Sam Mustipher Works to Keep His Distance from Bench

Center Sam Mustipher was anything but happy as he stood on the sidelines at the start of Monday night's Bears win over New England.

You might say he was fuming.

Usually the one to initiate plays by snapping the ball, his long-anticipated benching occurred when Lucas Patrick had been moved to center from guard.

Fate intervened at this point before Mustipher imploded or boiled over. Patrick suffered a toe injury, left the game and Mustipher could forget the benching.

"I mean, initially you're going to be pissed off about it, but then you've got to decide what am I going to do next?" Mustipher said. "And what I decided to do next was improve on all the areas or weaknesses that I saw on film or the reasons that I felt that the coaching staff had to pull me off of the field."

The reason for the benching wasn't punishment. Rather, it wa Patrick being given the job the team brought him to Chicago to do. Patrick's earlier broken thumb scuttled those plans and now a toe injury might mean they never occur. 

At  least if Mustipher can improve his pass blocking it could be the case.

Pro Football Focus says Mustipher has allowed only one sack and overall he has his best-ever grade with PFF at 65.1. It's just his pass blocking that's a problem at a grade of 37.5.

"There's some things that I've changed about my pass set," Mustipher said. "I mean, there's understanding this is the NFL. Eventually there's going to be weeks that you run into guys who are monsters.

"Credit to those guys. I had a rough game against (the Giants') Dexter Lawrence and then a bad pass pro rep against (Green Bay's) Kenny Clark. I mean, those are two of the best nose guards in the NFL. So credit to those guys, but if I am who I say I am I've got to be able to block those guys. So that's what I'm working on."

It was nearly a seamless transition to Mustipher at center against the Patriots 10 plays into the game. 

They also had Michael Schofield starting at left guard for the first time because of Cody Whitehair's injured knee.

This week they'll have the fifth different starting offensive line due to injuries, and it could even include Alex Leatherwood or Riley Reiff at right tackle because Larry Borom on Thursday remained in the concussion protocol after an injury just reported on Wednesday for the first time.

"I come into the game last week, Scho comes into the game, that's his first game starting as a Chicago Bear, obviously a guy that's played a lot of football over time," Mustipher said. "You know, there was no 'uh oh, what do we do now?" It was just kind of, we didn't skip a beat."

The line enjoys the fact the team has an identity on offense now for toughness as the No. 1 rushing team. The rushing yards finally resulted in points Monday in a season-high point output.

"It was more about the way that we did it more than necessarily getting 33 points or whatever," offensive coordinator Luke Getsy said. "I thought it was probably the most physical game that our guys played.

"We had guys go down, kinda in and out of the game, so other guys had to step in with a bunch of different (total play) reps, and there was no blink. The guys were prepared to play. I thought that was the really cool part about that whole day was the play style and the physicality of it. And then when you needed guys to step in and play, they were ready to rock and roll."

Offensive linemen would rather play physical football because it lets them keep defenses on their heels. It's easier to attack than pass block, which Getsy has called one of the most difficult things to do in the game.

"Physicality is what we want to hang our hats on," Mustipher said. "You know, especially as an offensive line you want to be able to run the football.

"I think that was our fourth game rushing for over 200 yards (243) or something like that. That's something that we know we're good at. Obviously what we have to improve on is our pass protection, being able to give Justin good pockets so he can go through his progression, make his reads and make a good throw."

If they can blend both aspects together, then the number that really matters–the points output–will really start to go up for the offense.