Thread: Bears best-ever offensive tackles- Who ya got

Mullin: Bears best-ever offensive tackles

Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Posted: 2:32 p.m.

By John Mullin
CSNChicago.com

Third in a series looking at the top Bears in the history of the franchise at each position. In this installment, CSNChicago.com Bears Insider John Mullin gets takes a look at offensive tackle.

During this year’s NFL Scouting Combine, Wisconsin tackle Gabe Carimi had a simple declaration regarding the field of tackles in the 2011 draft: “I know I’m the best tackle out there.”

The Bears were fortunate that he fell to them at No. 29. That happened in large part because the Dallas Cowboys, New England Patriots, Indianapolis Colts and Seattle Seahawks didn’t quite agree with Carimi and drafted other tackles instead.

Who or what team was right about which tackle, or whether Carimi was the best tackle out there or anywhere else, doesn’t really matter. What the Bears would particularly like to play out, however, would be for Carimi to end up earning a place high up on the distinguished list of best tackles in franchise history.

With the NFL on indefinite break and the Bulls finished working on fast breaks -- theirs and the Miami Heat’s -- CSNChicago.com’s “View from the Moon” is taking this opportunity to bring unprecedented clarity to the Chicago Bears’ past, with some “present” folded in. Rather than undertake another analysis of the 2011 roster, which necessarily remains in a molten state pending yet-uncertain free agency, training camp and preseason, “View” will establish the franchise depth chart position by position.

Specifically, who are the three greatest Bears of all time at each of the 22 positions, plus special teams?

So how good will Carimi need to be to rank as one of the greatest at his position in franchise annals? Here are the ones at the top of pyramid above him, with special thanks to former Bear tackle and Comcast SportsNet colleague Dan Jiggetts, a teammate of two of the five finalists and in a unique position to cast a vote:

Honorable mention

Lionel Antoine: A near-miss for the Top 3 despite an injury-riddled and shortened career. ‘Toine was the third-overall pick in the 1972 draft and that was coming out of Southern Illinois University. He was 6-foot-6 and played at 265 pounds, was “mean as a snake on the field, anything but off of it and he handled Fred Dean and all the best of his era when he was healthy,” Jiggetts said. His career was limited to just 68 total games but what he displayed in his chances was memorable.

George Connor: In the “best-ever” discussion after being All-NFL on both offense and defense in 1951 and 1952, but his best work was as a linebacker, so he’ll appear again in our evaluations at a different position.

3. Keith Van Horne

The most underrated member of the great Bears offensive lines of the 1980s, from an elite football program (USC) and at 6-foot-8, 290 pounds, a dominant force then who would fit easily into the forward walls of today. Van Horne was overshadowed by his teammate on the other end of the line as well as Pro Bowl trips by Mark Bortz and Jay Hilgenberg.

The Bears of his years played the Philadelphia Eagles and Los Angeles Raiders seven times, winning six. The defensive left ends on those teams were Reggie White and Howie Long, both in the Hall of Fame. This was the guy who blocked them.

“'Horne was 265 pounds when he was drafted, was stuck at left tackle when he first got here, which he’d never played in his life, fought through that,” Jiggs said, “and probably never got the recognition he deserved just because of how good that guy at the other end of the line was.”

More on “that guy at the other end” in a second.

2. Joe Stydahar

Coincidentally, like Covert, Stydahar was the No. 6 pick of the 1936 draft, the NFL’s first. Another 6-foot-4 guy, albeit from an era long before Stan Jones introduced weight training to the game.

What actually does cast a shadow over Stydahar’s place on the list was that he played in an era when there were basically no minorities.

But Stydahar could only play the people in front of him and this Hall of Famer was an All-NFL tackle for the four years culminating in the 73-0 championship game against the Washington Redskins in 1940 and he was anchoring another championship line in 1946 after giving two seasons to military service


1. Jimbo Covert

Covert protected Dan Marino’s blind side at Pitt and then Jim McMahon’s in Chicago. He practiced every day against Richard Dent, who named Covert as the best he ever faced and remarked, “After practicing against Jimbo, games were easy.” If a Hall of Fame defensive end says so, good enough for “View from the Moon.”

The back injury he suffered in training camp and the decline of the Bears through the late 1980s cost Covert some of the recognition he deserved, although he still was voted the left tackle on the NFL’s Team of the Decade for the ‘’80s as it was.

Some perspective here also: Covert played at 6-foot-4, 280-290 pounds. Jordan Gross, the NFC starting left tackle in the Pro Bowl, is 6-foot-4. Michael Oher of “The Blind Side” is 6-foot-4. Covert could play in any era.

And he is the best the Bears have ever had at the edge of an offensive line.

“Jimbo could run-block and pass-block equally well,” Jiggs said. “But what made him really great and the best of his day was that he had the quickness to fire out, sell the run, knock you backwards with those guns of his and then be back in his pass set while you were still trying to figure out what hit you.”