Earlier this offseason, I examined Chicago’s pass rush, and this week I want to shift gears to focus on the other part of pass defense: coverage. We’ll start today by examining cornerbacks, and then shift to linebackers in part two and and end with safeties in part three.

First Look

Let’s start with a basic look at coverage stats for Chicago’s CB last year. There were 109 CBs with at least 250 coverage snaps, or roughly 3.4 per team, which makes that a convenient threshold for starting players. Chicago had 4 CBs in that sample: Jaylon Johnson, Tyrique Stevenson, Kyler Gordon, and Terell Smith – and the table below shows how well they performed in a variety of coverage metrics compared to their peers. A few quick notes:

• Ranks compared to the 109 CB in the sample are given in parentheses, and for a little context, 55th would be exactly in the middle.
• Those in the top 25% (27th or better) are highlighted in green.
• Those in the bottom 25% (83rd or worse) are highlighted in red.
• All data for this article is from Pro Football Focus (PFF).

Side note: sorry if there are formatting issues with the table. You can view it in full by clicking on it. 

A few thoughts:

• Hello Jaylon Johnson. After being good but not great through three NFL seasons (yards/target mark above 7.5 for each of his first three years), Johnson put it all together and emerged as one of the best CB in the NFL in 2023.
  • He rarely got thrown at, and with good reason, as opposing teams struggled to complete passes and gain yards when targeting him.
  • If Johnson can repeat that performance in 2024, he will be firmly entrenched in the conversation for best CB in the NFL.
• Tyrique Stevenson had an up and down rookie year, but mostly held his own overall.
  • He was targeted at an incredibly high rate, but opponents generally had about average success when throwing at him, as evidenced by his yards/target mark. The yards/snap value is very high, but that’s simply a result of the frequency of targets he saw as teams avoided Jaylon Johnson.
  • Stevenson also showed some improvement throughout his rookie season, which we’ll explore in more detail below.
• Kyler Gordon showed really nice progress from a brutal 2022 rookie season in which he gave up over 10 yards per target while being targeted every 5.8 coverage snaps.
  • Gordon gave up a lot of catches, but was really good at limiting their damage. That resulted in him ranking quite well in the main cumulative metrics (yards/target and yards/snap).
  • Some of this is due to Gordon mainly playing in the slot (73% of coverage snaps and 90% of targets), which generally leads to shorter passes that have a higher catch rate but fewer yards per catch. We’ll compare him more directly to slot defenders below.
  • Gordon also saw some improvement as the season wore on, which we’ll explore in more detail below.
• Rookie Terell Smith filled in quite a bit when Jaylon Johnson (3 games) and Tyrique Stevenson (1 game) missed time due to injury, which resulted in him playing 262 coverage snaps, just enough to qualify for this sample.
  • Overall, he held up pretty well when thrust into action. He was targeted at a really high rate, but did a great job of keeping catch rates low and limiting yards after the catch, which kept him well above average overall in yards/target and yards/snap.
  • Smith’s overall data should be taken with a grain of salt since he played only about half as many coverage snaps as Jaylon Johnson or Tyrique Stevenson, but the profile suggests he is at least a quality backup, which has real value on a rookie contract for three more seasons.
• It’s also worth noting that coverage isn’t performed in a vacuum. A big part of the equation is pass rush, where the Bears were one of the worst teams in the NFL. It’s especially impressive that Chicago’s CBs performed so well in coverage considering how bad the pass rush is.
  • It also bodes well for 2024, since the Bears are expected to have a bad pass rush again this year.

Youth Progression

Two of Chicago’s 3 starting CB – Tyrique Stevenson and Kyler Gordon – are still young players establishing themselves in the NFL, and as you can see in the table below, they both saw their performance change quite significantly as the season wore on and they grew more comfortable.

A few thoughts:

• Stevenson wasn’t targeted as frequently in the first month of the season, but he was brutal when the ball did head his way, as the catch rate and yards/target marks were both far worse than NFL norms.
  • After that first month, teams started throwing at Stevenson far more frequently, but they saw much less success when doing so. The catch rate and yards/targets marks both improved to average or better.
  • The overall yards/coverage snap didn’t change much between samples, but I would argue that the 2nd sample is a far more effective player overall. The increased target rate is likely due to teams realizing they needed to avoid Jaylon Johnson, who saw a target every 7.6 snaps in weeks 1-4 and 11.7 snaps in weeks 5+.
• Gordon actually saw his production shift in much the same way as Stevenson, though it happened at a different time in the season. An early injury knocked him out for a month, so the first 8 weeks overall made up his first 4 games.
  • Like Stevenson, Gordon saw his target frequency increase in the latter part of the season, likely due to Jaylon getting targeted less often (8.5 snaps/target weeks 1-8, 12.9 snaps/target weeks 9+).
  • Like Stevenson, Gordon saw his efficiency when targeted skyrocket in the 2nd sample, as the catch rate and yards/target marks both improved significantly.
  • Like Stevenson, the increased target rate offset the improved efficiency in overall yards/snap values, but the when-targeted improvement still signifies a more productive player.
• Teams are likely to target Gordon and Stevenson fairly frequently in 2024 if Jaylon Johnson continues his strong play, so they should get plenty of opportunities to continue showcasing their improvement.

Man/Zone Split

Let’s dive in a little deeper now and look at how frequently and effectively each cornerback performed in man and zone coverage. The table below shows the same stats as the 1st one above, but for both man and zone, with an additional stat showing what % of their overall coverage snaps were played in each coverage. Like in the table above, ranks compared to the 109 CBs with 250+ coverage snaps are shown in parentheses, with 55th being average, top 25% highlighted in green, and bottom 25% highlighted in red.

A few thoughts:

• You might notice that the man% + zone % don’t add up to 100%, but instead between 85-90% for the various samples (including the average of all players). I don’t know why this is, but my guess is it accounts for plays where the coverage couldn’t be determined, which can happen on quick screens.
• The 1st thing that stands out to me is that the Bears ran a lot of zone coverage. All 4 CBs ranked toward the top in % of snaps in zone and towards the bottom in % of snaps in man. I don’t anticipate that changing going forward since Matt Eberflus comes from a cover-2 background, so overall zone coverage will be more important for Chicago defenders.
• Jaylon Johnson was awesome in man and zone coverage last year. There’s not much more to say besides that.
• Tyrique Stevenson was highly targeted in both man and zone, and performed similarly in both of the cumulative statistics (yards/target around average, yards/coverage snap near the bottom due to the high target frequency).
  • He got there in different ways though. Stevenson gave up a lot of catches in man coverage, but generally kept them fairly short relative to his peers. That pattern was flipped in zone, where he allowed a lower catch rate but more damage per catch.
• Kyler Gordon likewise saw fairly similar results in both man and zone. He was targeted at roughly an average rate and did a good job of keeping catches short to keep his yards/target and yards/snap marks very solid.
  • Gordon especially excelled at limiting yards after the catch, which suggests he is a very sure tackler with excellent closing speed.
• Terell Smith was targeted at a laughably high rate when the Bears put him in man coverage, but he held up really well there. It’s a small sample size – only 16 targets – but he did a great job of limiting catches, which made his yards/target mark among the best in the NFL.
  • He did well in zone too, in a larger sample size, seeing targets at a more average rate, keeping passes short, and limiting yards after the catch to rank quite well in both yards/target and yards/snap.

Slot Coverage

Finally, let’s end today with a look at slot coverage. Like mentioned above, this is where Gordon saw most of his action in 2023, and new safety Kevin Byard actually defended the slot quite a bit as well, so we’ll examine him here too. The table below shows how both players ranked compared to 43 NFL defenders with at least 150 slot coverage snaps. Like above, values in the top 25% (11 or better) are highlighted in green, while those in the bottom 25% (33 or worse) are red.

A few thoughts:

• Gordon comes out quite well here compared more directly to other slot players, as he ranks average or better in pretty much every category and comes out at 10th in yards/target, which I think is the most useful overall metric for a one-stop glance.
  • This again shows excellent improvement from a brutal rookie season that saw Gordon allow a 91% catch rate and 10.8 yards/target in the slot. He gave up 2 fewer yards/catch in year 2 than he did per target as a rookie, and I think that focusing solely on playing nickel back thanks to the addition of Stevenson and Smith outside helped in this regard.
  • Like we saw in his overall stats above, this looks even better if you focus on the back half of the season. From week 9 on, Gordon gave up a 67% catch rate and 6.0 yards/target.
  • Overall, it seems that Gordon is establishing himself as a quality slot defender, with potential to place himself in the conversation about the best nickelbacks in the game if he takes another step forward in year 3.
• Byard wasn’t as good of a slot defender as Gordon, though he still wasn’t terrible. He saw targets at a high rate and allowed a lot of catches, but did a good job of limiting yards after the catch to keep his yards/target rate around average.
  • It’s likely Byard will see less work defending the slot in Chicago, as no safety has seen more than 75 snaps in slot defense in Eberflus’ 2 years here.
  • In case you’re wondering, just comparing him to other safeties doesn’t really change anything, as the overall averages stayed fairly consistent (6.1 snaps/target, 7.1 yards/target, 1.2 yards/snap). Byard’s overall ranks out of the 8 safeties in this sample stayed pretty consistent as the full 43 man sample.

Lessons Learned

This article got kind of long, so here are the main takeaways:

• The Bears play mostly zone defense, and don’t ask their CBs to do much man coverage.
• Jaylon Johnson was an absolute stud in both man and zone in 2023, and the Bears are hoping that continues going forward.
• Johnson’s prowess meant that Kyler Gordon and Tyrique Stevenson both got targeted a lot.
  • Both improved as the season wore on, with hope for continued improvement in 2024.
  • Stevenson generally performed around average against both man and zone.
  • After an atrocious rookie year in 2022, Gordon was solidly above average in both man and zone last year. He shifted into the nickel back spot almost exclusively and held up quite well when compared more directly to other slot defenders.
• Terell Smith performed admirably for a rookie 5th round pick, but his positive data should be taken with a grain of salt due to a fairly small sample size.
• Coverage is closely tied to pass rush as a cumulative pass defense, and it’s impressive that Chicago’s cornerbacks performed so well in coverage despite the Bears having one of the worst pass rushes in the NFL.