Early on in training camp there was concern amongst the Chicago Bears media that the offensive line wasn’t practicing as well as hoped, and early on Darnell Wright was highlighted as the one struggling the most.
Chicago Bears second year offensive tackle Darnell Wright made the 2023 NFL All-Rookie team for his efforts as a first-year player. Now in his second year the expectation was Wright would take a major step forward for the Chicago Bears, early on however Wright is struggling.
Darnell Wright is showing up as a good run blocker. He moves well in the zone blocking scheme and gives good effort. But watching him operate in mostly one on one pass protection situations there’s a lot of signs for major concern for him.
Wright through two games is struggling in a big way. He’s not giving up a lot of sacks, but he’s giving up pressure and he doesn’t have a lot of clean reps. More often than not he’s not winning with his hands and he’s giving up the edge way too easily.
The signs of struggle aren’t always obvious because he’s not getting beaten like a rented mule, but he’s still not locking down the rusher in front of him. His pass sets seem slow and not very urgent. He’s not getting his hands on the rusher first in most cases and doesn’t seem to be in control when he does finally get his hands on the rusher.
Against the Buffalo Bills in his pre-season debut his first rush he’s on skates getting overwhelmed by the bull rusher. From there he settles into some blocking in the quick game, but then gives up another late pressure in the pocket.
Fundamentally Wright is just struggling, and it is likely something to be exposed against average pass rushers, never mind the elite rushers he’ll face throughout the season.
In both games he’s seen the most time he just hasn’t had a sound game of consistently locking out or stoning the rusher. The rushers with even above average speed off the edge are giving him troubles that may not be easy for him to overcome because he just may not have the foot speed to get excel at the position.
As it is Wright doesn’t have the athletic profile of other elite right tackles in the game. He’s not in the same universe as either Lane Johnson or Penei Sewell and it showed up a lot last year as well. This is not to say that Darnell Wright might be a good player someday, he could be and completely prove me wrong. However, there are too many instances where he’s just giving up the edge and forcing the QB to move on his point and that could be of major concern if he doesn’t lock things down.
Watching him in the Bengals game you’d think things are starting out well enough and then all of a sudden at around the 38 second mark he’s too far out in front of his body and getting beat and lunging to try and stop the rusher, never mind the fact that he’s stumbling through the last half of the rep entirely.
Then his next four reps are just as bad where he just can’t seem to lock out the rusher and keep a clean and organized pocket.
What’s clear is that Darnell Wright needs a lot more work in the pre-season and it would be arrogant of the Bears to simply keep him out of the pre-season finale against the Chiefs. Wright is either not in football shape or isn’t ready to for the season because he’s not seasoned enough. He needs to be in more pressure situations where he has to block for five step drops to shot gun formation situations where he’s going to be forced to sustain a one-on-one block.
Wright needs a lot more experience and if the Bears don’t challenge him before the week one opener it could be a problem for Caleb Williams’ rookie debut.
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