FanPost

Bears Training Camp - The Layman's Perspective

Erich Schlegel-USA TODAY Sports

2017 marked the first year I decided to attend a Chicago Bears training camp. I've lived in Chicago most of my adult life, have grown up with football, played football, and am an avid Bears fan. For some reason or another, I've always had something I've felt is more important to do on these few weekends as July comes to a close.

That said, anyone that is a Bears fan, either die-hard or passive, should find time to go to Bourbonnais during these few weeks. It was a blast. I went expecting to scout for the next preseason breakout but ended up just enjoying the moment. It was a beautifully sunny Saturday and, full disclaimer, I was definitely feeling the effects of one too many Manhattans the night before. I'm typically a pretty grouchy zombie when hungover, but the excitement of football in the air made me pretty chipper.

If you do decide to go down next Saturday, I'd recommend planning on arriving when the gates open and not when practice is to start. This year they have free tickets, which created a much longer than anticipated line. (probably took 15 to 20 minutes before being let through) Be one of the first ones through and stake out a spot on the western-most field. That is where all of the scrimmages happen. Also, looks to be where Robert and Andrew took most of their footage. I would recommend two options for seating. The first option would be to bring your own foldable chairs. With this, get there early and scout a perfect spot right in front of the ropes. The second option, find the perfect view among the bleachers and then guard that spot religiously. This option will give you, cool, unique views of the field.

Don't make my mistake, either. Print out a roster with all of the names and numbers of players. This will be better than a phone because you'll be looking down constantly. I thought I knew the roster pretty well, but there's a unique difference between knowing which players are on the team and then seeing live action with glimpses of a body size and number combo. Spend too much time fumbling around with your phone and you might just miss something.

OK, that leads me to my observations. Like Andrew mentioned in his day 1 recap, the first thing that sticks out is just how massive these human beings are in real life. Mike Glennon consistently looked to have a full helmet on nearly every person around him. Kyle Long looks to be what I imagine the Mountain (GOT reference) would look like in real life. Lamar Houston looks to be carved out of limestone. (but made out of sand, amirite?)

The second thing I noticed, is just how difficult it really is to get a good and consistent view of everyone on the field. Even with the best view in the stands, consistently recognizing every stand-out performance alone is difficult. Anyone that's watched a game can likely understand, but if you're trying to see how Kevin White gets off his press, you're missing the linebackers attacking the edge. If you're watching how a young Kwit attacks his run gap, you're likely missing how a young tackle just got blown up and is on his ass.

The first drills I saw were on the field adjacent to the main scrimmage field. This was my first experience watching Trubisky and the other quarterbacks sling the ball. For background, I was standing in the endzone where the receivers were attempting to execute go routes against corners. Consistently seeing who was tossing the ball was difficult, because they would take two or three snaps and rotate out. The first thing that stuck out to me was that almost all of the throws were well-thrown balls.

The talent looks to be sneaky good this year. I saw Amukamara break up two well-thrown passes. There were a few INTs by other corners, however, I couldn't get a good look at their numbers :(. I saw Markus Wheaton run a pristine route, putting the burners on and using exceptional body control to box out the corner (for the Madden fans, think the swerve glitch in 2017). Kevin White had a pass hit his hands and pop up in the air. The receivers coach came over to talk with him after that one. I saw number 13 miss more than a few catches as well, later to find out this was Kendall Wright.

The next drills I watched were the team drills. i have a few observations, but even with my previous ones, I'd like to stress that none of this should be extrapolated into anything more than single plays in the first practices of July. The most explosive player in team drills was Tarik Cohen and it wasn't close. On offense, he looked the part. One play I remember, he ran a sweep play. He is fast. On this play, he looked faster than anyone else on the field. Cohen made his turn on the sweep and had a wide open lane down the sideline for a score. This wasn't necessarily because the defense missed their assignments, but rather because Cohen was just too quick to the edge. On another play, Cohen caught a screen pass out of the backfield and exhibited why he's been called the human joystick. Cohen took that play to the house, albeit plays seem to be called dead after 20 or so yards. Cohen quickly became the fan favorite and it poured over to the punt receiving drills, which Andrew and Robert covered in their recaps.

I could go on, but I thought it important to make another point. I would take the coverage you see and read with a grain a salt. You shouldn't wonder why you're not hearing more about a certain player or whether one player will be a lock because you've seen his name in a few tweets. Andrew, Robert, Da Bears Brothers and Aaron Leming have a good football background to understand most of the dynamics of what is happening on the field.

The part that stuck out to me was just how chaotic everything seemed from a fan perspective. There are multiple position groups practicing at an any given moment. There are multiple drills within those position groups as well. There are numerous successes and failures being noticed and even more being missed at any given moment. So even with a great view of the primary field, which it looks like Andrew and Robert both had in the stands, there are other fields that are too distant to discern what is happening much less who is excelling and failing.

For instance, Andrew railed on how inaccurate Sanchez looked in the first team drills. Conversely, I saw the QBs running passing drills that focused on hitting garbage cans and Sanchez was the only QB to hit all 6 cans center mass on his first run. Does this mean anything? Maybe, maybe not. Everyone on the field should be taking this as an opportunity to learn. (teammates, playbooks, and numerous nuances) Sanchez did have a few rough snaps running the second team offense, but I didn't think we were ready to close the book on Sanchez as a result.

Coming back to the Kevin White drop earlier, it was a perfectly placed ball from Sanchez. After White dropped the route and was visibly angry with himself, Sanchez ran over, patted him on the back and said something that made Kevin seem calmer as a result before the wide receivers coach came over to have his chat with him. Sanchez is here through the preseason, It'll be interesting to monitor his work operating the second team offense.

What's my point? The only people that are going to see everything is the coaching staff. Not only are there multiple Bears staff watching each drill, there are also enough eyes in the sky recording every snap. At the end of the day, everyone's performance will probably get cut up into individual reels and assessed for performance. The fan-reporters will miss most of what happens on any given drill, but the coaches will not. So enjoy the ongoing coverage, revel in the highlights and lowlights. Anxiously await the coming of preseason football, which should be fun this year. In the end, the people that are making the decisions will have much more information available to them to make their decisions than almost anything that WCG, Tribune, et al could ever supply the casual fan. The coverage by WCG has been stellar to date and does scratch a good itch, it's important to put it in context though.

***BONUS TIP

Last tip I'll offer. There is one main throughway that everyone has to take a left on to get back on the highway. As you can imagine, there is a long line of cars trying to get back on that highway. Instead, do as we did and take a right instead. Theres an Oberweis ice cream shop that was a delicious way to end the trip before getting on the highway for an hour. As we passed the intersection on the way home, there were still cars backed up a mile waiting to get through that 10 second left turn light, woof.

This Fanpost was written by a Windy City Gridiron member and does not necessarily reflect the ideas or opinions of its staff or community.