Chicago Bears Sackwatch 2019: Week 5 vs. the Oakland Raiders

My regular Sackwatch readers will recollect that last week I pointed out that Chase Daniel was sacked at more than double the rate of Mitchell Trubiksy in 2018, so watching him get dropped four times by the Oakland Raiders shouldn’t be a surprise. That game wasn’t entirely on Chase however, as the Chicago Bears pass protection has been sloppy most of this season. Even with their issues protecting the quarterback, they’re still close to last year’s pace.

Sackwatch after 5 games

2010 - 21 Martz
2011 - 18 Martz
2012 - 14 Tice
2013 - 9 Trestman
2014 - 12 Trestman
2015 - 11 Gase
2016 - 11 Loggains
2017 - 9 Loggains
2018 - 12 Nagy
2019 - 13 Nagy

Sack 10 - First Quarter 6:30 - Maxx Crosby
Left tackle Charles Leno Jr. does a nice job initially stopping Maxx Crosby, but Crosby does a quick shuck of Leno’s inside arm to get him off balance, then he takes the inside path to the quarterback.

So far this year, Leno hasn’t been moving his feet as well as in the past for some reason. He’s getting caught lunging more than ever, and once his hands are too far in front of his feet, he’s beat.

But back to this sack... Daniel gets to the top of his drop and doesn’t let the ball fly. He did have somewhere to go with the ball but he hesitated. Maybe he didn’t trust his arm strength, or maybe he felt the pressure and didn’t want to risk getting hit on the release. What ever the reason, he did have a shade over three three seconds before getting hit, so I can’t give this entire sack allowed to Leno. I’m splitting it between the two of them.

Sack 11 - Second Quarter 8:28 - Benson Mayowa
The Raiders run a stunt against Chicago’s right side, and right guard Kyle Long is pushed back by the blitzer after checking his inside gap. Long goes B-Gap when the A-Gap threat bails off the line of scrimmage. That allows running back David Montgomery to get the blitzing defensive back off the edge.

Right tackle Bobby Massie is on an island with Benson Mayowa, but when Mayowa goes inside he’s knocked off the block by Long’s guy. He then simply works around and goes untouched for the sack. This was a very good play by the Raiders.

Since Long was checking A-Gap first he allowed a little more penetration to his right than he would have liked. That penetration led to bumping Massie off the play and prevented them from passing off the delayed stunt (if it even was a planned stunt).

I went back for forth on this one a few times, but sometimes you just gotta tip your hat to the defense for making a nice play. This one is a Sacks Happen.

Sack 12 - Second Quarter 1:50 - Maurice Hurst
This was another stunt against Massie and Long, but this time the Bears’ duo handled it and kept it in front of them for the most part. Oakland ran a stunt against Chicago’s left side too, and both Massie and Leno thought to push their defenders past the pocket, but they didn’t know that Daniel decided to fade back instead of stepping up. I thought Daniel had a couple short options, but again he didn’t fire the ball once he got to the top of his drop, so I have to fault the QB on this one too.

With the way both Massie and Leno were quick to shove their guys off past where they thought the pocket would be, I think they both assumed the ball was coming out fast. For the record, I don’t like the technique from either on this play, but I’m still blaming Chase.

Sack 13 - Fourth Quarter :03 - Maurice Hurst
A three man rush on the last play of the game and the Bears give up the sack. Center James Daniels may have thought he’d have some help on Maurice Hurst, but regardless, it’s a one on one block and he didn’t get the job done. By the way, this is the first sack allowed in Daniels’ career. Tarik Cohen did get in his way, but he was already beat to the right A-Gap. A faster QB would have been able to evade the rush.

2019 Individual Sackwatch after week 5:

Mitchell Trubisky - 3
Sacks Happen - 2
Kyle Long - 2
Chase Daniel - 1.5
Charles Leno Jr. - 1.5
Cody Whitehair - 1
Ted Larsen - 1
James Daniels - 1