Rockne's Roundtable

For those of you who were Bears fans in the ‘80’s, you have to remember the impact of the Fridge. And I see some parallels to our Big Lou.

The Fridge fought to keep his weight down. So much so that he had a hefty financial incentive to keep his weight under some number that I can’t recall. Under 310 lbs sounds familiar, but I can’t remember. When his weight was down, he had much more stamina and was much quicker, but with or without the lower weight he had a huge impact. But the weight battle is not where I noticed the parallel between the Fridge and Big Lou - that was just an additional factor that seemed to match.

I see some fans commenting that Nix is not all that great, and that’s what got me thinking. During and just after the Bears Super Bowl run in the mid-late ‘80’s, everyone marveled at the Fridge. But I didn’t understand the intrigue. Perry had some sacks, but nothing to write home about and his tackles were often 3 or 4 yards downfield. The real stars on the D line were obviously Dan Hampton, Richard Dent and Steve McMichaels. These were the highlight tape guys – always in the backfield scrunching the QB. So I wasn’t too impressed with the Fridge, although I did think he was pretty cool.

That led me to start watching him to see why everyone was so enthused. And that’s when I finally understood. When I started watching him I found a couple of things. For one, he was unblockable to the point that the opposing team ALWAYS had at least 2 blockers and often 3 trying to keep him out of the backfield. That explained why he didn’t get to the QB very often, but also explained one of the factors in why the other 3 did. Hard to block 4 excellent DL when you’ve got at least 2 or your offensive line tied up trying to slow down 1 guy.
Even with that, Perry sucked up any running back that came within 2 yards of his position, jamming up the middle so that most teams tried to run outside. That’s when I noticed another annoying habit (for the opposing team) of Perry’s . . . the most amazing feat in my opinion. I watched him regularly line up at right D Tackle, get double teamed, shed both blockers and make the tackle on the far left sideline as the running back turned up field. The back may have made 4 yards, but how in the world was that tackle even possible?

In a nutshell, if you watched the Bears “team,” you would barely even notice the Fridge. But if you watched the Fridge individually, you had to be amazed. And I think that there is a fair amount of that unsung monster in Nix.
I can’t say that Big Lou is the next coming of the Fridge, but I can say this. If you think you don’t see anything from him, you first have to watch HIM. Not the team as a whole, but just him. How many times does he tie up the middle and make it unrunnable? How many times does he tie up 2 blockers? What is he doing to disrupt the offensive play and make plays elsewhere? Seems to me that he does a lot of those things, and is continuing to improve. Personally, I find it rather remarkable how often he is involved in a play either directly or in a way that is not very conspicuous, but pretty darned impressive.

If you specifically watch him and feel that he isn’t doing much, you are certainly entitled to your opinion. It won’t match mine, but you are entitled to have it. But if your opinion is based on the fact that you don’t notice much of him during a game, I would challenge that opinion as being short sighted and uninformed.