Tice exhorts lineman to know jobs and do them
Tice exhorts lineman to know jobs and do them
Shrinking playbook is no answer to offensive line's woes
Professor Mike Tice handed out a couple of homework assignments for Wednesday evening.
The Bears offensive line coach buried his copy of last Sunday's debacle versus the Seahawks, but Tice instructed rookie right tackle J'Marcus Webb and second-year right guard Edwin Williams to dissect the film a little longer before Thursday's practice.
"There's a reason why sometimes young linemen look like they don't know what they're doing,'' Tice said, "because usually, they don't.''
Tice had encouraged his young linemen to live by the slogan: Believe you know because you do. But Webb and Williams didn't exactly play like believers last week.
On the field they don't speak because they're not positive they know what they know what they think they know they know,'' Tice rambled. "Doesn't that sound good?
"Unfortunately, if they would just believe in themselves, they'd be right? Actually nine out of 10 times they'd be right.''
Getting things right is the task for Tice in preparation for Sunday's showdown with rush-specialist Brian Orakpo and the Redskins. Although Tice encouraged Webb to do more cramming than anyone else, he explained there was enough blame to go down the entire line.
"It was growing pains, and we haven't had an all-around great game up front yet,'' Tice said. "We need to continue to find the things the kids do well — of course Olin (Kreutz) is not a kid anymore — but find things the guys do well and continue to work on those and call those and continue to grow.''
Communications problems have stunted the line's growth. While one lineman claimed the Seahawks game called for six different protection schemes, Tice said he used more than 20 of the 37 protections at his disposal.
Such profusion that leads to confusion would explain why Jay Cutler was sacked six times and why the Seahawks had so many free runs at Cutler. The Bears have surrendered a league-high 27 sacks.
"Confusing? No, not at all,'' Kreutz said of the numerous protection schemes. "You have to know in the NFL that this is your job. And if you're confused, then put in more freaking work, period. If you can't handle it, you can't play in the NFL.
"We have to get ready for every Sunday what is in our play book. The onus is on the players to get that done. With the coaches, I know what they're thinking: that they're going to help us by scaling back. We have to think as players, we have to help them by learning our (stuff).''
Tice said he was encouraged by the second-half improvement against the Seahawks, but four of Cutler's six sacks came in the second half.
No matter what type of protections Tice plans to use moving forward, Kreutz said the line has to be better prepared.
"Right now would be the worst time to start hiding behind, `Well, this is too much,' and `This guy is not doing his job and this guy is not doing his job.' Just do your freaking job and get better at it, and we'll be all right.''
vxmcclure@tribune.com
