Jay Rodgers is the only survivor of the previous Chicago Bears defensive coaching staff. Vic Fangio left for Denver and took a number of guys with him including Ed Donatell. By the sound of things they were hoping to get Rodgers too, but the Bears convinced him to stay. It’s not hard to understand why. The man does superb work. Akiem Hicks made his first Pro Bowl last year. However, Rodgers is more focused on Eddie Goldman.
Not because he’s unhappy with anything the young nose tackle has done. Quite the opposite actually. Rodgers told The Athletic and others that the league continues to overlook Goldman as one of the best defensive players in football. This because there’s no definitive stat to help define what he does. So the coach took an opportunity to describe what they’re missing.
“He’s one of the top players in the league — period,” Rodgers said recently. “At the nose position, then playing in a sub-three-technique or an A-gap player, there’s not many people that do the things that he does.”
“When there is a guy standing between you and him and the running back has to go somewhere else, you don’t get credit for that,” Rodgers said. “He’s in the right spots a lot of the times, and they got to go somewhere else. He’s one of the best in the world at what he does.”
Eddie Goldman plays the offensive line position on defense
One of the biggest issues with offensive linemen is it’s difficult to rank them because there is no stat to define how well they play. Not like TD passes for quarterbacks or sacks for pass rushers and interceptions for corners. Goldman’s position of nose tackle isn’t designed with the idea of getting sacks. His job is to plug gaps and force running backs to the edges.
This is something he does extremely well. The Bears had the #1 run defense in the NFL last season. The problem is nose tackles don’t get the glory. Think about some of the greatest in NFL history.
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Those guys were the master class of the position for a long time but the odds are casual fans didn’t know most of the names that were just listed. This is because they were overshadowed by teammates who had the benefit of fancy stats. Proof of how unselfish the best nose tackles have to be. They must sacrifice personal glory in favor of team success.
