FanPost

Kendall Wright On! (Can the Bears maximize their offensive potential in 2017?)

Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports

What started as a simple comment on Robert's nice write-up of Kendall Wright's play, turned into a rambling, twisty narrative about Wright, Dowell Loggains, Jay Cutler, and more. So in the interest of everyone's well-being, I've posted it here instead.

The TL;DR version is... I think Kendall Wright has been underappreciated, and I'm glad to see him showing flashes in preseason, because I think he could be a really nice player for the Bears.

Now, onward into the brain of an overly-committed, overly-analytical Bears fan!

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When the Bears signed Kendall, a little debate took place at WCG around why his production dropped off after Loggains left Tennessee as their offensive coordinator, and the consensus was that he "freelanced" too much on his routes, and the new offensive staff felt they couldn't trust him to be consistent, so they used him less and less until he barely saw the field. Kendall himself admitted, when asked what his reasons were for wanting to sign with Chicago, that Dowell gave him more freedom to run his routes by feel. I believe that was even an interview on WCG where it came up.

So when I saw Robert's great breakdown (seriously, I love Xs and Os articles; thanks for taking the time,) the first thing I thought of was that assessment of Wright. Because there's Robert, saying...

You'd normally prefer he takes his route past the sticks but, as a veteran, he knows all he has to do is offer a little stutter to Byard before he makes his move.

and

He runs the route short of the sticks - not advisable, it needs to be repeated - but knows he has the ability to take advantage of Jackson's inexperience.

I'm not saying RZ's criticism is wrong! It's accurate to say running those routes deeper is what coaches typically want. Though, I question whether the knock is fair. Regardless, he does sound a lot like the Tennessee staff coaching Kendall probably did...

Maybe how Kendall runs his routes isn't how he's coached, but what he did, was give himself enough room to catch-and-run for first downs. If he runs to the 1st-down marker (which, in the first example, Kevin Byard has surely been coached to defend aggressively on 3rd down,) does he have room enough to catch a pass at all, given Mike Glennon's, shall we say, "variable" accuracy?

When I read between the lines, what I see is that Kendall Wright has a special talent to help your football team, if you can adjust your scheme to play to his strengths (see, perhaps: Loggains, 2013) In fact, isn't that basically the trait every team wants its HC/OC to have? Being flexible enough to use players effectively, not just plug draft picks and known-quantity street FAs into their rigid (if proven) scheme?

The result of all this -- besides being excited to see how Wright plays for the Bears this year -- is that it's starting to sound like Loggains might actually have that little something special the league's been buzzing about since he moved the ball with 4 different QBs last year. Maybe he really is creative enough to scheme for his players, and for his offense to be "gameplan-based" (as reported this preseason.)

Loggains has had some ups-and-downs, but he's still young, so if we're willing to allow Trubisky to make some mistakes, we ought to extend the same courtesy to a young OC like Dowell. The Bears just haven't been able to scout coaching talent better than the rest of the league for a long time (at least offensively, we did succeed with Lovie / Rivera / Marinelli / Toub), so I'm not allowing myself to get too optimistic, but I like the things I'm hearing.

Plus, there's one other thing going for Dowell that I like. First, as background, I'm a bona fide Jay Cutler fan. I know people from Santa Claus, Indiana, and I've been accused of having some "standoffish body language" myself at times, so I guess I'm biased. But based on comments from his teammates over the years, I buy the idea that Jay is less of a grump than a "smart, competitive guy with high expectations, who does not suffer fools lightly." I mean, I heard Zach Miller say on Bears All Access, that at one of the team speeches the night before an away game, Cutler made his speech about quantum physics... I mean... physics lecture in a room of 50 football players? C'MON Jay...

So if Cutler is more of a perfectionist (who's flaws come more from overcompensating than lack of interest,) doesn't it say something that the two coaches he's publicly supported more than any in recent years have been Adam Gase and Dowell Loggains? The Cutty Seal of Approval sure worked out for Gase...

To which Dowell is like...

I hope both Wright and Loggains surprise the league this year, and give us fans some home-grown success to get excited about.

So, you know, Bear Down, Chicago Bears!

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