Germain Ifedi first broke out onto the scene in his freshman year at Texas A&M. He received freshman All-American honors and would later log an all SEC team onto his resume in 2015. Ifedi later got drafted by the Seahawks in the late first round and would become one of the brighter looking pieces in the league in terms of offensive lineman at right guard.
Ever since 2017 Ifedi has been playing a position where he isn’t comfortable at, and nor does he fit at this position. The Seahawks placed him at right tackle for whatever reason and his play fell off a cliff because of it.
The reason why Ifedi’s play fell off was because the tackle position requires higher of a standard for footwork, as opposed to guard, where he has the luxury of being able to get sloppy and just bang bodies down low and overpower people.
Ifedi in 2020 will likely be moved back to guard which is a great thing as he was once one of better young guards in the league back in his rookie year. Doing this will help out the Bears immensely in the run game, an area where they struggled in 2019, as they never got the run game going until week 6.
Ifedi not only has value as a guard, but he has value as a possible 6th lineman candidate if we choose to run that formation. The 6th lineman scheme has become more and more relevant ever since the Seahawks implemented it into their game. He’s great for this role because he’s super versatile for his size, because it’s not often that you see a 6’6 300 pound lineman inside.
But not only that, but he’s super athletic and could pull with ease in these complex run designs that we’ve been running for awhile. The 6th lineman scheme opens up the door for the run game, and the play action game. This is especially appealing to the Bears as QB Mitchell Trubisky thrives when he gets outside of the pocket as opposed to him pocket passing.
Photo: Ross D. Franklin/ The Associated Press
