When the Chicago Bears entered the off-season, head coach Matt Eberflus knew some changes needed to be made. That was especially true on the offensive side of the ball. It wasn’t limited to the players, either. Offensive coordinator Luke Getsy and most of his staff were dismissed. Only offensive line coach Chris Morgan and tight ends coach Jim Dray survived the purge. The team then brought in Shane Waldron as the new coordinator, allowing him to fill out the assistant positions. One of his prominent hires was running backs coach Chad Morton.
He’d worked together with Waldron for three years in Seattle. It wasn’t hard to understand why the coordinator would decide to bring him east. However, familiarity wasn’t the only reason that decision was made. Morton brought something to the table that many running backs coaches didn’t. Nicholas Moreano of CHGO found that out during an interview. The coach was responsible for developing a novel blocking technique that helped Seattle’s running backs vastly improve in pass protection.
Here is how he explains it.
Bobby Wagner has made life difficult for opposing running backs for the past 13 seasons. During the 2023 season, the nine-time Pro Bowler, six-time All-Pro and Super Bowl champion linebacker was dominating in one-on-ones and showed rookie Zach Charbonnet how grueling blocking can be in the NFL.
In an attempt to even the playing field, Morton started to teach his running backs — in his own words — a “unique blocking technique” that was different than the traditional get set, strike with the hands and lunge into the defender that is commonly used.
“So, we do more of like a catching technique,” Morton said. “We basically absorb them. The biggest thing that we have to do is obviously have a good base. Like we are not necessarily striking them with our hands. We are using more of our shoulder. So we just wait for them to come and we’re just bracing ourselves like this, like if you had to hold a big, you know pushing a car or big Indiana Jones type of thing, you know what I mean?
“When they come, we’re just here and then we explode through them at the last minute with our shoulder. It just strikes them and it just stops them right there, so we don’t have to worry about like, ‘Let me get my hands up and boom’ cause we were getting killed in one on ones in Seattle.”
Chad Morton made a true impact on the offense.
In 2022, Seattle’s running backs allowed 17 pressures on the quarterback across 146 pass-blocking snaps. Last year, with the new blocking technique, they allowed 11 pressures on 133 pass-blocking snaps. That is an increase from one pressure every 8.58 snaps to one pressure every 12.09 snaps. For context, last year, the Bears running backs allowed one pressure every 8.53 snaps. There is no question that Morton can have a major impact on the team’s blocking scheme if the players embrace his new technique.
One great thing about this new Bears regime is that they are big on details. Every little thing matters. Most people wouldn’t think much about the intricacies of running back blocking. They figure some guys can do it and some guys can’t. It is easy to forget that a lot of techniques go into it. Chad Morton understood a lot of guys could do it. The trick was finding a method that fit their skill sets. He accomplished that task in Seattle. Now, he gets a chance to perfect it in Chicago.
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@Dr. Melhus
Erik Lambert is one of a pile of writers who writes articles based on what someone says. Not analysis. Scared.
I don’t know if these techniques are going to help the Chicago offense, but this is a. coach, going into detail about technique.
Both Teven Jenkins and Cole Kmet have mentioned how their coaching is “more clear” than last year, and now reports are coming out about assistant coaches spending more time with players. Was no one spending time with players last year? Obviously.
It showed. Waldron seems to be running a professional offense intent on getting everyone better.
While the blocking technique mentioned in the article is interesting, I’m sure that Morton wouldn’t have been promoted to a position coach in the NFL without considerable experience and skill coaching running backs in being running backs. So I strongly believe there is more than “one specific reason” that Waldron brought him from Seattle. I’d suggest that Erik should consider not trying to simplify the thesis of the article too much – we readers can handle some complexity and nuance.