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Kyle Williams made his case for the continued presence of Porkchop, blowing four blocks against competition as good as Dan Bazuin and as bad as Nick Osborn. Recent free agent signee Osborn had just 7 sacks in a 46 game career at San Diego State. He's so new he's not listed on the official roster. Osborn, who saw only limited action with Chicago's second string, is 6'4", 250-260. He's Chicago's Dallas Sartz: tall, a good employee and as likely to make the roster as, well, as Kyle Williams.
The blown block that blew up came one play after a hold by John Carlson backed Seattle to its own 5.
It's 2nd and 10 on the Seattle 5. Seattle breaks in 2 WR, TE, Rb. Bears are in a base 4-3. At the snap, Bazuin runs right around Williams, before even fullback David Kirtman reaches the line of scrimmage. In fact, Charlie Frye is still in his backpedal. Whatever wily decision Frye should have, could have but didn't make, this play is FUBAR. Frye does, as Warren Moon put it, the "thing he can do" and scrambles right avoiding Bazuin. In the confusion, Williams has not only permitted Bazuin near unimpeded to the ball carrier, but stupidly vacated right containment attempting to make up for his mistake. Making another mistake.
In the scrum, Steve Vallos has lost his man, tackle Matt Toeaina. Kirtman puts a block on Toeaina, but rightly continues his route left. Right not because it positively affects the play, moving towards the left flat whilst Frye is rolling right renders Kirtman dead, but right because that was Kirtman's assignment. Toeaina grabs Frye, Frye attempts to dish the ball to T.J. Duckett and you know the rest.
- Mansfield Wrotto was the man ducking defenders on Frye's first interception of the quarter - second of the game. Wrotto has quick feet and can dominate a defender, but against a blitz he makes terrible reads, too often hustling forward to engage one man while obliviously allowing defenders to storm in around him. That was the case on this play, Wrotto quixotically charging Rod Wilson while Ricky Manning, Jr. sprinted untouched just right of Wrotto. I'm not sure Wilson was even blitzing, and Wrotto certainly should have held the line rather than volunteer a pass rush lane.
- Duckett can be picky but he does pick up blitzes well.
- One thing Logan Payne can do, to repeat a theme, is snatch the ball away from his body.
- Michael Bumpus and new long snapper Tim Lindsey missed tackles on Earl Bennett's punt return touchdown. Bumpus, a gunner, struggled to break Chicago's press and was very late to reach Bennett. Lindsey was nearly the last line of defense and was forced into a bad angle.
That's it. Both teams went vanilla and interesting play took a quarter off. Frye may not be long for this league, but his line didn't help him. We'll complete the 4th quarter and overtime tomorrow.