Bears Family Night "Practice"

Family Night Bears practice under Friday night lights was just that, strictly for the family this past Friday night. There wasn’t much to see for someone trying to cover the practice with a critical eye, no sir. It was more of a “players on display” sort of showcase than a true practice. More players were there just going through the motions rather than it being a competitive practice with players fighting for a job. There were a lot of skeleton drills (7-on-7) as well as individual drills, spreading each positional group throughout the field, followed by some special teams and finally wrapped up with 11-on-11 plays.

The individual drills were lack-luster and had the tempo of a frosh team with the knowledge of having no shot at a conference championship this year. The ONLY interesting part of these drills was the one-on-one mentoring for Johnny Knox by one Isaac Bruce. He was teaching Knox how to escape a corner back jam and get a free release at the line of scrimmage as getting off the line cleanly is vital for the timing of the Martz offense. He taught him a rip move and a swim move to counter the jam, and a flat out juke to get off the line without even being touched.

As for passing drills, Jay Cutler only took about one-third of the snaps with the majority being taken by Hanie and the rest by Lefevour. Cutler connected with Greg Olsen on 7 of 12 passes on 7-on-7 and 10 of 15 on 11-on-11. The only trouble is, especially in 11-on-11, Cutler would have been sacked on at least 8 of those passes. The throws also wouldn’t have been as crisp because even after he was tag-sacked, he still stepped up and fired a pass. Of course, the same happened for Hanie and Lefevour as well, though their passes weren’t as accurate with a lot of over-thrown passes which will be INT’s in a live game.

There was nothing shown on the 11-on-11’s as far as play calling went. It looked like a West Coast offense. Twins left, twins right with the backfield and tight ends frequently going in motion. Had you been told that you were going to get a taste of the Martz offense, you would have been cursing that you were burned and accused that person of being a liar at the end of practice.

As for the special teams, it was just a chance to make sure the personnel knew which team was out there and where his spot on the field was. And maybe a little bit of discipline in making sure that guys stayed in their lanes and didn’t get sucked in. Other than that it was the “Meatball Hour” with the mouth-breathing fans cheering in a ridiculous manner because a returner “broke” one for a TD. Um, no. There was hardly any contact and it was a game of tag allowing returners to sprint through lanes that would have already been collapsed.

Family Night practice keys:

-The O-line is god-awful and will probably ruin the health of our franchise QB.
-The backup QB’s are not efficient and the season is over if Cutler does in fact go down with an injury.
-I hope you enjoyed it meatballs because there won’t be much to cheer for this year.

Tune in for the last two weeks of Cover three tonight and next Monday evening from 7 to 9 on sportstownchicago.com

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