Chicago Bears Sackwatch 2021: Week 17 vs New York Giants

It wasn’t a bad week for the Chicago Bears pass protection against the New York Giants with just 2 sacks allowed, but the new 17 game schedule means there’s still a shot the 2021 Bears can eclipse the 56 sacks allowed in Mike Martz’s first year coordinating Chicago’s offense. That’s not the worst pass pro in Bears history, so at least this current regime has that going for it.

Another week of games also means that the Bears still have a chance to finish with the most sacks allowed in the league this season. They’re currently tied for the second most with Cincinnati, just three behind the 54 the Ravens have taken. With Justin Fields is back starting on Sunday that makes it more likely the Bears

Sack 50 - First Quarter 11:47 - Lorenzo Carter
While watching this play live I thought to myself — Andy Dalton should have got rid of the ball. Then the CBS crew mentioned that “Dalton didn’t have much of a chance,” so I anticipated a replay to see exactly what went wrong. And the replay never happened so I eventually went to Game Pass to see for myself.

Here’s the GIF of the play off the broadcast feed...

It’s hard to see the coverage to know what Dalton was looking at so I tried to check the sideline view from the All-22, but no luck. The All-22 Game Pass feed wasn’t working for this play so I texted my guy Robert Schmitz, because he has the quick All-22 hookup every week.

He sent me the clip, and as I suspected Dalton should have got rid of the ball. But he not only should have fired the ball out, he missed a touchdown.

Robert broke the play down in this Tweet, so I didn’t need to rip a new GIF.

Was it a split second decision, yes... But an 11-year veteran that is reading the left side of the field has to see the corner playing the out route, and then when he gets to the top of his drop he has to see the safety breaking up, so that ball needs to be lofted to the end zone. The fact that the safety was drifting forward means that there’s no way he could recover to stay with Damiere Byrd and his 4.28 forty speed. This one is on Dalton.

Sack 51 - Fourth Quarter 12:01 - Jaylon Smith
Jaylon Smith runs a nice deek on his blitz here, by showing that he’s dropping into coverage before darting through the B-Gap. He waits for Chicago’s left guard James Daniels to take the defensive end coming inside and for left tackle Larry Borom to take the blitzing defensive back off the right edge.

The Bears were prepared for an extra rusher to come to their right as running back David Montgomery was in the gap waiting for Smith, but Montgomery didn’t stay with the block.

Dalton’s window to throw was to his left receivers coming across the middle, but he needed a tick longer to let their routes develop. If Montgomery sticks with Smith this play has a chance, but he didn’t, so this sack is on D-Mo.

Here’s how the Sackwatch has looked after 16 games:

2010 - 56 Mike Martz
2011 - 49 Mike Martz
2012 - 45 Mike Tice
2013 - 30 Marc Trestman
2014 - 41 Marc Trestman
2015 - 33 Adam Gase
2016 - 27 Dowell Loggains
2017 - 39 Dowell Loggains
2018 - 33 Matt Nagy
2019 - 45 Matt Nagy
2020 - 36 Matt Nagy
2021 - 51 Nagy/Lazor

And here’s the individual 2021 Sackwatch tally after 16 games.

Sacks happen - 11.5
Justin Fields - 9
Jason Peters - 6
James Daniels - 4
Cody Whitehair - 3.5
Germain Ifedi - 3
Larry Borom - 2.5
Lachavious Simmons - 2
Teven Jenkins - 2
Andy Dalton - 1.5
Sam Mustipher - 1.5
David Montgomery - 1
Alex Bars - 1
Khalil Herbert - 1
Nick Foles - 1
Cole Kmet - .5