The Chicago Bears had plenty of reasons to fire Shane Waldron, and they seem to be increasing even though he’s gone. Most of them centered around his lack of leadership and the poor way he handled Caleb Williams at quarterback. D.J. Moore wasn’t being utilized according to his biggest strengths at wide receiver, as was the case with Keenan Allen. Cole Kmet saw his targets reduced at tight end. It was a mess. However, two other members of the offense have legitimate beef with their former offensive coordinator. It was tackles Braxton Jones and Darnell Wright.
An interesting chart came out recently. It shows every NFL tackle and how often they were left on an island. That is, they blocked with no help from the guard, tight end, or running back. People might be shocked to see both Jones and Wright on the far right of the chart. Both logged at least 68% of their pass-blocking snaps with no help. The fact Waldron did this despite knowing he had a rookie quarterback makes it even more egregious.
Braxton Jones and Darnell Wright finally got help.
In their first game without Waldron running the show, the two logged 19 one-on-one situations out of 39 total pass blocks. That works out to 48.71%, significantly lower than what they had dealt with in the previous nine games. It is little wonder the protection had far fewer breakdowns, enabling Williams to look much more efficient. The fact it took Thomas Brown less than a week to recognize how big of a problem that told you how out-of-depth Waldron was. Braxton Jones and Darnell Wright are solid players, but they’re not All-Pros. Asking them to block top-tier edge rushers by themselves for the majority of every game is asking for trouble. No wonder players got sick of him so fast.
