Chicago pressures vs. Hawks

[AgentDib]

I just finished watching the broadcast coverage of the game while thinking about the offensive line and made some notes about the plays during which our QBs were pressured early. This isn't meant to be a grading of overall line play at all or an inclusion of penalties, rather only a look at what went wrong when pass protection broke down too quickly.

#1 12:23 1st Q
Carpenter pulls back across to pick up Lamarr Houston (#99) and gets beat around the right edge, Lynch tries to pick up Johnathan Bostic (#57) who was initially lined up across from Carpenter and also whiffs. Wilson throws the ball out of bounds.

#2 5:05 1st Q.
Okung gets beat by Willie Young (#97) and Britt also gets partially beat by Houston (#99), Young sacks Wilson.

#3 4:25 1st Q.
Britt gets beat inside by Jeremiah Ratliff (#90), Wilson scrambles for a gain and late hit penalty.

#4 1:19 1st Q.
Wilson forced to get rid of the ball immediately when Houston (#99) blows right past Britt on the outside.

#5 1:15 1st Q.
Britt gets overwhelmed by Houston (#99) and Wilson is forced to scramble. Fortunately, Okung pushed Young (#97) so far upfield that Wilson had a clear path to the endzone.

#6 10:53 3rd Q.
Coleman tries to pick up Austen Lane (#73) but fails to do so. Carpenter also inexplicably stops blocking Will Sutton (#93) to help Okung who is losing against Trevor Scott (#76). Carpenter flagrantly holds Scott (#76) uncalled and Sutton stumbles and falls only to be then stepped on by Carpenter, so I guess it sort of worked?

#7 4:46 3rd Q.
Wade Smith lets Will Sutton (#93) get up field and pressure elsewhere results in TJack opting to scramble to his right rather than to step up into the pocket. Winston ends up blocking nobody but there were 6 blockers against 4 rushers so that isn't really the issue.

#8 4:38 3rd Q.
Lane (#73) blows right by Alvin Bailey on the outside and TJack barely flips the ball out before he gets nailed.

#9 4:01 3rd Q.
Scott (#76) beats Winston to the inside and hammers TJack as he is releasing a deep ball to Richardson. I didn't notice the pressure on this play while in the stadium and thought it was a pretty weak deep ball that TJack just put up for grabs. On review he had Scott right in his face as he was trying to get the ball out.

#10 3:55 3rd Q.
This one was beyond ugly, pretty much everybody but Wade Smith was beaten and it looked like Smith's man wasn't really trying to get up field. I can only hope Lem snapped the ball on the wrong count or something. TJack managed to get the ball away to Lockette for 18 yards but definitely not a good trade for the punishment in a preseason game.

#11 15:00 4th Q.
Alvin Bailey gets beaten outside by Lane (#73).

#12 13:23 4th Q.
RaShaun Allen TE (#84) gets beaten outside by Austen Lane (#73), TJack is sacked by Lane.

#13 5:14 4th Q.
The Bears blitz and Cornelius Washington (#94) comes through untouched, Pryor throws that bad interception as a result. Not picking up the blitz could be Pryor's fault here but it also looks like Bronson (bottom of the image) should have either picked up Washington (#94) or turned around quicker as a hot outlet.

Conclusions?
Of the breakdowns in pass protection that stood out to me only the last one really seemed like a possible QB/line chemistry/knowledge issue. The rest were all the result of individual players having a blocking assignment and losing the match up against a pass rusher. That was very often either Lamarr Houston in the first half or Austen Lane in the second half, and those two were clearly the bright spots of the game for the Bears in an otherwise disappointing game.

The surprising part to me was how distributed the missed blocks were. I was expecting to see that the Britt-Houston matchup was responsible for pretty much everything but that was definitely not the case. Unger and Sweezy were the only linemen that I did not note as failing at least one block that led to a pressure.

 

[brimsalabim]

Looks like we are vulnerable to the outside rush at this point. The line has to play together in order to gel. Hopefully they will get healthy and work out their communications and responsibilities. On the bright side the pursuit sets up a heck of a screen opportunity for Harvin.

 

[seatownlowdown]

nice writeup. it illustrates well the one thing CLEARLY wrong with this team. passblocking.

:shock: ... and omg at what russell is up against just a second into this play... 3 guys cutting through the line on a jail break straight towards our qb.

cable simply cannot let this stuff happen to russell as consistently as its been happening these last 2+ years. we made it to the superbowl in spite of our oline last year. survived. and as great as russell's been at matrixing all these bullets, they will, eventually, catch up to him. and i dont want to hear the "well its just preseason" blah blah blah. sure, some of u can excuse the playcalling or an occasional drop in preseason. but our offensive tackles are just getting outclassed, straight up torched so far on passing plays(britt, bailey, even okung). even if they get "better", that doesn't necessarily even make them average. ive loved watching russell light it up so far, but its not even worth risking our qb in these preseason games with this type of oline play. if john and pete really think pryor has value, put him back there vs starting defenses with this amount of ridiculous pressure and see what he can do.

get it fixed cable. 2 weeks.

 

[Mick063]

Imagine this offense with a pure pocket passer.

Game manager my ass. Russell disguises a sore spot that would otherwise have our fan base calling for heads to roll.

Only an elite quarterback can thrive in such an environment.

 

[v1rotv2]

I agree with the game manager thing. Game managers just don't make the plays RW makes and on the frequency he makes them. I may be wrong on this but game managers don't have the 3rd down conversion rate that RW has. How lonely has John Ryan been? The guy has something like 3 punts in the last 3 games. That clearly is an indicator in the ability to move the ball against differing defenses. The myth about being a game manager is that some QBs are game managers and other are elite. Well all QBs are game managers to a point the elite QB goes beyond that. They make game changing plays against some of the best defenses. Isn't that exactly what we have seen from RW?

Yeah! I'm saying it. RW is an elite QB.

 

[Beer Hawk]

Scary to think about these guys going up against the Rams D-Line...

 

[pugs1]

I don't think anybody is going to argue that the OL is a strong unit right now but IMO I think some are prematurely pushing the panic button. (Not pointing fingers at the OP or anybody) I really think because the Seahawks are in such great shape most everywhere else fans are picking fly shit out of pepper.

LT Okung just got back this week I didn't expect him to be in mid season form.
LG Carpenter is in great shape and looks like he will have his best year as a Hawk.
C Unger right now is healthier than last year.
RG Sweezy looks poised for a breakout year.
RT Britt has looked better every week and is far from a finished product.

Like others have stated Russell moves so well in the pocket he makes up for the below average pass blocking. Thank the stars the Seahawks don't have Eli or Flacco back there.

The staring O has scored the last nine times they have touched the ball (7 TD's 2 FG)

I would suggest everyone in panic mode go watch the O-Line play in the Washington Baltmore game last night it will calm you nerves.

 

[Seahawker86]

31-0.......

I will elaborate

Teams who have a great running game, great play action, and a great QB who is a little mobile(not saying RW is a little mobile BC he is more than that. I'm referring to someone like Aaron Rogers) can have a not so good offensive line. All of those combined will give the QB more time to throw in or out of the pocket. Wins is all that matters

Furthermore, this is a standard case of over expectations for your own team. For example...when our defensive lineman or Linebacker beats an Offensive linemen or a RB in pursuit to the QB we all say "Wow he made a great play". When its our Offensive Lineman who looses the battle we play him and NOT the defensive player for making the great play. That's being called a hypocrite


There's always room for improvement don't get me wrong, but again.....

31-0


Steelers had one of the worst o-lines in history on their route to 2 Superbowl. So did Aaron Rodgers. No body will remember that though. Check that, the common fan won't remember that. Winning is everything and the only thing.

 

[kearly]

As far as the starters go I only saw the 1st quarter. What I saw in that quarter was a ton of pressures being given up by Britt, who's a rookie, and Okung, who was playing his first preseason game and looked kinda gimped.

Even though the protection was terrible on paper, not all pressure is created equal. Pretty much all of the pressure the tackles gave up came on edge rushes, which is the easiest form of pressure to evade so long as a QB is aware of it. When Carpenter gives up pressure, it is typically also on an interior edge rush and can be easily evaded if the QB sees it coming, which Wilson usually does.

The critical thing for Seattle's protection was that the interior resisted the bull rush pretty well and consistently gave Wilson a pocket to step up into or at the least gave him some room to easily find escape routes. Yes, Wilson did have to move within 2 seconds on most plays, which is terrible for most QBs, but Wilson is so used to it now that it's second nature for him. Give him a pocket to step into and a way to escape and he can still drop a 15/20 type performance on a defense.

The Bears O-line is objectively one of the better lines in the NFL and in a game where little went right for the Bears their pass protection drew rave reviews from Bears fans in game threads. But the funny thing is, the Bears were actually out-sacked 3-2, and Cutler was sacked more than Wilson 2-1. The only sack Wilson took was when both Okung and Britt met at the QB and Wilson made an error in judgement by not stepping up in the pocket to avoid it.

One of the reasons Wilson struggled so bad against the Cardinals in week 16 was because they blitzed the inner gaps and collapsed the interior. Friday was the dress rehearsal game and the Bears were decently aggressive with blitzing, and yet the interior held up.

Obviously, you would like to see Wilson running for his life a lot less frequently than the Bears game, especially with Jared Allen on the bench. But I didn't see this game as anything to worry over. If anything I found the interior protection to be fairly encouraging.

 

[dumbrabbit]

We had a poor Offensive Line last year and yet we won Super Bowl XLVIII with it. I think we'll have a decent O-line this year, enough to get us back into the playoffs again. People may be hitting the panic button too early though.

 

[Hawks46]

I'm not panicking, and I acknowledge that Britt is a rookie and likely to get better.

Okung isn't in game shape yet, and I acknowledge that as well.

kearly's point about interior pressures vs. outside rush is also valid and I agree with it.

The problem I have is that Wilson was the most hit QB last year, and it isn't because of him running the ball. It looks like he'll repeat that this year. It's only a matter of time before something bad happens, and we'll be seing first hand if Jackson can win us a playoff game or if Pryor really is the answer after Wilson.

The only thing savins us so far is that Wilson is quicker than shit and he's built like a RB. Most QB's are injured with the beating he takes. That's a thin thing to hang a season on.

Sweezy looked elite run blocking,and for that matter Britt looked pretty damned effective as well. Funny, last year the interior of the OL was the weak point. This year it looks like it could be a strong point.

 

[chris98251]

With Sweezy and Cap showing they will now pull, those off tackle runs are going to make teams pay if they guess pass and we do run and they bring blitz, especially if we have Michael or Harvin lined up as a RB, Lynch and Turbin also showed ability to once they get past first layer can bust out for big gains.

Our receivers blocking down field adding a bonus of physicality and possible break aways.

All that will make a defense a step or two slower and help with less pressures.

 

[falcongoggles]

I'm not panicking, and I acknowledge that Britt is a rookie and likely to get better.

Okung isn't in game shape yet, and I acknowledge that as well.

kearly's point about interior pressures vs. outside rush is also valid and I agree with it.

The problem I have is that Wilson was the most hit QB last year, and it isn't because of him running the ball. It looks like he'll repeat that this year. It's only a matter of time before something bad happens, and we'll be seing first hand if Jackson can win us a playoff game or if Pryor really is the answer after Wilson.

The only thing savins us so far is that Wilson is quicker than shit and he's built like a RB. Most QB's are injured with the beating he takes. That's a thin thing to hang a season on.

Sweezy looked elite run blocking,and for that matter Britt looked pretty damned effective as well. Funny, last year the interior of the OL was the weak point. This year it looks like it could be a strong point.

I wholeheartedly agree with what you wrote here. Wilson got banged around last year and our offensive line was ranked 32nd. People keep saying to not panic. Gentleman (and ladies), if the lined doesn't improve from last year it's time to be seriously worried. Wilson took a beating and I don't think he can hang on for multiple seasons under this kind of duress.


The worst part about this conversation is that there is no pleasure in saying "I told you say" when your QB goes down for the season. BTW, Bradford is out for the year for a hit that was much less violent than what Wilson was exposed to last year and this preseason.

 

[AgentDib]

There is certainly no need to take a side here. Nobody thinks we should cut our offensive line and I would be surprised if anybody thought there was another area of the team that had more room for improvement than pass protection. No team can be perfect everywhere in the salary cap era, we happen to be less than perfect in pass protection at the moment, and we all are hoping to see improvement.

Minimizing areas of concern because we have other areas of strength is sort of silly, as is quoting outcomes of individual games from last year, especially when we are missing players who contributed a very large number of snaps for us last season (Giacomini, McQuistan and Bowie).

Knowing that our pass protection was an area of weakness is interesting to me because it raises the performance of our QBs significantly in my mind. I also thought it was informative to see that the pressures were the result of individual blocking assignments and not a result of poor chemistry, stunts or blitzes. They were also heavily clustered together which I found interesting but haven't formed an opinion about yet.

I don't expect to see anything interesting here vs. Oakland at all so that means the next real test will be against GB when things matter.

 

[SalishHawkFan]

The concern here isn't if we will win, it's if Wilson will get injured. I'm concerned for Wilson. This oline is a downgrade from last years in pass pro. Britt "might" improve, but he's a downgrade from Giacomini right now. Okung is limping, he may never be healthy.

Don't give me that rusty crap. Walter sat out every preseason and never once looked rusty. Okung looked like, well, this isn't the shack....

Unger looks better, Carp looks better, Sweezy looks better. The tackles are downgraded badly, however.

The Bears had the 23rd worst pass rush last year and the other night they didn't have J.A. And that was bad pass pro.

The run game looks vastly superior, it's true. But the concern here, as I said, is Wilson surviving a season.

All I can say is Okung better get his act together before we start seeing real defenses.

 

[seatownlowdown]

wow. ukeface:

panic mode? just getting sick of people excusing the terrible passblocking. are we watching the same games? how hard is it to see the immediate waves of pressure? yes we have wilson, who if was some slow pocket passer would literally be getting hammered till injury game after game. but how the hell does wilson's ability excuse our oline play? so many times we were at 3rd and longs at critical junctures in games last year, due to our oline giving up sacks, huge pressures which would cause wilson to toss the ball away, or holding/false start penalties. and if wilson doesnt miraculously convert those 3rd downs, we lose another game, homefield advantage, and likely no superbowl. so many games were so close or we even fell behind or lost, simply at the hands of our oline. we survived till the superbowl where we got to play the broncos.

do none of u that are excusing the passblocking remember the panthers, cardinals, rams, colts, and niner games from last year? u say u do remember, but most of us probably held our breath after every dropback. sickening to have to watch wilson run for his life all day. our defensive and special teams were on another level, russell and his receivers were clutch, beast was beast. but our oline was the worst offensive line in the league last season.

its time for john schneider to start thinking about making a trade for a legit right tackle. and maybe its also its time for pete to start thinking about life after cable. certainly judging by 3 games, britt is NOT ready for primetime this season. he can be depth this year. maybe winston is the answer, maybe not. whatever the case, i just hope it gets fixed, and fixed soon.