Bears Film Review: Jordan Van Den Berg Shows Flashes in NFL Debut
Chicago Bears rookie Jordan van den Berg flashed brute power and elite quickness against the Cleveland Browns, but inconsistent balance and hand placement show the interior defensive lineman still has improvements to make.
Video Transcript
What's going on everybody?
Nicholas Moriano here from Roundtable Sports.
Jordan Vandenberg, Bears six-round draft pick from Georgia Tech, made his NFL debut on Saturday against the Cleveland Browns.
34-10 victory, dominant performance by the Bears.
Now, Vandenberg played 28 defensive snaps in that game, and when I went back and watched the All 22 to see what he did, there's a little bit of a mixed bag.
As expected, right?
A six-round draft pick making his NFL debut against NFL competition.
But what I did like in some of his snaps was just the brute power that he had.
He was lined up in the B gap.
Actually, his last play of the game, lined up in the B gap in a four-eye, just makes a nice, quick inside move, takes that right-hand club, gets the right guard out of the way, pursues to the quarterback.
Now, he does go low at the quarterback, which I think was Shedeur Sanders at the time, but you like everything before that, the move inside, the power to get to the quarterback, and then you just wanna be able to, you know, avoid anywhere low on the QB so you avoid a roughing the passer penalty.
But great brute power, as I put in the article below.
And you can watch all these plays in the article that I'm talking about right here.
Active hands was another thing, where going up against one of the Browns right guards, quick off the snap, and then as he's pursuing upfield, you can just see the hand movement with Jordan Vandenberg constantly resetting his hands so the offensive lineman doesn't get a clear contact on him.
Able to work back towards the quarterback.
Now, he loses his footing at the end, and then the quarterback's able to avoid the rush and get the ball out.
So great move, not the best finish, but you like those initial quick moves and the hand usage.
Now, there were some plays where he was simply washed out of a, out of his lane, where didn't know exactly where I think the help from the offensive line was coming from.
So as he's engaging with one offensive lineman, a guy is on his backside, washed him out of the lane.
A running lane is created.
Luckily, his backside defender, I think it was Daniel Hardy in this case, was able to make a nice tackle on the play.
So Vandenberg doesn't get, you, you know, it's not as bad as it could have been because his teammates were there to help him out.
Then there was also another instance of that happening where Vandenberg ends up on the ground.
I think, one, he's getting contacted from both sides, and that's gonna h- be the life of interior defensive lineman.
You're gonna have to deal with contact from everywhere.
But he ends up on the ground, center's on top of him, and there i-- he's completely out of the play, but defensive teammates are there, rallies to the football to limit it to a one-yard loss.
But mixed bag from Vandenberg.
I also thought there were times where he kept his head down, didn't know where the ball carrier was at.
And also, I wanna see what countermoves he's gonna deploy as he continues to refine his pass rush and get more acquainted with how he can get to the quarterback.
But overall, encouraging start for Vandenberg, and I'm curious to see what he does in these joint practices against the Bengals and Titans, and also in the preseason games.
