend against the pass, Trestman is going to call the sweep to that side to take advantage. Here's one version of that classic that he called.

Seal the edge of the line with the left tackle, have the WR block the cornerback, and have the fullback lead the way and block the first man he sees, and the RB can get the edge every time. Again, the Patriots desire to stop a pass play could have been their undoing, except for a great effort by the cornerback. The defender beat his block and dropped Garner for a loss.

The Raiders are running more than the greatest hits of run plays in their offense. On this next one - the very next play - Trestman cleverly lead the linebackers to rally to the right flat by swinging out the fullback on a wheel route. The Pats had to be thinking pass here - second and long means the offense calls a play that gets them long yardage, right? The tendency set up in the first half and the fullback trap laid, Gannon tossed the ball into Charlie Garner's hands to hit the inside gap that was just vacated by the over-eager Patriot linebackers.

Another classic of the run game is pulling a guard to the opposite side of the line. On this next play, the linebacker reads the pulling left guard and attacks the "normal" hole near the right guard, but the guard continues on past the whole of the offensive line to help set the right edge along with the fullback. The motioning wide receiver takes care of the cornerback on him, and Garner hits the edge for a solid first-down gain.

Trestman's offense is certainly pass first, but he's happiest when defenses think his offense is pass only. Between the wide open running lanes that a well-executed passing game can create and the many passes that will be thrown his way, Matt Forte will be more than happy with his role in this offense. As to the most important role that Michael Bush will play - the goal-line offense - you'll have to wait until next week's playbook. See you then.

MORE X's and O's: Trestman's Short Passing Game - The Mel Tucker 4-3 Defense - Trestman's CFL 'Offence'

Bears Playbook - Trestman's Short Passing Game

Steve Ronkowski — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 01:27:01 -0000

While there is still plenty of room for speculation as to what Marc Trestman's offense will look like come August, there's little question that he will be relying on many of the same basic concepts that informed his version of the West Coast Offense that he ran in Oakland. Watching one of Oakland's marquee games from their 2002 season, their "tuck this!" rematch against the Patriots, one of the biggest tendencies I noticed in the Raiders' playcalling was their love of the three-receiver alignment.

Every good offensive play is designed to create some sort of mismatch or numbers advantage against the defense, and Trestman's playbook is full of plays that open up a defense by sending three receivers to one side of the field. He did this frequently in the CFL, but it's not a trick that he learned up north. Witness the very first offensive snap by the Raiders in their game against New England:

It's no secret that the Raiders wanted to throw the ball early based on this alignment. Indeed, they ended up throwing ten passes to one run to open this game up. This first pass isn't going to be a deep one, though: the West Coast is all about short, high-percentage throws. Raiders QB Rich Gannon isn't even going to look at his deep options on this one, but the defense doesn't have that luxury. With the defense forced to follow the slant and the go routes, the highlighted slot receiver - TE Roland Williams - will be wide open for a short but guaranteed completion. See him highlighted again as the play develops:

It's often said that in the WCO the short passing game replaces the run game, and this play is a perfect example of what that means in practice - a short yardage play that dares the defense to bring more defenders up front. Trestman took this whole "pass as run" concept an extra yard on this one, bringing in a blocker to help rack up extra yards after the catch. On this final look, you can see that RB Charlie Garner sneaked his way across the formation and is in a perfect position to throw a block for his tight end after the catch is made.

Garner's block helps Williams move the ball an extra couple of yards on this one. It's not getting off the bus running, sure, but it got the offense running.

As the game progressed, Trestman broke out some of his many variations on this theme. Here's one from later in the first quarter.

With the Raiders in a standard pro set (2 WR, TE, RB, FB), it's not immediately obvious that their intent is to run three pass patterns to the right. Despite the different alignment, the play itself is almost identical in execution. There's a slant to hold the two linebackers (highlighted) in their places, a go route to clear out the cornerback, and then someone will head into the flat and be wide open. This time, that someone is RB Charlie Garner, who comes out of the backfield on a wheel route:

Instead of directly handing Garner the ball and having him immediately pursued by linebackers, Trestman has distracted the linebackers long enough to get Garner in open space. It's another easy completion, and the Raiders ended up with a nice gain of five yards. Again, these short passing patterns worked just as well as the run game.

Now, you might be thinking that the defense should just hold a linebacker at the line of scrimmage to stop these plays. You would not be alone in thinking that, because that is exactly what Trestman wants the defense to do on this next play. In the game so far, every ball has been thrown to the shortest route on the three-receiver side. The Patriots defense should be completely keyed in to the three-wide side of the field.

We see the same combination of two clearing routes and one underneath route on the left side of the offensive formation, but that's there merely to distract the Patriots linebackers. With the right side cornerback forced to follow Jerry Rice on his go route and the linebackers tending towards the opposite side of the field, Charlie Garner is once again able to sneak out of the backfield almost unnoticed.

He dropped this somewhat off-target pass, but the play itself was sound. If Garner makes this catch and then put a move on the onrushing Tedy Bruschi, he would have had an easy first down. And even if Garner wasn't able to shake the wily old linebacker, the Raiders would have had a three-yard gain at minimum - again, just as good as your average run play.

Matt Forte might not be getting as many handoffs as he used to, but as you can see, his yards from scrimmage numbers will not suffer in Marc Trestman's pass-happy offense. With a perfect decoy in Brandon Marshall, Trestman will be able to get Matt Forte open on these underneath routes all day. Add in a new tight end, and this offense could really hum along. Next week, I'll take a look at what all these short routes build towards - the answer may surprise you. The week after that, it'll be time to sneak a peak at Trestman's bag of trick plays. It may be the off-season, but the tape keeps rolling...

MORE X's and O's: Who IS Marc Trestman? - The Mel Tucker 4-3 Defense - Trestman's CFL 'Offence'

Bears Playbook - The Mel Tucker 4-3 Defense

Steve Ronkowski — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 03:08:54 -0000

Marc Trestman didn't patronize Bears fans at his introductory press conference with promises to beat the Packers. Promise or no, the road to the NFC North crown still goes through Green Bay. We'll have to wait until the 2013 season starts to see how Trestman attacks the Green Bay defense, but through a stroke of scheduling luck, we don't have to guess at how new defensive coordinator would match up against the Packers.

During Week 8 of the 2012 season, Mike Mularkey led his Jaguars into Lambeau Field to take on the Green Bay Packers. While the Jacksonville offense put up an anemic fifteen points, Mel Tucker's Jaguar defense gave Aaron Rodgers and company a run for their money. Despite their well-deserved reputation for mediocrity, the Jaguar D held the Packers to only 24 points. Considering the Bears held Green Bay to only one point fewer than this when the two teams played in Lambeau, I would give Tucker's former squad due credit for their work.

At the line of scrimmage, Tucker's defense will continue in the Lovie Smith model of a four-man, one-gap front. Witness:

Yes, Virginia, it'll be a 4-3. This alignment is a vanilla single-gap 4-3 defense - the same thing the Bears have run for the last nine years. Hopefully Tucker can defend the run better when he gets to work with better players, because his line got zero push on this particular play.

This basic run defense was the right call against this play, but there was simply no execution. When every single defensive linesman gets pushed backwards, the running back could become a walking back and still get yards.

While Jacksonville proved vulnerable to the run, their D was more resilient against the pass. Indeed, Jacksonville had surprisingly good luck using an all-too-familiar defense. Consider this pre-snap defensive alignment on the Packers' second play:

Mel Tucker won't have much of a problem teaching the Bears defense this play call - it is the same Tampa 2 shell that Lovie Smith used as the Bears' base defense. The cornerbacks cover the short zones on each sideline, each safety takes a deep third, and the middle linebacker drops back to play center field.

Aaron Rodgers doesn't need to double-check this defense, as he can easily read the Tampa 2 alignment before the snap. Here's his play call in response:

We've all seen plays like this one work wonders against the Bears' Tampa 2. In formations like this, Rodgers loves to exploit the match-up between his TE, Jermichael Finley (88), and the linebacker or nickel back across from him. Mel Tucker's no idiot, though: he knows the TE is a dangerous weapon against this Tampa 2. To counter the mismatch Finley often creates, Tucker moves his left cornerback - the 6'1" Aaron Ross (31) - to cover Finley.

Finley still has a size advantage over Ross, but Ross proved fast enough to make up for the size difference. Ross kept his eyes on Rodgers, broke on the ball at just the right time, and forced an incompletion. Here is the play right before the ball comes out:

Rodgers thought he had an easy completion here, but Tucker had the right man in the right place. It's good to see that Tucker has a response to this TE seam pass better than vaguely smiling while his linebackers get beat in pass coverage.

Some other TE passing routes are a bit tougher to defend. Take this gem by the Packers from later in the quarter:

With five receivers running routes for Rodgers, someone was bound to get open in the outlined-in-red Jacksonville zones. Finley's (88) crossing route is Rodgers' preferred option, as the QB knows he'll have two men in the free safety's ("FS") zone a few seconds into the play. If Rodgers has time for his routes to develop, the free safety will be in a pretty tough spot.

It's ironic that Finley's route takes him to the right of the offensive formation, because Tucker has a laid a pretty clever trap for Rodgers on the other side. The two defensive backs at the line of scrimmage are playing man - something that should make Rodgers salivate - but the strong safety is disguising his plan to cover the deep left zone. The SS takes a quick step inside as if he were defending Finley one-on-one, then quickly bails back into his zone. If Rodgers was looking left here, he might have ended up finding a wide-open safety instead of a wide-open receiver.

On the right side, however, it's a "pure" Tampa 2. Finley's route is designed to beat zone coverage, and it does its job admirably. The look we get as Finley catches the ball, however, makes me think the safety play is a bit suspect.

There's something to be said for a safety making sure nothing gets behind him, but five yards is a pretty ~~cowardly~~ generous cushion to play with.

There are two ways to defend against a play like this using a Tampa 2 shell, and the safety being a couple steps closer to the deepest receiver would have been one of them. The other would have been for the Jaguars to have a real pass rush, but Jacksonville's line is suspect at best. Replace their defensive ends with Peppers and Wootton and their free safety with Major Wright, and this play might get stopped.

Mel Tucker will certainly add his own flavor to the Bears' 4-3 defense, but his hire is not a dramatic shift away from the Lovie Smith era. Considering the success Lovie Smith's defenses had over the years, that is not necessarily a bad thing. A former defensive back and a long-time DB coach, Tucker should have no problem coming up with creative ways to confuse QBs with coverage. Mix in Tucker's wrinkles to the more classic 4-3 looks we've seen over the last nine years, and you've got a recipe for continued defensive success.

After having made something from nothing in Jacksonville, Mel Tucker must feel like a kid in a candy store in Chicago. If this game is any indication, he'll be able to treat the NFC North to all the defense they can stomach.

Who Is Chicago Bears Defensive Coordinator Mel Tucker?

Steve Ronkowski — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 16:32:41 -0000

Many suspected that head coaching candidate Darrell Bevell would have been the former Badger who ended up on the Chicago Bears sideline this season. While Phil Emery ended up deciding against Bevell for the head coach position, the Bears did find another Wisconsin football player for the coaching roster. Meet Mel Tucker.

As a player, Tucker had a good run of luck at the University of Wisconsin. He rode into Madison as part of Barry Alvarez's first recruiting class in 1990 and rolled out with two straight bowl wins, including a 1993 Rose Bowl victory over UCLA. Tucker drew no interest from NFL teams as a player, but he stuck with the game as a coach. After a few years away from football, he returned to be an assistant coach at another Big 10 program, Michigan State, in 1997.

Having already learned defense from veteran coach Barry Alvarez as a player, Tucker was blessed with the chance to continue his development as a defensive coach under another guru of college defenses, Michigan State HC Nick Saban. Over the two years Tucker worked for Saban, Tucker's defensive backs recorded interceptions at clip of over one a game and posted strong pass defense numbers.

After a one-year stint at Miami of Ohio in 1999, Tucker rejoined Saban, who had since moved to Louisiana State University, for the 2000 season. While here, Tucker led the defensive backfield to the tune of 16 interceptions as part of an overall defense ranked in the top third of college football despite having the tenth-hardest overall schedule. With Tucker's assistance, LSU prevailed through this tough schedule to win the SEC Championship.

After all this bouncing around, Tucker finally found a long-term coaching job in 2001 at his third Big 10 school, Ohio State. Arriving as part of then-new HC Jim Tressel's staff, Tucker coached the Buckeye DBs from 2001-03 and then was promoted to defensive "co-coordinator" for the 2004 season. While Tucker was with the team, the defense never ranked below 28th in the nation in terms of points allowed, and Ohio State won three straight bowl games including the 2002 National Championship - not too shabby.

Ohio State's high profile in the football world put Tucker on the NFL map, and in 2005 he was hired away by the Cleveland Browns to resume his work as a defensive backs coach. Working for another member of the Bill Belicheck coaching tree - Romeo Crennel - Tucker got major production out of his position group. Over his four-year run in Cleveland, the Browns ranked fifth overall in interceptions (73) and fourth overall in passes of over 20 yards allowed (78).

His one year as the defensive coordinator in Cleveland wasn't all that impressive on the surface - the team ranked sixteenth in points allowed and in the bottom half of every rushing stat. Look past the top-line stats, however, and the 2008 Browns defense shows some signs of competent coaching despite a somewhat talentless roster. The 2008 Browns had the second most interceptions in the NFL, an impressive stat considering that the Browns had the third fewest passing attempts thrown against them and languished in sack statistics.

At least one NFL mind was impressed with Mel Tucker's work in Cleveland, as Tucker immediately found work as a defensive coordinator after he was fired along with Romeo Crennel in 2008. Tucker was hired by the Jacksonville Jaguars to be the team's DC. After coaching a 3-4 defense the previous season, Tucker switched back to a 4-3 defense under head coach and defensive mastermind Jack Del Rio.

On first glance, his defensive record in Jacksonville seems somewhat suspect.

Jaguars Defensive Stats -

2009: 24th in points allowed, 23rd in yards allowed, 28th in DVOA

2010: 27th in points allowed, 28th in yards allowed, 32nd in DVOA

2011: 11th in points allowed, 6th in yards allowed, 5th in DVOA

2012: 29th in points allowed, 30th in yards allowed, 28th in DVOA

(Note: Tucker's "big board" of NFL stats can be found here.)

If we dig a bit deeper into these numbers, we can again find a silver lining. First of all, Tucker was not the defensive play-caller until 2011 - HC Jack Del Rio was. The team immediately jumped up in the rankings when Tucker took over, going from the absolute worst all the way into the top five.

Five was also the magic number for the 2012 season, as Tucker only had five starters play all 16 games for him on defense last season. Given that Jacksonville's starting roster isn't that great to begin with, I'm inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt that he could have done better with better, healthier players.

Tucker's press conference after his 2011 promotion to interim head coach gives a good hint at why Emery and Trestman must have liked the guy: he comes off very much as a Lovie Smith style "player's coach" with the "player development above all else" philosophy of a Rod Marinelli. Plus, Tucker's range of experience in both 3-4 and 4-3 defenses should give him the ability to help adapt his schemes to fit the strengths of the Bears roster.

While the Bears DC job is a prize on its own because of the franchise's reputation, Tucker could continue to be a man on the move if he does well in Chicago. Only 42, Tucker passed on a chance to be the head coach at the University of Wisconsin. By refusing a college HC job that he very well could have held for life, Tucker has shown his sights are firmly set on NFL success and a chance to be a non-interim head coach in the future.

Regardless of where Tucker's career is taking him, there is no question about the quality of his background. The Bears' new DC has studied the game under some great defensive minds: Alvarez, Tressel, Crennel, Saban, and Jack Del Rio. This range of knowledge should serve the Bears well. Tucker has some big shoes to fill, it's true. But as a motivated young coach with a talent-filled roster, Mel Tucker has what it takes to maintain the fearsome reputation of the Bears defense.

Bears Playbook - Marc Trestman's Passing "Offence"

Steve Ronkowski — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 02:08:55 -0000

It's been an exciting day for Bears fans with the announcement that Marc Trestman is now the team's head coach. Having been out of the NFL for a while, many fans were left to wonder what exactly Phil Emery saw in Trestman that made the coach worthy of leading the Bears.

One Canadian caller to Chicago's WSCR-AM had the closest thing to the inside scoop, however. He said that Trestman has been the CFL's answer to Bill Belichick, having made the Montreal Alouettes into a perennial Grey Cup contender through a furious scoring offense.

Sports opinions are a dime a dozen on either side of the border, but the tape doesn't lie. I dug up a bit of Alouettes footage from last season to see for myself how Trestman ran his offense up north. I wanted to give you a big-picture view of Trestman's offensive strategies, but I wasn't able to work past the very first drive I saw. Four plays, over seventy yards, and six points. Let's look at it to see what we can glean of Trestman's offensive approach.

As WCG's Kay Paradiso noted in her bio piece on Trestman, the man likes to run a wide-open, aggressive offense. He did exactly that in his opening drive of his 2012 Labour Day Weekend match-up against the CFL's number one defense, the British Columbia Lions. The first play was a West Coast standard, an out route coupled with a curl. Here's how Trestman drew it up:

With both corners playing off of the Alouette receivers, one of these two routes is bound to get open for Montreal QB Anthony Calvillo. After a quick dropback, Calvillo was able to find his open man and quickly pull the trigger.

As you may or may not know, the CFL is a three-down league. In other words, up north it's a "two and out." As such, consider this second and six a "third down play" if it was run in the NFL.

Trestman called in another staple of modern WCOs, a "trips" formation to the right of the formation. The three WRs ran up to the line to arrive at a formation something like this:

As you can imagine, the whole points of a trips formation like this is that each of the three receivers has a decent chance of drawing man coverage and an equally good chance of getting open after that. By having the routes all start as "go" routes - each of the three WRs runs straight down the field before breaking off or curling back - the defenders are forced to retreat at first. This gets the middle WR open for Calvillo.

The catch is made a mere two seconds after the ball is snapped, and the Alouettes convert the second down.

For the next play, Trestman reaches into his bag of tricks for something special: a hitch screen. Here's how it was drawn up:

The BC Lions were a bit numerically challenged on their defensive alignment here, sending only three men to defend the four receivers on the right of the offensive formation. With some great blocking by both the offensive line and the receivers, the Lions would pay for that mistake. Witness what the play evolves into just after the ball is thrown.

The three receivers have made their blocks and do a good job of keeping any of the defensive backs from making a play. What really caught my eye, however, is how Trestman has involved the offensive line on this outside screen. While most NFL coaches are content to simply get their receiver into the second level on screen plays like this, with two linesmen (pointed out in the above picture) in front of the receiver, Trestman is going to get a lot more than ten or so yards out of this one. BC is finally able to corral the receiver, but only after the Alouette WR has flown fifty yards down the field.

Now well within striking distance of the end zone, Trestman continues pressing forward with a final pass play. Once again, he has drawn it up so that multiple receivers are attacking a single area of the field, setting up the QB with a quick set of options to read and react to.

With three receivers to Calvillo's left, one is bound to get open. The WR to the far left runs a basic go route, and the tight end runs straight down the seam. These two routes are just there to set up for the middle receiver, however, who breaks into what appears to be an out route five yards down the field. With the defender now out of position, the receiver immediately cuts back to the quarterback with the ball already on its way. These kinds of quick timing routes are classics of the WCO.

With the other two receivers now in good positions to block, Montreal is able to drive the ball into the end zone. Again, notice that the ball is out of Calvillo's hand only two seconds after the snap, allowing the play to get off despite BC sending a big-time blitz after Montreal.

While it is easy to doubt the talent of CFL players, Emery was wise to put his faith in their coach. The man is clearly the antidote the Bears' offensive ailments. Trestman runs an aggressive offense, but unlike the aggressive offense of Mike Martz, Trestman's is built on creating openings in defenses through route combinations and relies heavily on quick passes. While Trestman will have one less player to use as a decoy in the NFL, these same offensive principles he used to win two Grey Cups can bring trophies home to Chicago.

Do Defensive Coaches Win Super Bowls?

Steve Ronkowski — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 00:36:43 -0000

Phil Emery is no slouch when it comes to the search process for a new head coach for the Bears. Still, it seems strange that his search has almost completely overlooked defensive coordinators and assistants. If the goal is to win championships, why not continue building towards a defensively-led Monster of the Midway? That approach was one win away from bringing home the Lombardi in 2006.

Emery can look at the data as well as anyone, however. Consider this chart listing the background of every Super Bowl-winning head coach. Let's start with a look at the early Super Bowl era. Here are the coaches who won the first fifteen Super Bowls and their respective coaching backgrounds:

Name	Defense?	Offense?	Special Teams?
Lombardi		x
Lombardi		x
Ewbank		x
Stram	x	x	x
McCafferty		x
Landry	x
Shula	x
Shula	x
Noll	x
Noll	x
Madden	x
Landry	x
Noll	x
Noll	x
Flores		x

After an opening run of dominance by offensive head coaches, the Championship game was dominated by defense - ten of the first fifteen Super Bowls were won by coaches with a background as a defensive position coach or coordinator.

Since that early era, however, the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction. Consider the winning head coaches of the last seventeen Super Bowls:

Name	Defense?	Offense?	Special Teams?
Switzer		x
Holmgren		x
Shanahan		x
Shanahan		x
Vermeil		x	x
Billick		x
Belichick	x	x	x
Gruden		x
Belichick	x	x	x
Belichick	x	x	x
Cowher	x		x
Dungy	x
Coughlin		x
Tomlin	x	x
Payton		x
McCarthy		x
Coughlin		x

In these most recent Super Bowls, only two have been won by head coaches without experience as an offensive position coach or coordinator. I would give credit to one - Bill Cowher - for proving true the old saying about defense. The other defense-minded head coach to win a Super Bowl this century, Tony Dungy, won it all behind Payton Manning and only an assist by the defense.

It's true that many of these supposedly offense-minded head coaches - Brian Billick and John Gruden, among others - put together teams that were defensive powerhouses. With a knowledge of how to run an NFL offense, however, coaches like these were able to get enough out of their offenses to avoid having their Super Bowl hopes Grossman-ed away from them. In other words, while the defenses might have won the championships, the offenses were able to do enough to not lose them.

By focusing his search on offensive coaches, Phil Emery is primed to bring the Bears into the 21st century of the NFL. Defense still matters, but when it comes to the choice of a head coach, it's offense that wins Super Bowls.

Will the Bears' New Coach Stick with the Tampa Two?

Steve Ronkowski — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 00:07:27 -0000

For all the the bad on offense during Lovie Smith's tenure with the Bears, there was plenty of good on defense. Give Lovie his due credit for his defensive coaching, but the Bears went out of their way to stock the roster with players who fit into Smith's Tampa 2 scheme. Starting with the first pick made after Lovie came onto the Bears, Tommie Harris in 2004, and running all the way through the team's most recent first-rounder, Shea McClellin, the defensive roster is built to play for Lovie Smith, or at least his system.

Phil Emery understands this as well as anyone. He said in his New Year's Day press conference that a new head coach would really have to sell him on the idea of making a wholesale switch to a two-gap, 3-4 defense, as this kind of change would require pretty much starting from scratch on defense. True, he did not rule out the possibility of making this kind of change, but the team simply has too many other needs to begin a complete defensive overhaul right now.

The way I see it, Phil Emery and his new head coach have a few different routes they could take with this great but ageing defense:

Keep Rod Marinelli

Mr. 0 and 16 will never be an NFL head coach again, and as he is currently under contract, no team can steal him away from the Bears until they release him. Despite his historically bad performance as a head coach, Marinelli has done a great job as defensive coordinator. The players know and trust him, and having coached in a Tampa 2 system since 1996, he knows the defense as well as anyone.

Also, unlike Mike Tice, Marinelli has been able to develop raw players into playmakers. Having made fourth-rounder Henry Melton into a Pro Bowler and fellow fourth-rounder Corey Wootton into a Favre Slayer, it's hard to question his ability to get the most out of the all-important defensive line. If the Bears are going to pursue offensive excellence as much as Emery claims, that will mean the Bears need to do as more with less draft picks on defense. Marinelli has a proven record of success in molding marginal talent into greatness, and could get by with what the team can give him.

Larry Meyer noted in a recent mailbag that teams rarely keep assistants around when a head coach leaves, but the move is hardly without precedence. Indeed, the last time the Bears won a Super Bowl it was with a head coach brought in to be an offensive mind and a defensive coordinator who was a retread from the last regime. Just saying...

Would Marinelli want to hang around now that Lovie is gone? Hard to say. Would keeping Marinelli around be the easiest way to maintain continuity on defense while moving the major focus of the team over to the offense? Yes.

Find Another Tampa Two Coach

The NFL is littered with other disciples of the Tampa 2. The new head coach could easily find someone else to run a defense very similar to Lovie's if the team wanted to go that way. The job of luring in a new Tampa 2 defensive coordinator is that much easier thanks the team's talent-filled defensive roster. Still, why trade a known quantity in Marinelli for a less proven coach who wants to run the same system? Change for change's sake can be a good thing, though, and after years of mediocrity perhaps some more change is in order.

Get a More "Aggressive" 4-3

For all the fuss made about the Tampa 2 in Chicago, it's not like the Bears rushed four and played zone on every play the last nine years. As Bob Babich's and Ron Rivera's defensive calls proved, this defensive build can play in ways far more aggressive than the name Tampa 2 would suggest. The Bears could find a defensive coordinator to take this idea to the next level and run something more philosophically aligned with a Gregg Williams or Rob Ryan but still using a 4-3 front.

This change would require some major additions to the roster, as the secondary is not built for the amount of man coverage a blitzing defense would require on the back end. Still, the Bears could transition over to a more aggressive defensive style without needing a huge rebuild. It is also worth noting that many successful teams built around their offensives - Green Bay and New Orleans immediately come to mind - complement their aggressive offenses with equally aggressive defenses.

Blow It All Up

Phil Emery didn't completely slam the door on the possibility of changing to a 3-4. If the new head coach could sell his boss on the idea, the Bears could begin a transition towards a 3-4 in 2013. Trouble with that plan is that there are plenty of other teams out there competing for a very small pool of players who can fill in the many areas of need that such a transition would create, least of all a giant of a man to play nose tackle. As Emery noted, such a sea change in the defense would turn the greatest strength of the Bears' current roster into a weakness. With so many other needs, Emery is wise to be skeptical of such a major shift. Still, it's a possibility that 2013 becomes a true rebuilding year.

With Phil Emery's search clearly focused on offensive and special teams coordinators for now, the Bears defense might seem like an afterthought. But if Emery does break with Bears tradition and hire a so-called "offensive mind" to run the team, one of the most important moves the new head coach will make is his pick for defensive coordinator. Whether he sticks with Marinelli or finds someone new, let's just hope that the Bears' new head coach doesn't break the defense while trying to fix the offense.

Bears Rulebook - Understanding Offensive Pass Interference

Steve Ronkowski — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 03:47:51 -0000

Offensive pass interference has long been a penalty in the NFL, but until this season, it was rarely called. In case you missed last Sunday's game against the Packers, that has changed this year. There were times in that game that you had to wonder if the refs were feeling a bit sympathetic towards the Packers, who were victims of a missed offensive pass interference call in the infamous "Fail Mary" play at the end of their game in Seattle.

In the latest edition of the NFL rules, the rules for OPI are straightforward enough: take all the rules for defensive pass interference and apply them to the receiver equally. Indeed, the NFL rule book draws almost no distinctions between the receiver and his defender in their rules for interference. One of the few distinctions, however, was the first reason that Jeffery found himself on the wrong end of a penalty.

For reasons that are obvious, a defender can't get flagged for PI until the ball is thrown. Receivers, however, are under scrutiny from the moment the ball is snapped until someone touches the ball. In other words, what is perfectly legal "bump and run" coverage for a defender is a ten yard penalty for a receiver. Let's look at a few stills from Jeffery's first penalty.

This is a moment after the snap on the ill-fated fourth-down touchdown toss to Jeffery. Based on where Packer Sam Shields' hands are, you could call this defensive holding. The rulebook, however, is definitive in allowing a bit of contact to defenders within five yards of the line of scrimmage: a defender can either "[maintain] continuous and unbroken contact within five yards of the line of scrimmage" or contact an eligible receiver "with a quick extension
of arm or arms." In other words, a defender can put his hands on a receiver or give him a solid push within five yards.

In that shot, it's an easy no-call - the contact so far has been perfectly legal. A half-second later, however, and Jeffery takes it a bit too far:

As the last of seven reasons a player can get flagged for interference states, a player cannot "[initiate] contact with an opponent by shoving or pushing off, thus creating a separation in an attempt to catch a pass." If a player gets his arm out that far from his body to contact an opposing player, it will get flagged every time. Put another way: would you have been upset if the defender did that to Jeffery and there was no penalty? If Jeffery wanted to fight off Shields, he could have. Next time, fight off his arms, not his torso.

That penalty was pretty nit-picky, but it was perfectly in line with what the rulebook says. There is no definitive film angle of the second OPI on Jeffery, but his third penalty might as well have been a demonstration on how to break the interference rule by illegally pushing off.

You. Can't. Push. Off. Brandon Marshall needs to have a chat with Jeffery about how to use your hands and body without getting flagged, as the elder receiver is an expert at breaking through tight coverage without drawing flags.

Here's what bothered me, though. The ref watching Jeffery was calling it real tight, but he let this slide on an even-more critical fourth-down play:

I call shenanigans on the refs and defensive pass interference on Sam Shields for this play. If Marshall is the one to teach Jeffery how to battle off defenders without getting dinged for it, perhaps Devin Hester can give him a lesson in drawing penalties when you're being contacted. In Hester's defense, falling down is easier than catching a ball...

I know that complaining about the refs is a refuge for losers, scoundrels, and Packers fans, but that missed call at the end was a pretty big mistake by the refs. You hate to see games "decided" by penalties, but just like the "Fail Mary," this one was decided by the refs completely missing one. Could Jay have finished the drive, gotten the two-point conversion, and forced overtime? We'll never know.

Blame Jerry Angelo for the Bears' struggles this season

Steve Ronkowski — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 00:45:34 -0000

Lovie Smith has always been a defensive coach, but he's seen first hand that teams can get to the big game both ways: diesel-powered defense or high-octane offense. The Tampa Bay Bucaneers won a Super Bowl with one of worst offenses ever to hoist the Lombardi only two seasons after Lovie left. While D was winning big in Tampa Bay, the team Smith moved on to - the Saint Louis Rams - could put up big points on offense but couldn't keep other teams from doing the same. Lovie Smith got enough out of their defense to make the Rams NFC Champions in 2001.

Coaching is only part of the equation, however. Coaching alone can't convert Rex Grossman into Payton Manning. Coaches can't force their bosses to draft more and better offensive linesmen. And coaching can't save a GM from having to trade away draft picks to make up for draft mistakes. Enter Jerry Angelo.

Angelo's second coming of Trent Dilfer came in the form of 2003 first-rounder Rex Grossman. When Angelo finally found an actual franchise QB in Jay Cutler, he came at the cost of two firsts and a third. I don't regret the Cutler trade, but a good GM wouldn't have needed to make it. If Angelo found "his" QB in the draft, he could have surrounded this quarterback with two more first-round talents.

The problem with Angelo's offensive picks extended beyond his inability to find quarterbacks. Position by position, Angelo gave a new meaning to "offensive pick" with his selections. Let's breeze through his greatest hits:

Drafted OT Marc Columbo as the Bears' first pick in 2002, but cut him because he had injury troubles in his first three seasons. Columbo went on to start at RT for the Dallas Cowboys for five seasons.
Drafted Cedric Benson fourth overall in 2005, only to cut him in 2008 because of the same character issues that got him arrested twice while in college.
After having the #28 ranked offense in 2005, drafted only two offensive players in 2006. Both came in the sixth round, and neither ever played an NFL snap.
His answer to completely blowing a first-round pick on pre-injured OT Chris Williams in 2008? A seventh-round pick in 2010 - J'Marcus Webb.
Drafted only one truly good receiver in Bernard Berrian, and then let him walk because he couldn't free up cap space to pay him.

Angelo's draft history on offense was one of almost complete failure. I'll give him Matt Forte though - steal of a second-rounder.

Phil Emery has a long road ahead of him. He's made some progress, however small, but offensive lines don't get made overnight. Consider this: while the only player on the 2006 Colts offensive line the team didn't draft was undrafted free agent Jeff Saturday, the only player on the 2006 Bears offensive line the team did draft was center Olin Kreutz. Winning offensive lines are built over time and through the draft, not through frantic first-round draft picks and expensive free agent signings. Emery knows what kind of team Angelo left him, and firing Lovie won't change that roster into anything better.

Don't tell me that it's Lovie Smith's fault that "his" offense can't put up points, because I don't buy it for a second. Smith and his many offensive coordinators have performed everything short of miracles to get win as many games as they have both this season and over the years. For Ditka's sake, Lovie got to a Super Bowl with Rex $#&*# Grossman! This team had to be a Tampa Bay-style grinder of a football team from the start, as Lovie's front office never gave him talent enough to host any show, much less the "Greatest." Lovie's defense has kept this year's Bears in almost every game they've played. His offense just doesn't have the pieces it needs to win them.

Yes, you can point to Lovie's rotating cast of offensive coaches as a sign he just doesn't understand offensive football, but do you think even a Bill Walsh offensive genius could turn this steaming heap of offense into football gold? I doubt it. Could Smith have done more in the draft room to get better talent? Perhaps, but Lovie is not here to be a scout. That is what Angelo was paid to do.

I say stick with Smith. Defense can still win championships in this modern NFL. To win games, however, you need touchdowns. Even when they are the best in the league, defense and special teams will only score you so many of those. If Jerry Angelo had bothered to invest a few more picks on offensive players and done a better job with the picks he did spend, this Bears team would be a force in all three phases. Thanks to Angelo, it is no force at all.

The only reason this Bears team has won games is because of its stellar, Lovie Smith-led defense. One more year of rebuilding, and the offense will grow into the complement the D needs. For this year, however, all we've got left is hope that Lovie's D can sneak us into the playoffs. Let's reward Lovie Smith for the success he has attained despite Jerry Angelo's offenses by seeing what he can do with a real one next season.

Matt Forte on his offensive line: "They're doing a good job"

Steve Ronkowski — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 00:17:22 -0000

Matt Forte and making copies don't necessary go together, but the Bears running back appeared at the South Loop FedEx Office store today to promote the company's "Blitz for Tickets" ticket giveaway. It was somewhat strange seeing Forte at the same store I've made copies at for the last two years, but the lines leading out the store for the chance to meet the running back were no surprise at all. And while many have complained that after "paying the man" that Forte's production has taken a dip, I think the problem is that you have to play the man after you pay him.

When it comes to the limited role Forte had in last week's loss to the Vikings, Forte agreed with my assessment. When asked by another reporter how his production in last week's loss to the Vikings compared to Adrian Peterson's, he got straight to the point, saying "you can't do a lot with thirteen carries." The stats more than bear out this argument, as Forte's 13 carries for 85 yards put him at a better yards-per-carry mark than Peterson's 31 carries for 154 yards. It's true that Forte had his fair share of runs that went for little or no gain. Still, it's hard not to think that the team would do well to emphasize Forte's talents more even when playing from behind.

Despite his somewhat average numbers this season, Forte isn't making excuses. While many in Chicago wouldn't be surprised if Forte publicly complained about the offensive focus moving away from the run game, the running back had only positive things to say about his coaches. He said that the locker room is fully behind Lovie remaining the head coach, noting that the team "doesn't pay much attention" to media and fan grumblings about Smith.

The offensive line has been more than a little suspect in pass blocking, but Forte has no complaints about how they've done as run blockers. Forte said of the linesmen that "you like to see the same five, and it's been different [lately], but they're doing a good job." Forte's yards per carry number for the season - 4.3 - is slightly lower than the 4.9YPC he managed last season, but he refused to blame anyone but himself for the dip, coach or player.

While Forte subtly grumbled about his reduced role in last week's game, he is still highly driven to elevate his play in the final push for the playoffs. He acknowledged that the loss of Brian Urlacher will make things a bit harder for the Bears, saying "it's tough when you lose your defensive leader." Despite this, or perhaps because of it, the mood in the locker room remains positive and focused on the goal of reaching the playoffs. Noting that the Bears are still in the thick of the NFC playoff hunt, Forte said that "We're still fighting."

I wouldn't be the WCG Xs-and-Os guy if I didn't close the interview with an attempt to get a preview of the Bears' game-plan for this Sunday, but Forte wasn't going to let me run a copy of his playbook on a nearby copy machine. Still, I had to ask what the the offense had to do to reverse the string of losses the team has suffered against the Packers. I have to think the team has a little something up its sleeves, because Forte's response was as to-the-point as possible. What does Forte think the offense has to do to beat the Pack? Two words: "Score points." Asked to elaborate, he gave a small nod to the problem turnovers played in the last couple of games, saying "That's what we need to do - score points. Then [we'll] let the defense do their work." Guess we'll have to wait until Sunday to see how Forte and the rest of the team go after their goal.

So, WCGers, what do you think? Matt Forte denies the somewhat common belief that injuries have hampered his season. Is he holding back on us, or is it simply a case of his role being diminished in the recent string of play-from-behind games? More importantly, can a heavy dose of Forte run the Bears into the playoffs? Unwilling to play the blame game, Forte stands ready to make up for his mid-season slide with a strong finish. With a block or two in front of him, he'll be able to convert his will into wins.

Many thanks to FedEx Office for hosting the event.

Bears Playbook - (Not) Defending the Read Option

Steve Ronkowski — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 04:10:00 -0000

The read option has long been a staple offensive play in lower levels of football, but with the rise of a new generation of true dual-threat quarterbacks, it has experienced a renaissance at the NFL level. The Bears were first-hand witnesses to the 49ers' version of the read option two weeks ago, and found themselves getting gashed time and again by Russell Wilson's equally effective option plays this Sunday. Let's look at two plays that demonstrate how the read option works, and look ahead to some ways the Bears can adjust to this play in the future.

The Bears had held the Seahawks in check for much of the game, but Brian Urlacher and company were knocked onto their heels during the Seahawks final two drives by the option play. The option is such a successful play because it is fundamentally smart football. The "read" of the read option is made by the QB on one of the defensive ends. If the defensive end crashes around the tackle to stop the quarterback from running, the QB hands the ball off to the running back, who heads downfield between the tackles. If the defensive end pushes towards the middle of the line to defend against this inside run, however, the QB runs the ball around the edge the DE could have guarded. The offense also gets an extra blocker no matter where the ball goes: the DE is read out of the play and does not need to be accounted for by the offensive line.

Here's one example of the option play at work in the fourth quarter:

The yellow lines here do not indicate what the Bears actually did, but rather what they should have done. The classic response to the option is to have both defensive ends contain the QB within the pocket, forcing the run to the inside. It is then up to the linebackers, such as Brian Urlacher (highlighted), to identify where this inside run is going, avoid the block, and make the tackle. The Bears' defensive line, however, ended up playing this one as if it was a "standard" pro-style run play.

Here we are a moment after the snap. Israel Idonije, highlighted above, is Wilson's read player, and the yellow lines show the two run routes available to Wilson and Marshawn Lynch. Notice that the tackle across from Izzy is the one linesman who is not engaged with his man: #68 knows that Idonije won't be in position to break up the play, and the linesman keeps himself unengaged so he can get after a linebacker as the play develops. Wilson sees Idonije's inside move, and makes an outside move in response - this one is a QB keeper. With his tight end (#86) able to seal Idonije in and his right tackle free to engage the linebacker, Wilson is able to cruise over to the edge and pick up an easy first down. Idonije would have been better off attacking the edge and forcing the play inside, as the two defensive tackles have occupied the three offensive linesmen, leaving Brian Urlacher free to make the tackle if the play came his way.

The Bears defensive ends seemed to catch on to the idea that they needed to contain Wilson in the pocket by the time the game was in overtime. The Seahawks, however, were ready for this obvious adjustment. Remember, the read option allows an offensive to redeploy whichever blocker was supposed to take on the player being read. In this overtime play, Seattle used this extra blocker to blow a giant hole in the heart of the Bears D.

This time around, the yellow lines show what the Bears defensive ends actually did: pinching the QB into the pocket. Idonije, however, had the privilege of being wrong again when Wilson read him coming his way. Wilson handed the ball off to Marshawn Lynch, who could have driven a truck through the hole blasted open between the center and right guard. Witness:

You can barely make out the head of the pulling right tackle in this shot, but the big teal arrow is pointing him out as he works his way down the line. With the guards and center having moved Henry Melton and Stephen Paea out of the way, all the tackle has to do is block Lance Briggs out of the way for Lynch to get a big gain. Once Briggs is out of the way, Lynch rocks his way down the field to the tune of 14 yards and a first down.

As Bears fans have been forced to find out this season, the read option can be a highly effective set of plays in the NFL. Still, there's a reason you don't see all 32 NFL teams running it: the option can be contained with sound defense and destroyed by freak athletes. There is, after all, a reason that Julius Peppers was not the read defender in either of these two plays. While beasts like Peppers are as rare as gold at the college level, there are enough players in the NFL with his combination of size and speed to make it tough on an option team. Leave Peppers unblocked, and he'll have the speed to get into the backfield and the wingspan to tackle either player once the handoff is made. Idonije is no slouch himself, however. Here's the very next play from overtime:

Idonije (highlighted) was once again the read player, but he played this one with speed and smarts, quickly taking charge of his edge to force the play towards a blitzing Kelvin Hayden off the other edge. The defensive ends are only part of stopping the read, however: the linebackers and safeties have to do their part as well. It is up to the linebackers to fill whatever inside gaps the offensive line creates, and the safeties have to follow suit and help clean up the play. On this one, both Urlacher and Briggs were happy to finish off Marshawn Lynch after Henry Melton and Stephen Paea held him up at the line of scrimmage.

It is plays like that this last one that give me hope that the Bears will have some options of their own on defense to counter the read option. It might be a rough road to the playoffs without Brian Urlacher at the helm, but at least #54 will have plenty of time to dust off his college playbooks and remember how to turn an opposing QB's options into taking a sack or having his running back squashed in the backfield.

Bears Playbook - Defending the Vikings

Steve Ronkowski — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 15:50:37 -0000

While Bears fans are wise enough to still fear Adrian Peterson, he hasn't done much against the Bears in a long time. Still, after two straight weeks of watching the Bears D get run over by the likes of Frank Gore and Arian Foster, it was good to see the Bears right the ship by sinking the Vikings' boat first. The Bears didn't get the job done on D using anything fancy. Instead, they leaned heavily on Tampa 2 concepts and simply out-executed the Vikings offense. If the team can repeat their performance two weeks from now, the Bears should be able - Cutler willing - to once again sweep the lowly Vikings back into the divisional basement.

The Vikings' opening possession told the whole story, and in those three downs, the Bears showed exactly what their three priorities in the game were. The Bears' first goal on defense is almost always to generate a pass rush with the front four, and the Vikings tested their luck on their first play from scrimmage.

On this first play, the Vikings were trying something a little different. They motioned Adrian Peterson out of the backfield to the wide left position you see him at above, giving the Vikings five different pass options. There's one small problem with this play call, however: math. With only five blockers, the Vikings could only double one of the four Bears' rush-men. Even more problematic, the Vikings' line couldn't seem to agree on which Bear they wanted to double.

Corey Wootton is out on the island to Christian Ponder's left, leaving Stephen Paea, Henry Melton, and Julius Peppers to the four remaining offensive linesmen. The Vikings' center was somewhat indecisive in choosing whether to block Paea or Melton, neither of whom can be reliably dealt with using only one man. But, with his right guard choosing to look Peppers' way, the center's slight hesitation was all Melton needed. He surged through the gap highlighted above and buried Ponder for an eight yard loss. Nice to finally see a game where the other quarterback is sacked on the first play, right?

The Bears' first worry was not Christian Ponder's arm, though: it was Adrian Peterson's feet. The Bears know what Adrian Peterson can do in the open field better than most. The key to stopping him was keeping him from the open field by maintaining gap control. No fools themselves, the Vikings saw the Bears D get burned by edge run after edge run the last two weeks. Minnesota figured the edge would be soft for yet another week, and headed that way for their first run. Another clever bit of misdirection by the Vikings on this one, but they once again failed to catch the Bears off guard.

To be precise, the Vikings weren't hoping to catch the Bears off guard: they were hoping they could catch the Bears off-tackle. The whole of the offensive line, minus tackle Charlie Johnson (highlighted above), flowed to the left. The obvious read for the Bears would be to flow along with the line and look to make a tackle, but the right side of the defense held their places. Even though the offensive tackle made a decent block off of his pull, Peterson didn't have many good options for a run lane. See for yourself:

Brian Urlacher shot into the first of Peterson's two gap choices, and while #54 wasn't able to make the tackle, he forced Peterson to keep moving to his right. With Charles Tillman doing a great job of holding the edge, Peterson figured his best shot was to cut to Tillman's inside. This gap, however, was Nick Roach's domain, and he led the bevy of Bears that brought Peterson down for a minimal gain. By staying within the "watch your gap, not the line movement" system, the Bears held Peterson in check until the game was well in hand.

The Bears undoing against San Francisco was their insistence on playing more man coverage than usual to defend against the 49ers' many run threats, a game plan that proved disastrous. The Bears took it back to basics against the Vikes, however, and gave them a heavy dose of zone defense that is their bread and butter. Minnesota was in a tough spot on third and eighteen, but the Vikings had yet another good play-call: a "four verticals" play with a slant route underneath it. If the Bears played pure man here, the play might have worked, but short passes rarely get the job done against a zone.

The Bears lined up in what appeared to be a single deep zone (Cover 1), with both Urlacher and Briggs mugging the line in a blitz look. With numbers seemingly on their side, the Vikings' plan was for the two vertical routes on Ponder's left to clear out the two opposing defenders, leaving the far left receiver uncovered on his underneath route. Take a look at how the play evolved, however:

The Bears linebackers did not blitz. Instead, both Urlacher and Briggs dropped back into their normal coverage zones: Briggs covering the seam to the QB's right, and Urlacher backing into center field. The reason Lovie loves him some zone coverage is apparent in this shot if you look at where every defender is looking. Every Bear is keeping one eye on the man across from them, but the other eye is fixed squarely on Christian Ponder. With pressure bearing down on him in the form of Israel Idonije, Ponder had to get the ball out of his hands perhaps a bit too quickly. As such, the vertical routes weren't able to lure away the defense to set up the slant. Sure, Ponder completed his pass, but a whopping seven defenders immediately rallied to the ball. End result?

Fourth down.

For the Bears' next game against the Vikings, the offense will face the challenge of playing with a rag-tag line in a tough venue. The defense, however, looked more than up to the task of halting Ponder and Peterson in their tracks. Even with the addition of a healthy Percy Harvin, this Vikings offense doesn't have firepower enough to dictate a game plan to the Bears. So long as the Bears can continue containing Peterson and rally to the ball after the catch, the team will complete yet another sweep of the Vikings and move one win closer to the playoffs.

Bears Playbook - Run Over by the Bus

Steve Ronkowski — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 21:25:15 -0000

Lovie Smith has always wanted to "get off the bus running," but he never intended the expression to apply to his defense. The 49ers offensive line, however, had other ideas: they opened up wide running lanes that allowed Frank Gore and Kendall Hunter to get past our All-Pro linebackers and gain big yards. When the Bears had the ball, the story was the exact opposite. The 49ers defensive line and linebackers were able to shut down the Bears run game, forcing Jason Campbell into third-and-longs and sacks a-plenty. The numbers tell the tale pretty well:

This pretty picture breaks out every run tackle in the game by position, with combined tackles getting added into the columns of both players involved - this is why the tackle totals are a bit higher than the actual run plays executed by each team. In any case, the differences here are pretty striking. The Bears were consistently getting stopped either at the line of scrimmage by a defensive linesman or getting tripped up by the linebackers at the next level of the defense. You have to admire Tice for his tenacity in continuing to call between-the-tackles runs even as it became clear that they weren't going to do much - there's that dedication to the run we've all been looking for! - but the Bears' inability to get past the front line of the 49ers' D was one of the game's many low-lights. All credit is due to the 49ers' D for putting in a strong performance against what has occasionally appeared to be a good run-blocking offensive line. No credit is due to the Bears' offensive line or play-calling, however. Stale plays, no results.

The Bears had the opposite luck on defense: their defensive linesmen and linebackers were blocked out of significantly more plays than their San Francisco counterparts were. The creative, dominating performance by the 49ers offense gave Gore and Hunter plenty of easy run yards and forced the Bears safeties and cornerbacks to work overtime in run support. The safeties were also called on to clean up some surprising mistakes by the linebackers, including multiple missed tackles by Brian Urlacher. In short, the defensive linesmen couldn't beat a block, the linebackers couldn't tackle when they weren't blocked, which meant the safeties and cornerbacks ended up getting a workout chasing down plays. If it's any consolation, at least Bears fans finally got to see what a real offensive line looks like.

No tape breakdown this week, as I simply can't stomach rewatching this turkey of a game. Thankfully, the Bears have a nice chance to rebound against the even-more-inconsistent Minnesota Vikings this week. While the Bears might have been caught somewhat off guard by the debut performance of Colin Kaepernick, they've seen more than enough of Christian Ponder and Adrian Peterson to know how to stop them. Maybe this time the Bears can add in a dash or two of execution into the mix.

Bears Playbook - "17" Answers to Bears Offensive Problems

Steve Ronkowski — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 17:54:31 -0000

There's plenty of blame to go around for the Bears' loss to the Texans, especially on offense. Thanks to Phil Emery's shrewd work in the draft, however, help is already on the roster: a now-almost-healthy Alshon Jeffery. The rookie showed flashes of his potential before a broken hand knocked him off the active roster, and no other Bears receiver has stepped up to fill the role Jeffery fit so well in. I'm not crowning the kid just yet - he had his fair share of drops when he was on the field - but there were plenty of moments in the Texans game where a healthy Alshon would have significantly improved the Bears' chances of success.

Running the Slant

When teams have loaded up the box to defend against the Bears run attack, Mike Tice likes to call the always-classic slant. With seven or more blockers staying home to keep Cutler standing, the slant gives receivers a great chance to get an extra step inside or ahead of one-on-one coverage. Plus, assuming the receiver makes the grab, he'll already be past the eight or more defenders that were playing in the box. Witness a wide-open Kellen Davis on the slant from the Texans game:

Despite his complete and utter openness here, Davis managed to drop an easy catch on his slant. Make this catch, and the Bears would have been able to set up at least one more play at midfield.

Jeffery runs the slant like a veteran, and has come up with some nice plays on the route. Here's one from the Week 5 game against the Jaguars:

The Bears come out in what appears to be a run formation. You can run out of this power look, of course, but Mike Tice has become increasingly fond of turning run formations like these into max-protect passes. The thinking is that even if the Jaguars send everybody after Cutler - and they do - the eight Bears blockers can give Jay the time to wait for his one of his two receivers to get open. Everyone in the the Jags' (blue) box blitzed at the snap, but the Bears managed to hold them off for a moment or two. Thankfully for the soon-to-be-crushed quarterback, Jeffery makes the best of the time the line earned him:

Jeffery started his route with a quick feint towards the sideline, causing just enough hesitation in his defender to end up with the inside position on his slant. Cutler sees him open and zings one into his breadbasket, and Jeffery earned the rest from there. Seven more point on the board for the Bears, and they didn't look back at the Jags after that.

Getting the "Tough Yards"

The Texans made it clear to the Bears that they weren't going to give up many easy yards on the ground. Tice called some good plays to get the ball around the overloaded middle of the Texans defense, including this toss to Devin Hester on 3rd and 1. Great design, as it looks like Hester can get the yard easily either by beating his defender to the sideline marker or by turning it straight upfield.

Out of these two options, however, Hester choose "none of the above" - he tried to get fancy and shake the defender. Hester ended up inches short of the marker, setting up Michael Bush's "first down to fumble" play on fourth down. Ouch.

Unlike Hester, Jeffery has the physical build to break through tackles instead of attempting to go around them. Perhaps more importantly, Jeffery has the wisdom to head straight north after making a catch close to the sticks. Consider this 1st and 10 play against the Rams:

Look familiar? Jeffery came open at the snap thanks to the soft coverage by the cornerback, who is now rallying straight back to Jeffery. To add to Jeffery's problems, the middle linebacker (highlighted) read the pass and is on his way before Jeffery even has the ball. Despite having two Rams defenders closing in, Jeffery put his shoulder down and headed straight upfield after the catch. The final result?

First down Bears.

Beating Man Coverage

With so much attention being paid to Brandon Marshall, other receivers on the field need to be ready to take advantage of single coverage. Kellen Davis presents a size problem to defenders, but he doesn't have the speed required to outrun a DB. Hester has plenty of this speed, but can't beat press coverage. Jeffery, however, has the perfect combination of size and speed to get past single coverage. This picture from the Cowboys game tells the story pretty clearly:

The Cowboys brought the blitz here, but Jeffery has done yeoman's work on his route. After his first cut towards the inside left his defender a little close for comfort, Jeffery took an extra little cut that got him the major separation you see here. Out of the other slot, Kellen Davis also earned the inside position, but his slow lumber down the field wasn't going to get him past the much faster defensive back, who we see here still in position to make a play on the ball. Cutler makes the wise read and goes with Jeffery here, who picks up first down yardage and more with a little catch-and-run.

Jeffery's return won't wave a magic wand and turn this offense into an unbeatable monster, but his particular gifts will give this offense a nudge in the right direction as they progress towards the playoffs. Phil Emery knew his team didn't have all the receivers it needed even after acquiring Brandon Marshall. They traded up to catch the falling Alshon Jeffery in the second round, placing great faith in their evaluation of him as the best receiver available in the whole draft class. While this investment hasn't paid great dividends yet, look for Jeffery to start getting the grabs that have been falling through the hands of Davis, Hester, and Bennett.

Bears Playbook - First Down Woes, First Down Wins

Steve Ronkowski — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 00:02:33 -0000

The Bears defense has been rolling over opponents left and right this season, but the offense has found itself victim to such a fate on just as many occasions. Based on how the Bears called their first-quarter offense against the Titans, however, I suspect that this is as much by "design" as it a fatal flaw in the offense. Far from suggesting that Mike Tice is finding new and exciting ways for Jay Cutler to get sacked, I mean that the offense is playing with two simple rules in mind:

1. Don't call something that will lose the game for you.

2. When in doubt, refer to rule 1.

The Bears have been content to chip off what yardage they can at the start of a game. With the defense having moved its way from being discussed as the best in the league to being discussed as one of the best in the Super Bowl era, all Jay Cutler has to do is not turn over the ball for an early drive to be "successful." Take sacks if you have to, accept three-and-outs if things don't go well out of the gate, but don't take unnecessary risks. In short, the plan on offense is to wait for the opponent to screw up first, and then to strike decisively. Instead of having Jay Cutler drop back for another first-down sack, run the ball early and often and wait until the time is right to go for the big one.

Content to start slow, the Bears took their greatest offensive strength - running behind their guards - and milked it for everything it was worth in the first quarter. After the Titans fell apart under the weight of a 28-2 first quarter deficit, the Bears broke out the "fun" stuff to the tune of three Brandon Marshall touchdowns. but the Bears had to set up for this good stuff with some ground-and-pound football. You can't run play-action and screens until the opposing defense is afraid of your run game, and after the first quarter, the Titans were plenty afraid of Matt Forte.

This set-up job started on the first offensive snap. After the Titans took all of one play to turn the ball over for the first time of the game, the Bears offense had the ball right around midfield. Tice and Cutler kept it on the ground with the first of many runs behind the unsung offensive hero of the game, RG Lance Louis. Here's how the first-down play began to develop:

It's a play that seems fated to succeed on this first glance. The two receivers - Devin Hester outside and Brandon Mashall in the slot - are strong blockers, and with Lance Louis (60) pulling out to the right side to lead the way for Forte, the Bears seem primed to punch this run into the Titans' secondary. A few problems develop as the play moves forward, however:

While Louis (60) is in perfect position to wipe out the linebacker and set Forte free, Marshall (15) whiffed on his block against the nickel-back, and the defender is able to rally and tackle Forte for a mere two-yard gain. The real problem is on the back-side contain: while all Kellen Davis (87) had to do was keep his man from swiping Forte's feet from under him, he also whiffed on his block and was forced into holding to keep containment. An A+ for effort, but an F for getting flagged. The Bears got backed up ten yards after the penalty, but ran the ball again behind Louis again on first and twenty for another minimal gain. This brought the Bears to second and seventeen, a for-sure passing down, right? Tice and Cutler didn't seem to think so...

The Bears try the whole "pull Louis as a lead blocker and get Forte outside the edge" again and find a bit more bang for their buck: Marshall makes his block, Webb holds his edge against the DE, and Louis leads Forte for a eight yard rumble. Sure, the Bears could have passed for a first down here, but Tice's foot is wisely off of the gas pedal. With the Titans in two-deep coverage, better to take the easy yards underneath and play for field position. The Bears rode this philosophy to a three-and-out, of course, but time would validate Tice's conservative strategy.

This first drive did a couple of good things for the Bears, despite its lousy outcome. The commitment to the run helped set up the play-action that was broken out on the next drive, and the run plays also gave the line that "go out and hit somebody" spark that helped set up the Bears' first offensive touchdown. After Devin Hester came up one block short on his first-quarter punt return, the Bears were in prime position to open up a 14-2 lead. Tice went to the sure thing one more time: another run featuring the blocking of Lance Louis.

From left to right, here's what the line ended up doing on this touchdown scrum. LT J'Marcus Webb (left edge) pushed ahead to block the weak-side linebacker, LG Chilo Rachal pulled out to help Kellen Davis (87) seal the right edge, and Roberto Garza and and Lance Louis pushed the two defensive tackles towards the left sideline to crack open a lane for Matt Forte. Like Webb, RT Gabe Carimi is also responsible for a linebacker, and heads straight after the MLB. He's lucky the ref's eyes didn't follow him, however, as you can see Carimi getting away with a bit of a hold as the blocking developed:

Carimi, circled on the right, has his man by the collar, but Forte (circled left) doesn't much care how Gabe gets the block done. Forte hits this admittedly tiny hole with a big burst and proves powerful enough to keep the play alive until his linemen can push the pile over the goal line for a touchdown. It's a touchdown for the Bears, and a validation of Tice's playcalling so far: thanks to Louis and Rachal, the line was able to get this one done on the ground.

Successful between-the-tackles running from Forte is a bit out of the ordinary, but so is Tice's commitment to starting off with the run. Having finally discovered how best to employ the blocking skills of his two guards, Tice was able to run the ball-control offense that this team was hoping for when they promoted Tice to offensive coordinator. The Bears O has proved that it can come up with points when the team needs them - see the Carolina game if you doubt me - but they have also gotten better at playing within the greater gameplan.

If Mike Martz's hope was to make Jay Cutler into the next coming of Kurt Warner, Tice's goal has become be to turn Cutler into a QB more like the Texans' Matt Schaub, a game manager first and a gun-slinger second. Schaub's most important job is handing the ball off to Arian Foster, sure, but Schaub is equally skilled at getting the ball to his receivers, especially Andre Johnson, once defenses have keyed into the run. Imagine that - an offense that makes its living off of its Pro Bowl running back and #1 wide receiver, one that plays smart football and keeps its defense out of tough-to-defend situations! Just like the Texans, the Bears don't need their offense to be world-beaters. Grind it out, get the points where you can, and long as the offense doesn't become Bears-beaters, Tice and Cutler will have done what they needed to.

Bears Playbook - How to (Almost) Beat the Cover-2, Part 2

Steve Ronkowski — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 23:02:08 -0000

In Part 1 of this week's Playbook, I looked at a few of the ways the Carolina Panthers broke apart Lovie Smith's Tampa 2. As Bears fans have long had to deal with, Lovie's defenses often seems content to give up play after play to an opposing offense, a weakness Ron Rivera knew how to exploit perfectly. Rivera's plan worked all too well, and Cam Newton's remarkable patience converted this nickel and dime plan into numerous sustained drives. But those nickels and dimes only become worthwhile if you get the big payoff in the red zone - in other words, you can't settle for field goals. The Bears forced Newton and his offense off the field when it mattered most, and ultimately kept the Bears close enough to give Jay Cutler the chance to drive down for game-winning field goal. Here's the conclusion to the Panthers 8+ minute second quarter drive, a drive that tells the story of between-the-twenties success and red zone futility better than any other.

The Bears D had already gotten gashed by one screen play on this drive, and they were eager to make sure it didn't happen twice. At least, that's what the Panthers hoped the Bears were thinking. Newton called a "fake left, go right" screen, and the gamble paid off: the Bears bit on the fake to a man. Here's how the two teams lined it up before the snap:

As the diagram shows, the "real" screen here moved the center and two guards out to the right of the formation to serve as the screen for Jonathan Stewart. The Bears are expecting exactly this play, however, so it wouldn't work unless Cam Newton could distract the defense while the all-too-obvious screen develops. Cam accomplished this by quickly faking a bubble screen to Steve Smith (89) on the left side of the formation. This play-action lured an entire half of the secondary - Lance Briggs, Chris Conte, and Tim Jennings - away from the real action long enough for the blockers to get in place. Even worse for the Bears, this fake screen took away their best chance to blow up the play, the zone blitz being run by D.J. Moore (highlighted below). Moore comes free on the line and has a free shot on Newton, but he slows up to "block" what proved to be a pump fake.

With the whole left side of the Bears defense now out of position to make the play, Newton pulls the trigger on the real screen on the right. Here's just how open Stewart is when he starts to take off on his second big catch-and-run of the drive:

While the swarming nature of the Bears defense can get them into trouble in situations like this, it is also their greatest asset when they are in the red zone. The Panthers found out as much a few plays later, after first riding a Greg Olsen slant pass to inside the Bears fifteen. On first down, they tried a wildcat DeAngelo Williams run right up the middle, which ended with Williams buried underneath a pile of Bears and the Panthers only three yards closer to paydirt.

The Bears, patient for so long on this drive, were still waiting for the Panthers to make that one mistake that Lovie Smith's whole plan revolves around. His bet that the Panthers would make a mistake before his defense did finally hit on the final two plays of this drive. The first Panthers mistake came from our old friend Greg "Charmin" Olsen. The Panthers stuck with the run on the next play, but for a slow-developing run play to work, you generally need to block the fastest defensive linesman on the field - in this case, Shea McClellin - before he tackles your running back for a loss. This snapshot tells the whole story:

Olsen gives a "Wasn't he your guy?" look to right tackle after the play, but I suspect that as the only player on the line who didn't engage with a Bear, our former first-rounder is the goat on this one.

The Panthers were now right where the Bears wanted them to be - in a third-and-long where the defense could run a Cover 2. One problem for the Bears, however: the Panthers had a final ace up their Cover-2-beating sleeves. Those same tricks that work moving down the field, however, become a lot hard to rely on inside the twenty. With far less field to defend, those "soft" zones get a lot smaller, and while elite QBs have fitted balls through the progressively smaller cracks between the Cover 2 zones many times before, Cam Newton proved to be something less than elite on this final play.

Here's what the third down play looked like a moment after the snap. The Panthers' plan to break open the Bears zones was strong. They ran Louis Murphy (83) and Greg Olsen (88) to opposite sides of the deep right defender, Major Wright, who is standing off-screen in in the middle of his "21" zone. Not wanting to give Newton a clear one-on-one with either receiver, Wright is forced to stay put until the ball is finally thrown. Meanwhile, the slant route being run by Brandon LaFell (11) is run to squeeze Urlacher (whose middle zone is also boxed off above) up in his zone and off of Olsen, who would then come wide open before getting picked up by Wright. But while Urlacher may be a step slower, his brain is working fine - he was content to leave LaFell with D.J. Moore (30) and defend the most important zone - the end zone - at all costs.

Urlacher smothered Olsen in coverage, but Olsen's route did keep Major Wright from getting in front of Louis Murphy's path down the sideline. Murphy was closely covered by Charles Tillman as the two ran down the field together, but Murphy was open enough - Newton could have thrown him open with a back-shoulder fade. Instead of throwing such a "touchdown or a pick-six" pass over Tillman's head, however, Newton threw the ball over Murphy's head and out of the end zone.

The Panthers came away with another three on this drive, but as TV announcer wisdom tells us, field goals don't win you games. By continually forcing the Panthers to take three points instead of six, the Bears kept this one in reach for Jay Cutler, Robbie Gould, and Tim Jennings to sneak out a win in the fourth quarter. It wasn't pretty, but pretty wasn't going to happen against a team that knows your weaknesses as well as the Panthers do. What matters in games like this - the ones where your opponent knows exactly what you are going to do - is that you execute your plan so well the rest doesn't matter. A well-designed gameplan by Chico, to be sure. In the end, however, Lovie's guys were simply too good to be beaten.

Bears Playbook: How to (Almost) Beat the Tampa 2

Steve Ronkowski — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 04:47:55 -0000

Having studied at the feet of Tampa 2 master Lovie Smith, Ron Rivera knew exactly how he wanted to attack the Bears last Sunday. And while receiver Steve Smith is one of the best in the league at finding the soft spots in coverage, Ron did more than simply go after the infamous seams between the Bears' zones. In the second quarter, his offense called a strong series of plays that were able to dictate coverages, keep the action away from the Bears' biggest defensive playmakers, and otherwise make the Bears look like something less than who we thought they were. "Bend but don't break" was still the name of the game in the end, but Rivera's Panthers were able to make the Bears look pretty flexible.

Mission number one for Chico was to run plays away from the Bears' greatest strengths, their deadly pass-rushers and the two all-pro linebackers standing behind them. The Panthers first play of the drive kept the ball on the ground, but Jonathan Stewart's attempt to run the ball on the side opposite Lance Briggs was foiled by a fleet of Bears commanded by strong-side linebacker Nick Roach, who's no Briggs but no slouch. The Panthers stuck by the plan of moving the ball down the third of the field not defended by Urlacher or Briggs on the very next play, running a well-executed screen down the same side. After snapping from a vanilla three-WR formation, here's how the play looked about a second after:

Having seen what both Brian Urlacher and Lance Briggs can do to opposing offenses, Rivera knew his best chances for success would come by running plays designed to neutralize their effectiveness. Plus, after having just seen his running back stuffed by a herd of Bears, Cam Newton had to find a way to get the ball past that first wave of defenders. He drew the line in with a convincing look down the middle of the field, a gaze that also held Brian Urlacher in his middle zone. That the only defender to the play side - Chris Conte (47) - was also bailing into coverage iced the Panthers' cake. Here's how the play ended up evolving:

This is exactly what the Bears defense didn't want, and what they were able to stop on first down. The three defensive linesmen pursuing the ball from behind had Stewart caged last time, but now they have to chase the play from behind while three Panthers blockers are about to wipe out the one defender in the area, Chris Conte (standing on the 30 here). This play more than made up the yardage lost on the last play, and it left the Panthers sitting in a very manageable 3rd and 3.

Having seen how well the Panthers fared on their first run play of the drive, Cam Newton's offense knew it needed to pass on third down to move the sticks. The problem with this plan was that Lance Briggs and Brian Urlacher have long made their living jumping the short slant routes that the Panthers would want to run in such a situation. The answer? Spread out the field to force the Bears into man coverage.

The Panthers came out with a personnel grouping that hinted at a run, with short-yardage specialist Mike Tolbert (35) checking in at fullback. Newton, however, motioned both him and Greg Olsen (88) out to his right, giving him plenty of passing options and the Bears very few coverage choices. The Bears defense had to respond to the motions out of the backfield by switching into a man defense able to cover the new "receivers," leaving only Nick Roach in position to defend against a quick pass. Roach, however, had duties of his own:

Here, a few seconds into the play, you can see how open Smith (top) is. Roach, highlighted in the middle, seemed at first to be playing a short zone and in perfect position to block or intercept anything thrown near him, but he didn't react to anyone in his "zone" - to make sure that Newton doesn't take off, Roach is the "spy" here. Newton stays put, so Roach is forced to do the same until it is far too late for him to get in on the play. Smith comes out of his break and makes a routine catch for the first down. So much for the Tampa 2 on this play: in the Bears' standard zones, Roach would have been in prime position to intercept this ball.

The Panthers continued in their basic plan of avoiding Urlacher and Briggs on their next set of downs. After a quick incompletion which had Steve Smith slanting his way through the seams of the Cover 2 zones (again), the Panthers decided to give the run another shot.. With three wide receivers on the field for the Panthers, the Bears brought in D.J. Moore at the nickel spot. The Panthers were hoping for just this substitution, and called a run directly at the undersized DB. They blocked the play with a simple zone scheme: the three offensive linesmen on the right of the formation blocked straight ahead, the left guard went after Lance Briggs, and the left tackle lured Julius Peppers (below at LDE) into the backfield and then sealed him out of the play. And while Jonathan Stewart wanted to run right at D.J. Moore, there was still one Bear not yet accounted for: Brian Urlacher. Lead blocker Greg Olsen, lined up below as an H-back, was more than able to take care of the aging middle linebacker for Stewart. Here's the blocking scheme before the snap:

The blocks went exactly as planned for the Panthers, and Greg Olsen took care of the last threat to break up the play. With all of the front seven blocked, Stewart was able to make a clean run out of the backfield and into the Bears secondary. Look at the size of the running lane his team opened for him:

You can barely make out Olsen's head below the "0" of the yard marker here, but he proved every Bears fan who said to get rid of him because "He couldn't block!" wrong on this one. He took care of Urlacher no problem, giving Stewart a free pass into the defensive backfield and, eventually, the Panthers a second and short.

Ron Rivera's Panthers were on the move, and they looked nigh unstoppable despite the Bears' reputation on defense. By keeping the action away from two of the best linebackers in the game and finding ways to float or run the ball past the defensive line, Cam Newton was able to lead his offense down the field far too easily. Could the Bears patch up their weaknesses in time to stop the drive? Stay tuned for Part 2, where I'll break down how the Bears finally stopped bending in the red zone.

Bears Playbook: Can Chilo Rachal and J'Marcus Webb Block?

Steve Ronkowski — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 23:54:06 -0000

There's one subject I avoid touching in my X-and-O breakdowns: offensive line play. I don't avoid the topic because the o-line is so bad it upsets me to write about it, but because it is very hard to evaluate how well the line played without knowing the exact play-call. Sometimes, a guy is supposed to let someone into the backfield untouched, after all. Still, I figured now was the week to look at this hardest-to-assess position group, if only because the Bears look prepared to play grind-it-out football as long as their defense stays hot. On that first drive, I saw some strong blocking from Chilo Rachal and J'Marcus Webb, but there was also a bit of ugly mixed in there. Still, when it mattered most, Rachal and Webb held up their end of the bargain and were instrumental in getting the Bears into the end zone on their opening drive.

While the national media loves to give grief to Jay Cutler, no one has had more hate piled on him by the Chicago media than J'Marcus Webb. On the Bears' first play from scrimmage, however, it was his next-door neighbor Chilo Rachal who played the role of goat for the play. The Bears lined up with a tight end close to each side of the line, with Jay Cutler under center and Forte the lone back.

The Lions are in their base Cover 2 look here, and with only seven men in the box, Cutler opted to audible into a run play. Smart move on his part, as he has seven blockers to wipe out the seven men the Lions have close to the line, but for this plan to work, each blocker has to win a one-on-one matchup. The blocking scheme the Bears used here is straightforward enough: block the man in front of you, and if there is no defensive linesman in front of you, go get a linebacker. Chilo Rachal, however, has a bit of a problem on his hands, as he is lined up directly across from 300 pound defensive tackle Nick Fairley.

Every Bears blocker has managed to get a push on his man by this point in the play, except for Rachal. This causes problems for the play, as Forte was hoping to hit the hole that should have opened up right where Rachal happens to be standing. Forte is forced to veer away from the solid yellow line he would have liked to run on, and instead took the cut-back option dotting away to his right. Lions safety Amari Spievey (42), who quickly read the run and was already rallying to the ball, got himself in a perfect position to take away the edge from Forte.

Spievey meets Forte at the line of scrimmage, and it is all Forte can do to fall forward and get a cheap yard or two out of the blown-up play. Jon Gruden blamed TE Kellen Davis for this one not working, but as I see it Davis did a great job on his block here: he blocked his man from the right hash all the way over to the left hash, and is the only reason Forte has a cut-back option at all. Had Rachal gotten a better push on his man, however, Forte would have gotten into the second level of the Lions' defense, as J'Marcus Webb and Matt Spaeth did a good job of taking care of their business on the left of the line.

With RG Gabe Carimi completely whiffing on Cliff Avril on the next run play, which also went for close to nothing, Jay Cutler faced an immediate third and long. You would expect the Lions to send pressure, but they chose to send eight into coverage to prevent the equally obvious pass to Brandon Marshall. Here's how the Bears lined it up:

The Lions Wide 9 look puts J'Marcus Webb in the unenviable position of having to block Kyle Vanden Bosch (highlighted) by himself, but Webb gets the job done despite the strong bull-rush that Vanden Bosch puts on him.

Webb ceded ground to Vanden Bosch, but he never let him get past. At just the right moment, Webb turns Vanden Bosch's momentum against him, shoving him past Cutler and out of the play. Since nobody had managed to get open for Cutler, he takes off through the hole Webb and Rachal have opened up on the left side for him.

Webb managed to save the day on this one by keeping Cutler clean, and Rachal does his part as well, holding the edge against the two defensive tackles while Cutler ran past them. Nice work here by both linesmen.

The right side of the line once again played the role of goat on the next play, letting Cliff Avril in off of the right edge to harass and eventually corral Cutler for a sack and half-yard loss. Despite the lack of success on the ground during this drive, Tice and Cutler remained persistent. Instead of a straight-ahead blocking scheme, however, it was time for another football classic, a power run off of the left side. This, of course, puts our LT and LG right in the thick of it. If they miss their blocks here, it's a run for no gain, but if they do their jobs, it's a big play.

While the link above can give you a much more thorough explanation of what's going on here, I outlined the key blocks that happened on the left side of the line. Rachal needs to push the big guy to his inside past the center and out of the way. Webb starts the play by helping Rachal block the defensive tackle, but he then must quickly release to get after the linebacker ahead of him. Once Rachal and Webb have secured the running lane, the fullback and pulling right guard (Lance Louis) will escort Forte into the hole, with each of these two blockers hitting the first defender they find. As you already know, every man on the Bears does his job perfectly:

With Webb and Louis leading the way for Forte here, Detroit didn't have much of a chance getting Forte until it was too late. While the big guys might struggle blocking someone equally as big as them, linebackers don't stand much of a chance of stopping Webb once he's got a head of steam going. Heck, once he got rolling, Webb did his best to keep pace with Forte:

Webb did well here as a run-blocker, as did Rachal. While I might not be changing my citizenship over to the J'Webb Nation any time too soon, I do think he has become less of a liability as he has in seasons and games past. If only Gabe Carimi could shake off the rookie mistakes, the line would be downright mediocre. With the Panthers coming into Chicago already licking their wounds on defense, however, I think we will see a strong performance from the whole group this Sunday, one that the team can build off of as it gains momentum moving into the toughest part of its schedule.