Most of the roster battles for the Chicago Bears are relegated to the reserve spots on the depth chart. Not a ton of starting jobs are up for grabs save for defensive end between Jonathan Bullard and Roy Robertson-Harris. However, there was certainly a big one developing at one of the most important spots on the team: center.
Cody Whitehair has been struggling with inconsistency in that spot since last year. Not only did his penalties take a spike in 2017, but so did his issues with bad snaps. Too many were coming in high or low, hurting the rhythm of his quarterbacks. Both problems were on display in Cincinnati as he was called for a holding penalty while also snapping a ball too high to Mitch Trubisky.
In the minds of many Bears fans, this opened the door for somebody to possibly step in and steal the job. Perhaps a certain second round pick who played center for most of his college career? James Daniels seemed to send that sort of message with his standout performance against the Bengals.
James Daniels had himself a night. Watch this play. Initially gets rocked back by the interior rush, regains his anchor and then bulldozes the guy to the ground right as Mizzell goes in for the TD.#Bears pic.twitter.com/4BatlEPxOp
— Erik Lambert (@ErikLambert1) August 10, 2018
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Chicago Bears coaches loved the performance but remain unmoved
While Matt Nagy and his coaching staff were impressed by Daniels’ strong night, it doesn’t appear to have changed their minds in regards to the alignment of the offensive line. He made it clear that the plan remains the same. That’s to have Whitehair remain in the middle. The idea is that moving him to a different position again will only further hamper his development.
It’s apparent the Bears are playing a wait-and-see approach. They want to see what happens if Whitehair is kept where he is for an extended period of time. Something that didn’t really happen under John Fox since they constantly moved him between center and guard due to injuries elsewhere. Nagy is betting that keeping him fixed in the middle will eventually pay off with better play down the road.
It’s a logic course of action to follow but a difficult one to sell. Especially when Daniels continues to play as well as he has. That being said, the rookie is most definitely putting himself in position to win a starting job going into this season. While center may not be on the table, his battle with veteran Eric Kush for the left guard job looks dead even with three games left to play.
At this point it seems almost impossible for them to keep him off the field when they head up to Green Bay for the opener.
