Chicago Bears: Mike Tice Needs to Find Solutions on the Offensive Line

The Chicago Bears offensive line put together one of its worst performances of the year this past Monday night against the San Francisco 49ers. The unit surrendered six sacks that night with 5.5 of them coming from outside linebacker Aldon Smith. The Bears had a similar performance earlier this season against the Green Bay Packers with Clay Matthews and the rest of their front seven.

Offensive coordinator Mike Tice needs to find solutions fast on an offensive line that have been one of the main reasons for the Bears under-performing on the offensive side of the ball. Today the Bears demoted Chilo Rachal and promoted Chris Spencer to the left guard position. The decision obviously upset Rachal who walked away from the team today.

One solution that hasn’t been discussed is Edwin Williams, who has been working exclusively as the team’s back-up center. Last season he was the team’s best lineman towards the end of the year according to Profootballfocus.com.

Williams has experience at both right guard and LG; excelling best as a pass blocker. In my opinion, this might be a better solution than Spencer, who was bench earlier in the season.

While the benching of Rachal is well deserved, the offensive tackles are where the most trouble is coming from. Gabe Carimi has been one of the worst OT’s in football this season and although he’s playing in virtually his rookie season, 10 games in you should see some progress. J’Marcus Webb had a bad game, but he hasn’t been as bad as Carimi.

A decision that Tice could make is benching Carimi for veteran Jonathan Scott, who has started games for the Pittsburg Steelers and Buffalo Bills the past few seasons. Another option is rookie James Brown who they just promoted to the 53 man roster today.

Whatever those solutions are for the Bears, they need them to desperately work if they want to succeed in these final six games and hopefully the post season.