Interesting OL Nugget

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wab
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It's the offseason, so yeah.

Pulled this from the Kevin White article that G08 posted:
Rookie James Daniels continues to get reps at guard with the No. 2 offense and at center with the 3’s. Hroniss Grasu is getting his shot at center in an offense coordinated by his old college coach, Mark Helfrich… . Right guard Kyle Long still not practicing is giving veteran Earl Watford (21 career starts) extensive work with the No. 1 offense, with Erik Kush at left guard…
It's kind of poorly written, but I'm assuming Whitehair is running with the 1's at center, and Grasu is #2... because Watford is at RG and Kush is at LG. Or is Whitehair not practicing and Grasu is running with the 1's?

Speaking of RG... at what point is the Kyle Long thing over? He's one of my favorite players to ever wear a Bears uniform...but at some point he has to play to stay right? He can't keep living off of a reputation built as a rookie...right?
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G08
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I'm confused as well, but from what I've gleaned from Nagy and others is that, ideally, the line will be:

Leno/Daniels/Whitehair/Long/Massie

Kyle has been banged up so I don't want to judge him until he's at least 80% (I'm of the opinion he was playing closer to 70% if not worse recently).
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IotaNet
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wab wrote: ... Speaking of RG... at what point is the Kyle Long thing over? He's one of my favorite players to ever wear a Bears uniform...but at some point he has to play to stay right? He can't keep living off of a reputation built as a rookie...right?
Interesting that you'd bring that up because I certainly though it when I read the snippet you posted.

I agree that Long has been a great Bear and I think we need to give him the benefit of the doubt but as we know, the greatest ability is availability. I love the guy and I'm hoping that his health issues have been straightened out but we need to be taking a realistic look at this position and preparing for the worst.
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Nanky
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Long is coming back from 2 offseason surgeries, so I'm assuming this early in the offseason that he's rehabbing. I wouldn't worry about it yet . . . let's hope he can stay healthy!
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wab
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IMO, potentially after this coming season, our OL will be:

LT: Leno (sigh)
LG: TBD
C: Daniels
RG: Whitehair
RT: TBD

I love Long, and Massie is slightly underrated by the fans... But they are both coming up on 30, and both have struggled with health.
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G08
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^ I dunno man... I think they firmly want Whitehair to be our OC of the future. Drafting Daniels and keeping Whitehair at C spoke volumes to me.
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wab
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G08 wrote:^ I dunno man... I think they firmly want Whitehair to be our OC of the future. Drafting Daniels and keeping Whitehair at C spoke volumes to me.
Maybe. I think it's easier to find a center than a guard. But it also says a lot that Grasu is the #2 center (for now at least).
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They also have Jordan Morgan... who I have heard zero about.
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I'm just glad that Grasu is getting a shot. I know he's been awful but there's some mitigation there, between injuries and schemes and poor coaching. I'm happy with the set up we have now so if he doesn't make it out of camp, fine, but as long as that isn't down to an automatic doghouse situation rather than him being assessed.
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mmmc_35
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Grasu maybe playing as a number 2, but Kush, and Daniels both play center. Morgan likely won't make the roster too.

I believe Daniels should play center. I believe they are more comfortable with Whitehair making line calls from that position. So Daniels will play guard for now. I don't know if he beats out Kush for the LG spot. If Whitehair gets hurt Kush is the Center, Daniels LG.
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Overall I'm not a fan of the Bears OL. I haven't been for a while now. I like some of the individual players, but not so much as a unit. But it is what it is.
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This is the beauty of having Harry Hiestand on the staff. We know that he can/will make the best use of our talent and we can also trust that the proper evaluations of that talent will be conducted.

For example, Is Grasu a bust or not? Lots of varying opinions on that one -- Hiestand will get that sorted out. Is Leno REALLY as bad as we (some of us, anyway) think? That will be sorted out as well. This is the first time (in a long time) that I've had this much faith on our coaching. I really trust that the right people are running the show.
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wab
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IotaNet wrote:This is the beauty of having Harry Hiestand on the staff. We know that he can/will make the best use of our talent and we can also trust that the proper evaluations of that talent will be conducted.

For example, Is Grasu a bust or not? Lots of varying opinions on that one -- Hiestand will get that sorted out. Is Leno REALLY as bad as we (some of us, anyway) think? That will be sorted out as well. This is the first time (in a long time) that I've had this much faith on our coaching. I really trust that the right people are running the show.
I don't think any of the players on the OL are particularly "bad". I just think they have skillsets suited for positions other than what they are playing. But I'm a nobody on a message board.
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G08
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wab wrote:
IotaNet wrote:But I'm a nobody on a message board.
Now that is simply untrue: you are THE mock draft champion!
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I know we are kind of in the honey moon period, so the rose colored glasses will be on.

I don't think on paper it's a bad group. I think it's an average group, who don't exactly for the system. Generally you can negate some of that with scheme. Hopefully they have the right staff inplace.
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I'm not worried about it TOO terribly much. I think they are just figuring out what they want. When Nagy was in Philly, they were mostly smaller 6'3-6'4 ZBS guys...in KC, they were all bigger 6'5-6'6 power guys. Helfrich's guys have been generally light and agile (Long didn't plump up until Fox got here). Heistand is sort of the wildcard. His guys previously with the Bears were bigger on the outside and small-ish on the inside. At ND, they were all monsters. Now it's sort of a weird mix.
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crueltyabc
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Oline is one of several position groups where we have a bunch of contracts up in 2019, so we need some inexpensive and young guys to step up. I'm worried that we go 8-8 this season, lose some guys to free agency, and we're left with too many holes to fill. This "rebuild" only turns around if there are a couple of Kush and Lynch type guys that come in cheap and hold down a starting job
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When you pick a center in the second round (kind of high round for a center) who was considered the best center in the draft (from a OL juggernaut team) it baffles me when they put him in another position. In the past I would say typical Bears... But with HH as OL coach I have more confidence than I would've had in the past. Although, I can easily see Grasu as our starting center seeing as that he was coached in college by HH and he coached him good enough to be drafted by an NFL team.

I guess I'm just saying, I hope my thought on this new coaching staff are right and they put the best players in the best positions regardless on who was in what position under that shit of a coaching staff we had last year. Ideally I would like to see something like this...

Leno / Whitehair / Daniels / Long / (FA pickup) Massie

I still don't believe Massie is as decent as PFT claims he just doesn't pass the eye test.

But it could easily look like this...

Leno / Daniels / Grasu / Long /Massie (maybe try Whitehair here?)

Having HH here can easily make any of these guys better just by him coaching and the change of system. Keeping Whitehair at center might just be the way to go for consistency for Mitch but he scares me in the shotgun still.

Fun fact on the Bears official site the only center listed is Grasu.
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crueltyabc wrote:Oline is one of several position groups where we have a bunch of contracts up in 2019, so we need some inexpensive and young guys to step up. I'm worried that we go 8-8 this season, lose some guys to free agency, and we're left with too many holes to fill. This "rebuild" only turns around if there are a couple of Kush and Lynch type guys that come in cheap and hold down a starting job
A bunch of contracts . . . who besides Massie and Kush? Pretty sure the other 4 starters are still under contact.
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Massie is 30 and will look to get paid.
Kush and Grasu have never earned a starting spot
Technically neither has James Daniel
We're assuming Long gets healthy and plays like his rookie season so the Bears are happy to pay him $8.5m

It's not a rock solid scenario and I'm worried about EDGE and Safety sapping resources next offseason.
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G08
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Perhaps I'm in the minority but I'm excited about this line. I think we will be running inside zone all fucking day long and Jordan Howard/Tarik Cohen are going to feast.
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I agree. I think that we have a quality starting o-line, with or without Long.


We have a lot of options, multiple players that can play in different spots if needed.
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To me, it looks like...
Leno... Average
Daniels... Average?... Let's call him Average based on draft position alone. Could be better than that. Or worse.
Whitehair... Above average, but not dominant.
Long... Unknown... Has been dominant. But sub-average last year. A real injury wild card.
Massie... Average

We look pretty average with the potential to be really good inside.
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I will take an average line with above average play calling over an average line with sub par play calling any day! Average line play should make this offense as a whole above average with the skill players and coaches we have now.
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