Bears tackle Kyle Long: I can learn from mistakes

The morning-after film study pointed out what the Bears’ new tackle and his coach said Sunday after the season-opener: that he made mistakes, particularly on blitz pickup during the team’s ill-fated fourth-down conversion.

The key now, Kyle Long said, is to not make the same mistake again.

“I had an opportunity to make a lot of mistakes yesterday,” he said Monday at Halas Hall. “I think it’s a learning experience. You can take some positives from that.”

The A-gap blitz on fourth-and-two was “my guy,” Long said.

“There’s a reason Jay (Cutler) can’t make that throw — it’s because there’s a guy with his arms up his face,” Long said. “It speeds up the process of looking through your progressions, et cetera, et cetera. … On a personal level, there’s too many things that went wrong in my performance to be able to give jay time to give our offense a chance to have success. Or the level of success that we expect here.”

Long started his first game at tackle Sunday. He had never played the position in the pros, preseason game or otherwise. Asked if he would have preferred to have played a preseason game there, Long said it would have helped.

“I hadn’t even thought about that. but I’m sure that would have pretty cool to get out there,” he said. “But the way it shook out, it didn’t work out that way. I’m not going to sit here and complain about it. I’m going to move forward and try to be the best player I can be and be the best teammate I can be.”

Coach John Fox said Long was a “mixed bag — and that’s not picking on any one player.”

“I think we were a mixed bag,” he said. “Heck, I didn’t know what to expect and I coach the team. But we’ve adjusted some in the offensive line. These aren’t excuses. It’s just reality.”

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Email: pfinley@suntimes.com