Braxton Jones, Darnell Wright crack Pro Football Focus’ top-32 OTs

Pro Football Focus is a fan of the Chicago Bears’ offensive tackles.

On their annual list of the league’s Top 32 offensive tackles, both Braxton Jones and Darnell Wright made the cut, ranking 31st and 32nd, respectively.

PFF noted that Jones is “one of 24 offensive tackles to have earned pass-blocking grades over 70.0 in each of the last two seasons.”

As for Darnell Wright?

“The only second-year player on this list, Wright’s 66.0 run-blocking grade ranked first among his rookie class. In addition, he was also promising in pass protection toward the second half of the season after going through some growing pains in the first month.”

Only nine teams had two tackles featured on this list, and Chicago was one of them. It’s a breath of fresh air for Bears fans to see their offensive line finally get some cautiously optimistic praise from a national outlet like PFF, and it tracks with my own opinion of their offensive line, improved, but with more work to do.

The best offensive tackle duos in the NFL pic.twitter.com/nP3tsX29Js

— PFF (@PFF) May 29, 2024

PFF has also shown respect for other positions on the roster, too. They rank Cole Kmet 11th out of all tight ends (which is a bit low in my opinion, but still above-average), both Tremaine Edmunds and TJ Edwards as Top 12 linebackers, and all three of DJ Moore, Keenan Allen, and Rome Odunze cracked their Top 32 wide receivers list. Even rookie quarterback Caleb Williams landed 19th on the Top 32 quarterbacks list.

These are all fair rankings that show Pro Football Focus is high on the Chicago Bears, but they want to see them prove it on the field before they can count more of these players among the truly elite. The only Bears player to crack the Top 10 in any of their lists so far is TJ Edwards, ranked 9th overall.

PFF made only one ranking that I thought was way off-base, and that was for Montez Sweat, who ranked 22nd on their list of the Top 32 defensive ends. There’s no way that 21 pass rushers are better than Montez Sweat.