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 started with CB, looked at LB yesterday, and today we’ll finish by examining the safeties.

Side note: If you read either of the last 2 articles, this one will follow the exact same format and have identical table setup, so hopefully the familiarity makes digesting all of the data a little easier. 

Basic Coverage Stats

Let’s start with a basic look at coverage stats for Chicago’s safeties last year. There were 85 S with 250+ coverage snaps, or 2.7 per team, which makes a convenient threshold for starting players since some teams deploy 3 safety nickel looks fairly frequently. Chicago had 3 safeties qualify in 2023: Eddie Jackson, Jaquan Brisker, and Elijah Hicks. They also signed two more players this offseason who qualified in Kevin Byard (spent 2023 with Titans and Eagles) and Jonathan Owens (spent 2023 with Packers), so we’ll examine their coverage metrics as well.

• Ranks compared to the 85 S in the sample are given in parentheses, and for a little context, 43rd would be exactly in the middle.
• Those in the top 25% (21st or better) are highlighted in green.
• Those in the bottom 25% (65th 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:

• I find the parallels between Eddie Jackson and Elijah Hicks interesting. Both players were rarely targeted, and mostly on deep balls when it did head their way.
  • Hicks mainly played in place of Jackson when he was hurt, and this suggests the Bears kept their roles the same – covering deep.
  • That should naturally keep the catch and target rates pretty low, but both players still gave up far too many catches and yards down the field, which is why their yards/target marks were among the worst in the NFL.
  • The low target rates meant the yards/snap marks were around average, but my assumption is that Chicago’s coaching staff was unhappy with how many plays they gave up downfield.
    • There’s a reason Eddie Jackson won’t be back in Chicago, and that no other NFL team signed him until right before camp. He’s now expected to be a backup in Baltimore.
    • There’s also a reason the Bears brought in 2 experienced safeties as backups this offseason (Owens and Tarvarius Moore). After serving as the 3rd safety a year ago, Hicks faces an uphill battle to even make the roster this year.
• Jaquan Brisker, on the other hand, sees a very different usage pattern. He was targeted far more frequently, but on much shorter passes, which indicates the Bears were using him much closer to the line of scrimmage. This makes sense given that Brisker is known more as a box safety who’s a force against the run.
  • This mirrors his coverage metrics from 2022, when he was targeted even more frequently (every 10.6 snaps) and the average catch he gave up was only shorter (3.9 yards downfield).
  • To his credit, Brisker held up fairly well in this role, though it’s usually one that you reserve for a safety you don’t trust much in coverage.
  • The Bears have already said that they expect to use Byard and Brisker more interchangeably than they did with Brisker and Eddie Jackson, so it will be interesting to see how Brisker holds up when he is given more downfield coverage responsibility.
• Kevin Byard’s metrics don’t look very good for somebody the Bears clearly targeted as an upgrade to Eddie Jackson. He was targeted frequently and gave up a high catch rate, though he generally did ok limiting the damage of each catch.
  • This was a bit of a down year from Byard. From 2021-22, he was targeted every 15.1 snaps, gave up a 64% catch rate, and averaged 7.6 yards/target and 0.5 yards/coverage snap. Those are solidly above-average coverage numbers, and the hope is that he can return to that in 2024.
  • The more pessimistic view would be that Byard turns 31 in August, so it’s possible that he’s slowing down a bit and 2023 was more a sign of things to come.
• Jonathan Owens has pretty similar usage patterns and results to Brisker in coverage, suggesting Green Bay used him mostly near the line of scrimmage. Again, he held up pretty well there, but that doesn’t mean he’ll be a good downfield defender if that is needed from him this year.
  • We get a hint of the downfield coverage from Owens’ 2022 data, when he was targeted less frequently (every 14.5 snaps) but more downfield (average catch 8.1 yards past the line of scrimmage). It did not go well, as Owens ended up allowing 10 yards/target. It seems that Green Bay moved him closer to the line of scrimmage because they felt he couldn’t hold up deep.

Man/Zone Split

Let’s dive in a little deeper now and look at how frequently and effectively each S 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 85 S with 250+ coverage snaps are shown in parentheses, with 43rd being average, top 25% highlighted in green, and bottom 25% highlighted in red.

A few thoughts:

• Like we’ve already seen with CB and LB, Chicago’s defense didn’t play much man, but instead relied on a ton of zone defense. The 2 new safeties both played appreciably more man coverage last year than they will be expected to do in Chicago.
  • It’s a good thing for Brisker that the Bears didn’t ask him to do much man coverage, because he really struggled when they did. In particular, the high air yards/catch mark suggests that he got burned downfield too often. This is a potential area of growth to watch for in year 3.
  • Eddie Jackson seemed to hold up pretty well in man, mainly because he was almost never targeted. When he did give up catches, they were quite a ways down the field, but he kept that from happening very often.
  • Elijah Hicks likewise did pretty well in man coverage, but in a very different way. The average catch he allowed was behind the line of scrimmage, which suggests to me that coaches really didn’t trust him to cover 1-on-1 downfield.
• In zone, we really see the split in usage between Brisker and Jackson/Hicks.
  • Brisker was targeted frequently but very short, and he did an excellent job of limiting yards after the catch on those short passes.
  • Jackson and Hicks were targeted infrequently but gave up too many deep completions when they were targeted.
• Looking at the new safeties, Byard was slightly below average in yards/target in both man and zone, but saw targets a lot more frequently in man, which made him fare worse there in yards/snap. His zone metrics in particular were right around average on pretty much everything except giving up a high catch rate.
• Owens mirrors Brisker in that he struggled with giving up too many downfield catches in man coverage, though a low catch rate on those targets still gives him reasonable overall metrics. In zone, he also matches Brisker in giving up mostly short stuff, which suggests he had zones in the flat instead of covering the deep field.

Lessons Learned

Let’s wrap up today with some main takeaways:

• Eddie Jackson and Elijah Hicks were both tasked with defending deep downfield in 2023, but struggled doing so, which is why Jackson is gone and Hicks is unlikely to make the roster.
• Jaquan Brisker holds up reasonably well in underneath zone coverage, but now will have to prove that he can handle more demanding assignments as his role shifts and he is asked to cover deep more in 2024.
• New backup safety Jonathan Owens has a similar profile to Brisker, though he showed in 2022 that he couldn’t handle the more demanding coverage assignments.
• Incoming starter Kevin Byard struggled quite a bit in man coverage in 2023, perhaps because he is slowing down. The increase in zone assignments he will see in Chicago should help him continue to hold up reasonably well as he ages.

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In other news, DJ Moore is now a Bear for the next 4-6 seasons!

DJ Moore and the Bears reached agreement on a four-year, $110 million extension that includes $82.6M guaranteed. The deal was negotiated by Drew Rosenhaus, Jason Rosenhaus and Robert Bailey.

Moore now has had the first 10 years of his career years guaranteed, a first in NFL… pic.twitter.com/ZYmOdjOSW9

— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) July 30, 2024