For Bears and Tice, it's all on the line
Amid all the hyperbole, conjecture and posturing last week stood Bears offensive line coach Mike Tice, an island of truth, honesty and bluntness.
How well Tice's guys play this afternoon against a Packers defense that tied for second in the league in sacks is crucial. It will have a lot to do with whether the Bears head to their respective homes Monday or fly, as a team, to Dallas a week later to play in Super Bowl XLV.
It also will be either an indictment of or a testament to Tice.
“Let's face it,” Tice said. “They're my resume. How they play is how good of a job I've done. If they play like crap, then I'm a crappy coach, and I deserve the heat. And if they play better -- because they have played better, but I don't think at any point we can sit here and say they've played great -- then that's good and we're moving along.”
Tice has done a good deal of moving and shaking with the offensive line since the season opener, when Chris Williams was at left tackle, Lance Louis at right guard and Frank Omiyale at right tackle. Williams played two games there before a hamstring injury sidelined him for three weeks. That forced Omiyale to move to the left side, with veteran Kevin Shaffer taking over at right tackle for two games.
After Week Four, the 10-sack fiasco in the loss to the Giants, rookie J'Marcus Webb replaced Shaffer at right tackle and Edwin Williams replaced Louis at right guard. After Week Five, it was decided that left guard Roberto Garza, who had been playing in pain, needed arthroscopic knee surgery. With Chris Williams now healthy, but Omiyale playing well at left tackle, Williams was inserted for Garza at left guard.
Then, when Garza returned after missing just two weeks, he was inserted at right guard, where he had played the previous five seasons, and Edwin Williams went to the bench. The current starters will be playing their 11th straight game together this afternoon, with 13-year veteran center Olin Kreutz the only constant throughout the season.
It took awhile, but Tice seems to have found the optimal combination. Bigger gaps in the opposing defense have been cleared for running back Matt Forte, who rushed for 717 yards in the final nine weeks of the regular season and averaged 4.9 yards per carry. After allowing 45 sacks in the first 12 games, the Bears permitted 14 in the last five.
In the new offense installed during training camp by Mike Martz, some sacks are inevitable, but not as many as the Bears allowed in the regular season – a league-worst 56.
“It's a new system, and sometimes we're all on the same page, (as to) where all of that (pass-rush) stuff is coming from, and sometimes we're not,” Tice said. “So there are going to be some sacks. But, as you get better and as you learn the system more, you expect those numbers to go down; at least I do, and they better, so we'll see how it goes.”
The consensus heading into the season was that the line was the Bears' most notable weakness. But Tice's mantra all season, and that of his players, was “constant improvement.”
Getting the young players to buy into a new system and a new coach is usually not the problem. Winning the hearts and minds of established veterans like Kreutz and 31-year-old Roberto Garza, who have become entrenched in their ways, is another thing. But it hasn't been a problem for Tice, who spent 14 years in the league as a tight end and 14 more as a head coach and an assistant.
“His experience speaks for itself,” Garza said. “He's made me a lot better, and we're fortunate to have a guy like that come in and teach us. Obviously, we have done things a certain way for a long time, and it's a little harder to break some of those old habits, but that's why we work on technique every single day, to make the adjustments.”
Tice hopes to get another couple weeks to continue his work before the season ends.
“We've set a goal to get better each week,” he said. “Those kids have done a nice job of achieving that goal to this point. We pointed out some things (this week) that we need to get better at, and I know they'll work at them and accept that and continue to grow.”
It should be obvious this afternoon how much the offensive line has grown.
Follow Bob LeGere's Bears reports via Twitter@BobLeGere. Check out his blog, Bear Essentials at DailyHerald.com