When watching the game in real-time, especially in the second half, the offensive line appeared to be having one of the brutal performances we saw early in the year.
After further review after watching the All-22, I thought the performance of four of the five starters wasn’t that bad. Teven Jenkins, Coleman Shelton, Matt Pryor, and Darnell Wright made a few mistakes here and there. But overall, I thought they were fine in the first half. In the second half, they struggled when the game started to get out of hand.
I did see the Next Gen stats regarding the pressure rates from Arizona on Sunday, and while those numbers didn’t look good, I think the eye test (mostly) looked better than those suggested. Again, it wasn’t good, but we’ve most certainly seen worse this season.
However, Larry Borom was, unfortunately, a big problem. Now, Borom is a veteran who’s been a stable option as a reserve lineman over the last few years. This was his first in-game action and his first week healthy off Injured Reserve, so seeing him have an adjustment period might not be that big of a surprise. Having said that, even giving him a little leeway, the bad was BAD.
Also, I’d like to re-emphasize that just like every week, no one outside of Halas Hall can say with 100 percent certainty what a player’s assignment is on a given play. We can take a pretty darn close educated guess, but none of us can be 100 percent sure.
Larry Borom Struggles vs. Cardinals
Play No. 1
Borom is on an island here. Two things he could have been thinking here, both were wrong pic.twitter.com/2F0PCkNT5K— Matthew Rooney (@mrooney23) November 5, 2024
I’m not sure what was going through Borom’s mind here, but he was wrong either way.
Judging from the steps off the snap, the Bears had a 3/4 slide to the right. C, RG, and RT block the gap to their right. LG is man-up on the defensive tackle over him, and the LT has the first immediate threat outside of that defensive tackle.
Budda Baker shows blitz at the last second, but still with plenty of time for Borom to recognize that. If anything, it makes his block a bit easier since that now becomes his man instead of the very wide rusher. Borom originally takes Baker, but just as he’s starting to punch, snaps his head further outside toward the wide rusher, for what reason I don’t know.
What probably happened was he A) got beat by Baker and decided to pick up the next man outside, B) got beat by Baker and thought he had help inside, or C) for some reason, he thought instead of picking up the more immediate threat inside, he had to keep sliding to pick up the wide rusher.
No matter what his decision was, it was either wrong or poorly picked up.
In that situation, if there are only five men in protection and the left tackle is on an island like that, he has to pick up the most immediate threat. The most immediate threat is always whoever is further inside. Borom doesn’t pick up Baker, Caleb Williams has immediate pressure, play is ruined.
Play No. 2
Here he steps down to his man/gap, then just decides to keep slidingโฆ pic.twitter.com/y8iOZv2fRf
— Matthew Rooney (@mrooney23) November 5, 2024
Here, we have a full slide to the right with the running back helping out in protection. A full slide means everyone on the offensive line slides, and the running back fills in on the end away from the slide. Simple stuff.
Pre-snap, this looks pretty simple. The Cardinals are showing six rushers, and Chicago has six in to protect. Off the snap, two of those showing blitz drop back into coverage. Great! Now we have six to block four. The right side has their assignment covered up. Coleman Shelton and Teven Jenkins have their defensive tackle. Borom steps into his gap, covers No. 25, and then…keeps sliding inside to hit the defensive tackle.
I have no idea what he was thinking. He steps into his gap, and there’s a man in his gap. He gets a hand on him, then turns his shoulders inside and goes that way. Granted, his defender made an outside move, but if he thought his man was stunting that way, then his new man would have been coming from the outside, not the inside.
This play with this look ending up as a sack is ridiculous. I have no idea why Larry Borom would abandon his man for an interior rusher who is already accounted for, AND Teven Jenkins even has help on him from Coleman Shelton.
If the case was that Borom was fooled by the slightest outside move and thought it was a stunt, that’s not a good excuse, either! It’s just an all-around awful decision here, and it results in the Cardinals getting home with just four rushers despite six Bears being in protection.
Play No. 3
Pretty simple, slow developing two-man stunt that he just doesnโt pick up pic.twitter.com/Ne1dEexo7P
— Matthew Rooney (@mrooney23) November 5, 2024
Here’s one of those basic two-man stunts that we saw Chicago’s O-Line have so many issues with early on this year. The Bears have five to cover five up front. Technically, it’s man-on-man, but if Arizona runs a stunt, then you work to switch. Jenkins and Borom’s rushers are both lined up pretty wide. When Jenkins’ rusher stays wide off the snap, you can take an educated guess that a stunt might be coming.
After three steps off the snap, Borom’s man puts his foot in the ground and darts back inside. Once Borom sees that, the correct decision is to look back inside and try to take over the man over Jenkins so he can pick up the looper coming from the outside.
Right about here is when Borom has to recognize the stunt and put his foot in the ground to get back inside. Either A) his man is looping, and he’s going to take over the rusher engaged with Jenkins, or B) his rusher is making an inside move, and he has to pick that up. With how wide No. 2 is, he will never get Caleb if he stays that wide.
At some point, Borom knows there will be some sort of inside move that has to come, and he fails to anticipate it. Instead of stepping inside and cracking the rusher over Jenkins, he takes too many steps back; both rushers come free, and Caleb is sacked yet again.
If Borom takes over the inside man, Jenkins can come off for the looping outside rusher. But since Borom can’t take that over, Jenkins has to try to stay on his rusher. It’s just basic stuff that got messed up again.
Play No. 4
Second to last play of the game. Just a simple one move on a wide rush that beats him easily. On the other side, Jake Curhan gets completely destroyed, Caleb is forced to scramble, and ends up tweaking his ankle pic.twitter.com/2AdzLkvRKg— Matthew Rooney (@mrooney23) November 5, 2024
This play got me actively angry. The Bears are down 20. Their replacement left tackle in the starting lineup is struggling. Their right tackle is hurt, so Jake Curhan (with two starters hurt, Borom in, and Amigadjie also hurt, is effectively their fifth-best tackle) is in. And the Bears coaching staff decides to let their rookie franchise QB run a five-step drop to get TEED OFF on.
The wide rusher Borom is responsible for makes one half-hearted step toward the inside before moving back outside. Borom not only bites on it, but he overextends on his punch which has him leaning, off-balance, and unable to adjust to the move back outside. So he’s wholly beat on a straightforward move.
On the other side, Jake Curhan…woof. At first, I thought maybe he got stepped on or his feet tangled up. Nope. Just got flat-out run over. Could Gerald Everett have gotten a better punch on him to slow the rush? Sure. But even so, that was very clearly Curhan’s pre-snap responsibility. He was ready for it. And He just got run over.
Having Caleb Williams in with those two tackles protecting him and a defensive front pinning their ears back going sack-hunting was incompetent, irresponsible, and could have been a fireable offense.
Let’s hope Braxton Jones and Darnell Wright are healthy next week or the Bears add another tackle.