Thread: Tice: Offensive line a question mark until they put the pads on.

I thought this was a good read:

Tice: "To be quite frank with you, you’re not going to tell anything about your offensive line until they put pads on," former offensive line, and current offensive coordinator, Mike Tice said.

LINK to the article

Toned-down offseason leaves Bears wondering about O-line


Working under the new collective bargaining agreement, NFL teams completed the first real offseason without contact. And by listening to the players and coaches, little was learned.

It’s especially hard to figure out what you have when it comes to those in the trenches — a very important thing for this year’s Chicago Bears.

“It’s hard without pads. I think the offensive and defensive lines are probably getting a little frustrated right now with the new rules,” Bears quarterback Jay Cutler said. “For now, we’re just making sure everyone’s in the right place.”

There were no pads, just helmets and shorts, throughout the offseason workouts. And no hitting. The only sound of popping going on was by accident, greatly limiting what the linemen on both sides of the ball could accomplish.

Just when the Bears could really use some serious evaluations on the O-line, they are forced to wait. We will find out a lot more when training camp opens July 26, but things have even been scaled down for the campers. There is only one full-contact practice allowed per day.

That should be plenty of find out if the group in the trenches for the Bears' offense has what it takes -- like its coaching staff believes. But right now, we are all left hanging.

"To be quite frank with you, you’re not going to tell anything about your offensive line until they put pads on," former offensive line, and current offensive coordinator, Mike Tice said.

"To sit there and say, ‘Oh, yeah, this guy, he’s going to be the answer to the problems,’ that would be silly."