My Name is Wale and I'm Here To Git It

No, I'm not talking about the shitty D.C. based rapper, I'm talking about Bears DE Adewale Ogunleye. After years of sucking and not living up to his potential, he is having a monster four games. He's ranked 6th in the NFL in sacks- with 4.5. Granted, I think it's only because he was matched up against Packers RT Allan Barbre in the first game of the season who he just owned and a Detroit Lions lineman, but he's been doing very well. And Alex Brown is also doing amazing. According to football sabermetrics, the Bears are the best team against plays behind the LT and 6th best against plays behind the LG. Essentially, this means the right side DE is doing amazing- and that is Alex Brown.

In fact, Rod Marinelli really seems to be doing an amazing job with this defensive line. The Bears rank 4th in run blocking and 5th in pass blocking. That's amazing. Good thing too because out LBs, and most of out defensive sucks.

3 comments:

The 'Bright' One said...

Lets see what i can add to all this

Plays behind left side of O-line would be our right side of defense. That would be the Alex Brown/mark Anderson side. And strangely not the Ogunleye/Briggs side. I think Brown and Anderson have been terrific. The dif seems to be that the bears are simply blitzing the QB way more often. I think the bears were last in blitzes last year because of that shitty D coordinator who would get into 3rd and long and then just sit back and let the opponents pick up the 1st

Adam Kaplan said...

When I originally wrote this post, I thought Wale was the R DE so I don't know if you read my mistake or not. Oops. And I've watched every game too.

According to the Bears website Anderson backs up Wale, not Brown, but then again, I don't pay attention to games to see when Anderson comes in and who he substitutes...

The stat I looked at just measures defensive line so I'm not quite sure if LB blitzing counts or not, but I do know that our right side has been awesome this year and our defensive line as well. Athough granted, it's hard to tell which exact players are the causal arrows.

I know for a fact the Bears were either first in blitzing or 2nd to the Eagles. They blitzed a shit ton and they still sucked. A lot better this year.

Journalissimo said...

1. Blitzing is not always effective strategy. Blitzing only works when the blitz gets to the quarterback. Good blocking easily mitigates a blitz. Plus, good quarterbacks should spot the blitzer and determine the open receiver. It maybe in a defense's better interest to only rush four and make the quarterback find the open man. In my favorite example football game, the Giants did fine without much blitzing in the super bowl against the Patriots.

2. Granted, I have not watched any football games this season, so I cannot say if anyone has looked impressive or not. However, four games into a season I have a hard time making statements that indicate the Bears D has come around because of the DEs.

3. How dare you hate on Wale. How dare you.