Dalman on importance of Chicago's culture, Grady Jarrett's leadership

Ariana Pensy - Correspondent - 1 day ago

CHICAGO - Center is often an underappreciated position in the NFL. Especially with a young quarterback, it is essential to have a good center who can call protections at the line of scrimmage and take pressure off the quarterback.

That is precisely why the Chicago Bears signed veteran center Drew Dalman. Dalman also chose to come to the Bears because of their culture and vision for success.

“The things that are most important to me with football about the culture that I’m playing in, the people I’m playing next to, the vision for the team as a whole. All those things were top of mind for me as far as finding the next home and all that stuff was assured to me and (I was) made (aware) of in the process. So, that was awesome and gave me a lot of confidence in the decision and it made this place really appealing and on top of that, the Bears are a historic team. It’s an awesome town and so, something that I think everybody wants to be a part of. So, it’s made the whole thing really, really enticing with me,” Dalman said. “I feel like I was much more focused on the scheme and the culture and the vision. I feel like there’s excellent players everywhere, so you’re always going to be able to find people like that. But now that the process has come to a conclusion, it’s exciting to work with a player like that and I’m really excited to learn from him as well as do everything I can to help him and take things off his plate so he can do the things that he does best and then there’s dozens of other players on this team as I look through the roster that I’m excited to learn from and that have had a ton of success. So, I feel like there’s opportunities all around me to learn from them and set goals for myself and chase after them.”

While he has never played with head coach Ben Johnson, Dalman has been able to watch some Detroit Lions film from when Johnson was their offensive coordinator and believes Johnson’s offensive scheme will emphasize his strengths.

One of Dalman’s strengths is run-blocking, which is something Chicago desperately needed last season.

“Some of the strengths of my game, when I watch the little bit of Detroit film that I have watched, I feel like (they) will be emphasized and that’s what I want to do most is just add value to this team,” Dalman said. “So if I’m doing the things that I really thrive doing, I think that’ll be the best for the team and so that prospect was really interesting and then there’s more areas in my game where I can grow and do different things and I think that’ll be interesting to explore as well.”

He is not the only free agent Chicago acquired coming from the Atlanta Falcons. On the other side of the ball, the Bears also signed defensive lineman Grady Jarrett.

Dalman has a lot of experience playing against Jarrett and believes his presence on the defense will serve to help the entire offensive line.

“Super fortunate to be a teammate with Grady … Incredible player, incredible guy in the locker room, absolute professional. I remember come into Atlanta and seeing him go about his business and seeing him work and I immediately understood, ‘This is the goal standard’ and then in practice, making me look silly dozens of times, exploiting my weaknesses, forcing me to learn from them and adapt to them,” Dalman said. “That’s been invaluable in my development and I look forward to being able to practice against him more … (He is) a guy that lets us know about our tells and our tendencies because he’ll pick up on them because he’s a savvy player in that way. So, I think he’s a huge resource for the offensive line in general.”