AZ54

The day we drafted him I said he had my favorite attribute for linebackers: He's violent. He might do to short crossing routes what Jonas Salk did to Polio.

Haven't seen the game yet. Reading the play by play was interesting: Run right, run right, pass right, run right, run right, pass right, run right. For sure the coaches wanted plenty of film on the rookies to evaluate. The fact Cutler force fed BMarsh and Forte could have also been part of the plan. I know I'd like to see everyone involved but how much of our offense are we going to reveal in preseason? I'd love for the Bengals to think all Cutler will do in game 1 is throw to Marshall like last year and then watch as he spreads the ball everywhere else.

I agree on both points. You have to laugh when announcers will say a team has a great run defense because teams only average xxx yards per game yet they forget to mention their pass defense is so bad nobody wastes time trying to run against them.

1) Charles Tillman has played special teams for his entire career so I don't see a problem with the expectation. Of course Tillman isn't always on coverage but he contributes. 2) On top of that, Trestman basically told Wilson he had shown enough as a WR to be on the active roster but could make it a lock if he improved on special teams. That also means, if Wilson were to make the final cut, that the coach would also like to have him active on game days. If I'm looking for job in the NFL I want to make the coaches decision to keep me around an easy one, and the decision to cut Weems an easy one. I'd appreciate his honesty and be working hard to build upon that. 3) The Bears have consistently had one of the top specials teams over Lovie's tenure. I'm glad they continue that emphasis with the new coaches. With one of the league's worst offenses, special teams and defense are how we win games. No reason to change that now as we seemingly prepare to start the season with two rookies as starters on the Oline. Hopefully by mid-season the offense is contributing equally as well. Having said all that I think Earl Bennett is going to make this decision for Trestman. Earl can't get back to practice yet and that's a very troubling sign. I do expect him back before the start of the season and I expect him to contribute but his injury history is not going away. For a guy who makes his $$$ working the inside routes we have to expect he'll take some more hard shots. Keeping Weems as a backup WR is not a good option over Wilson based on what I've seen.

Webb showing up here is not a surprise but the line on Williams is. Either the injury is more serious than we've been led to believe or our young LBs are playing that well. I find it hard to see that much confidence in the rookies after just one game. http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap100000022...s-on-nfl-bubble Just like two of the players above, Webb plays for a first-time NFL head coach. And new bosses want new players. Webb has lived off his potential for a while, but his potential slip out of the starting lineup could take him off the roster. Another potential surprise in Chicago: Keep an eye on linebacker D.J. Williams if he can't get healthy.

Right now I think Webb is on the hot seat. Kromer said today that "if Webb makes our top 8 he has to be capable of playing two positions". To be fair Kromer and Trestman have been very non-committal on most of the players. In fact I was surprised to hear Trestman's comments about Britton likely being part of the top 8 a week ago. There is no doubt that Webb is sliding in the plans. Can he recover? Don't know but coaches are looking forward to getting Jonathan Scott back. Scott's health and how Britton plays this week likely determine Webb's future. I think Mills has already shown enough to be considered part of the top 8 or they wouldn't have put him with the 1s at RT. Cutler had some nice words to say about Mills and Long, that both were "talented and wanted to do a good job, and that's the most important thing; if you have a guy that wants to do it he'll figure out a way." In his own way that was a backhanded slap at Webb IMO because we know he questioned Webb's motivation last season.

I believe in their data as one objective way to grade Oline. The fact Emery uses their data speaks to that as well despite the claims of others here. For you, me, and most importantly Emery it is just one piece of data. Do you know how Mills graded?

Lost in all the Webb "demotion" chatter was the fact that Kyle Long is also now playing with the 1st team. Trestman stuck to the company line about how this was all part of the plan. I wasn't impressed with Brown in the first game as he seemed to get pushed backward too easily. In fact the sack on Cutler that is blamed on Webb missing his block also happened because Brown missed his block and that didn't allow Cutler to step up into the middle of the pocket and forced him wide to where he got sacked. On the plays I was able to focus on Kyle Long he did ok and most times he held his ground better than Brown. Not sure on the run blocking other than a couple plays where he pulled and opened some decent lanes. Given all the practices he's missed I think Long will quickly pass Brown in overall performance as he gets comfortable with the blocking calls. That doesn't mean he'll be great just that the bar set by Brown isn't that high IMO.

At least with Mills the arrow is still pointing up. I don't think he did that poorly in the first game, at least on the plays I keyed in on him in pass protection. He was up against 2nd string players and that's a big difference from starters. OTOH it was his first experience in an NFL game and overall he looked like he belonged on the field. Trestman was pleased with the work Mills and Long did today in practice. Still had some mistakes but good effort overall. Only one more day of training camp and this competition continues at Halas Hall. http://www.chicagobears.com/multimedia/vid...53-2499a799ed87

Bennett is still sitting out practice with concussion symptoms. This is not a good sign at all.

I think this happened almost every year at the beginning of our season. Plus Lovie's D could never tackle early in the season. Probably not going to change much in that aspect either because Trestman doesn't have them practice tackling to the ground.

Now it's officially a competition: http://www.suntimes.com/sports/football/be...st-team-rt.html I don't know if Mills is the answer but at least he's young and so far seems to be improving. We'll see how he handles the week of practice and game reps. At least for Mills he'll not be moved around for the first time at practice so perhaps that will help him. For the moment it appears Britton is only in the competition to be our backup OT. I'm not surprised at Webb's reaction as this is typical from him: "Webb only played 10 snaps against the Panthers, but he said that was more than enough to show what he can do. He said the coaches didn’t express any disappointment and that he wasn’t disappointed about working with the second team." Mills has a lot of learning to do and the coaches put the defensive stud DE opposite him to test him early: “First time going against [defensive end Julius] Peppers — he’s great,” Mills said. “You line up against somebody who’s the same height as me but way faster and way stronger and just go at it with him. It was great.”

Might be why we're hearing that Mills could be getting some looks at RT. One thing is clear: This is now a competition.

Great photos, thanks for posting them. You can see who gets off the line first at the snap on quite a few of them.

I haven't seen the game yet but I definitely wanted to see something more consistent in moving the ball. Disappointed yet, panicked no. It's far to early. The flip side of this would be to anoint the AZ Cardinals a playoff team based on how they played against the Packers. Ain't nobody doing that. Regarding the INT: I expect to see some mistakes in these preseason games with the timing. I personally think the Alshon route was a sight adjustment based on the defense's alignment when the player jumped into the slant route. That's pure speculation on my part. We'll see how they run these routes in the future. I view this as something that is very likely to get corrected as everyone gets more experience in the new offense. More worrisome to me was the lack of production on 3rd downs, and our still unresolved problem at RT. Don't know how the rest of the Oline played either but I'll key in on them when the NFL Network shows the replay Sun morning. As of now it appears J'Marcus and Martellus are going to be best friends as they may line up next to each other for the rest of the season.

I haven't seen the game yet but reports about Webb's performance aren't encouraging. Neither is the report on Britton. As someone said, maybe we don't have a good option. I imagine the competition for the starting role will heat up over the next two games. We'll see what the coaches do at the next practice.

He is getting back to something similar to a zone scheme in terms of the pass protection. At least that is what I hear in Bushrod's comments. I don't think the technique is the same as ZBS and I don't believe that is how we will run block (i.e the short drop step at the snap). I'll leave it up to the Oline experts here to decipher that stuff. Consider that New Orleans had Bushrod, Nicks, and others who I don't think were considered the lighter quicker ZBS types and they did just fine.

No sign of Jason and if anyone was to comment about Webb being the same old Webb he'd have been first in line. He needs to get back here for the post game commentary.

Way back in minicamp time Kromer said (paraphrasing) he didn't care who the players were, how much money they made, or where they came from the best 5 would be starting. It was a reporter who said there was nobody on the roster that would challenge Webb for the starting role. Maybe there were no obvious candidates but that didnt' mean Kromer wasn't working on developing one (or two). Regarding Oline we have much to look for in tonight's game: I haven't heard anything from or about Mills all camp. He was all cocky after the draft but at the time I felt he wasn't ready for the NFL given 90% of his plays had him in pass protection during his entire college career. Aside from run blocking issues, he probably needs to hit the weight room for a year. Anyway, I'm curious to see how he performs and at what position he lines up (OG or OT).

Or blockers not doing there job and forcing the QB to adjust and move around or out of the pocket and look for other options. Or bad play calling/scheming that defenses can easily read and defend. Part of that "we have an entire package of plays for Hester" deal that rarely worked. I have always wondered just how easily opposing defenses could diagnose our plays based on down/distance/formation/personnel. Of course part of being a great offense is having them know what's coming and being effective at it anyway. That is what our defense has done for many years with a rather basic scheme overall.

It is not finalized but one piece of the puzzle seems to be finding a place on the final roster. http://espn.go.com/blog/chicago/bears/post...aps-vs-carolina Don't rule out the possibility of the former Jacksonville Jaguars second-round draft choice Eben Britton eventually unseating J'Marcus Webb for the starting right tackle job. Britton, who started 30 games (23 at right tackle, seven at left guard) for the Jaguars from 2009-12, has come on strong after signing a one-year deal with the Bears on April 16. While everything in the NFL is subject to change, Trestman said he envisions Britton as one of the active offensive linemen on game days in the regular season. "I think Eben is in the mix of finding where our offensive line will be," Trestman said. "He's in the mix. He's had a very productive camp. He's versatile; he can play just about anywhere we put him, both on the left and right side. And at this point I can say he's definitely involved in being part of this roster -- on a week-to-week basis. The 46-(man active game day roster)."

I'm not worried at all considering it's an entirely new offense and we're only two weeks into a 6 week preseason. In fact I'm very optimistic considering all the TDs the offense is scoring in red zone situations against our D. That is where the precision and timing are most needed to be effective and Cutler's been doing it well the past week. The coaches continue to introduce new plays and sometimes there are mistakes made. Just make them now and learn that's what camp is for.

At this point Earl hasn't returned to practice so this is getting serious and he won't play Fri night.

I agree, this really hurts our depth where we were thin anyway. I believe Zach Bowman was listed as our top backup prior to Frey's ascent during camp. We know how Bowman watches plays. Is McManis ready to contribute as a CB? Haven't heard anything at all about him in camp. It's hard to know how significant this injury is but this could well be the end of Hayden's career. He found little interest in FA this past year and now having to recover from a significant hamstring injury at his age isn't going to make him better.

Garza is the starting OC and I can't imagine they'd practice him somewhere else if he remains the starter. If he starts taking some practice snaps at OG then there might be something to this. I certainly wouldn't mind see that lineup if it works out they are the best 3 inside OL. For now it's a good indication Slausson is going to be one of the top 7 active on game day and is as expected our backup OC. EWilliams needs to get his resume updated.