While we saw a pair of Chicago Bears rookies in Dillon Thieneman and Malik Muhammad shine in their respective NFL debuts in the Week 1 contest against the Carolina Panthers , things didn't go smoothly for Jordan van den Berg.
The hype was through the roof for van den Berg after a stellar offseason that included a standout showing in the preseason contest against the Cincinnati Bengals .
But, as we know, what we see in the offseason doesn't always translate to regular season success and so far that has been accurate for van den Berg
When asked about van den Berg's struggles in Week 1, defensive line coach Jeremy Garrett thought nerves played a part. He also believes van den Berg needs to continue to clean up his technique, per CHGO Bears .
"I thought he was a little nervous to start off with," Garrett said. "I just told him to keep it simple, keep doing the things that allowed you to make it to this point and don't overthink it. You're only wrong if you don't attack.
"Then we need to continue to clean up just some of his technique, but I think there's a lot of growth and learning for him that will happen from Game 1 to Game 2."
A detailed view of a Chicago Bears helmet before the game against Carolina Panthers during pregame warmups at Bank of America Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jim Dedmon-Imagn Images | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect
According to Pro Football Focus (I know, we're supposed to hate PFF for the Caleb Williams grade thing , but the stats back it up in this instance), the rookie's 39.3 overall grade over 22 snaps was the fourth-worst on the team.
And, if you look for van den Berg's name on the regular stat sheet, you won't find it, as he failed to record a single tackle, and the one tackle he did have an attempt to record, he missed, per PFF.
Of course, this isn't the first sign of struggles we've seen from the rookie, and it certainly won't be the last. It looked like van den Berg had a long way to go during the offseason program when he was struggling with his get-off , but then we saw a vastly different player at training camp and in the preseason.
With a history of correcting himself and improving, we're confident that van den Berg is going to do the same here. When exactly that improvement shows up remains to be seen, but that is what comes with the territory with a first-year player.
The immediate concern here is that the Bears were banking on the Georgia Tech product to step up in the wake of the Gervon Dexter trade. If van den Berg doesn't make an impact sooner rather than later, that trade is going to come back to haunt Chicago.
This article was originally published on www.si.com/nfl/bears/onsi as Bears Coach Jeremy Garrett Highlights Two Issues With Jordan van den Berg's NFL debut .
