CHICAGO, IL - AUGUST 30: James Daniels #68 of the Chicago Bears participates in warm-ups before a preseason game against the Buffalo Bills at Soldier Field on August 30, 2018 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

Lost in the Chicago Bears offensive explosion was the debut of James Daniels at guard

The Chicago Bears blowout win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers felt like the start of a new era for Chicago football. The offense was clicking and looked like the modern day offenses that we see across the NFL landscape. The team was getting key contributions from young and undervalued depth pieces on defense. That also came on the offensive side of the ball on Sunday.

After starting the first drive of the game on Sunday, the Chicago Bears decided to replace starting left guard Eric Kush with rookie second-round pick James Daniels. They continued to ride Daniels for a bit, and even moved him over to right guard, pulling Kyle Long to finish the game.

By the end of the game, Kush did play ten more snaps than Daniels, but Daniels did see a pretty decent sized workload.

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Of his 27 snaps, three came at right guard, and 24 occurred at left guard. Not a bad way to dip the toes of James Daniels into the water that is the NFL. Now, Daniels has experience and got acclimated to the speed and power of the league.

The Chicago Bears are in a sweet little spot where they can use this bye to build off of what Daniels saw out there on the field. They can take this week to groom Daniels and spend the preparation week to get Daniels fully integrated into the offense.

When the Chicago Bears head out of their bye week on October 8, expect James Daniels to be listed as a starter for the team moving forward.