I joined forces with Bill Zimmerman over at Windy City Gridiron to preview the Bears’ Training Camp — if you’re looking for a primer on some of the defense’s upcoming camp stories, look no further!
Coming up, I hope to have a few in-depth training camp previews out on the site… but for now, we’re still in the final days of the offseason. Take in this defensive episode today and I’ll post the corresponding offensive episode soon after.
Matt Eberflus’ transformation into Cover 3 Mike Zimmer has been an awesome thing to watch, and Sunday’s Detroit game had plenty of examples of Eberflus’ handiwork.
On this early 3rd & 10, Chicago sends a 6-man blitz paired with man coverage on the back end. Kyler Gordon recognizes Detroit’s pre-snap short motion, passes his assignment to Jaylon Johnson, and from there the back-7 executes flawlessly. When this defense is executing together, it’s a beautiful thing to watch.
https://twitter.com/robertkschmitz/status/1734334221009797410
Gone are the days of Matt Eberflus calling static drop-7 coverages on 3rd or 4th & longs — if Flus isn’t afraid of your Quarterback, he’ll send pressure (and plenty of it) on any down.
Editor’s Note: In the future, we’ll make have a GameDay post and a Postgame post of some sort — it’s preseason for all of us, and those two articles totally slipped my mind. Thank you for bearing with us as we transition!
It’s official: The 2023 Chicago Bears are undefeated!
Joking aside, the Bears got their first taste of 2023 football as they took on the Tennessee Titans last Saturday and plenty of players showed out for Chicago as they did. The Bears’ offensive starters scored easily on their only two drives (which somehow still set Twitter aflame) and the defense recovered from giving up the opening touchdown to muster 8 sacks, 4 takeaways, and a pesky performance overall.
To break down everything that happened in one article would create an illegible beast, so in an effort to keep things clean we’re going to split the analysis across Monday and Tuesday — we’ll start today with the Defense and continue with the Offense tomorrow.
Editor’s Note: Check back with this article throughout the day — as I produce more All-22 cutups, I’ll update this article to include more analysis
Welcome to the NFL, Rookie!
The big gain that #Bears CB Tyrique Stevenson allowed came on a Titans mid-play adjustment — Stevenson blanketed his man early (even cutting in front for the ball) but never saw the WR's spin-to-space coming.
Better now than Week 1! pic.twitter.com/e7irvFdk2Z
— Robert Schmitz (@robertkschmitz) August 14, 2023
Training camp is that magical time of year when every NFL fan can have exactly what they want. If you are an optimist who wants to believe your favorite team is going to be good, there’s plenty of reason for hope. If you get your jollies on being negative (you know who you are), it’s not hard to find something to be pessimistic about.
Regardless of which side of the fence you fall on, today’s article will have something for you. Let’s go through the roster position-by-position and identify why you should be hopeful and why you should be concerned. We did the offense yesterday, so today will focus on the defense.
Reason for hope: Uhhh… this isn’t exactly an easy place to start. I guess it can’t be worse than last year, when the pass rush was arguably the worst the NFL has seen in the last five years after trading Robert Quinn away midseason. The Bears return Justin Jones and Trevis Gipson, who are both capable but not dominant players, and invested in a whole host of players between free agency (DeMarcus Walker, Andrew Billings, Rasheem Green) and the draft (Gervon Dexter, Zacch Pickens). Dexter in particular has a ton of physical tools and earned rave reviews throughout offseason practices, and could be a rookie who surprises. This group probably won’t be great at rushing the passer, but they don’t have to be to still be effective and help the Bears have a competent defense (as DBB’s Andrew Dannehy pointed out a few weeks ago).
Cause for concern: Barring a rookie stepping up in a big way, nobody on the roster even remotely resembles a top-level starter that can produce while drawing extra defensive attention. At best, this defensive line is a bunch of secondary pieces who can hopefully hold up against the run, but won’t offer much else. You know it’s bad when Terrell Lewis – who enters his 4th NFL season with 6 career sacks and is switching from LB to DE this offseason – drew the most hype of any defensive lineman during OTAs.
Reason for hope: The Bears signed two of the best linebackers available on the free agent market in Tremaine Edmunds and TJ Edwards. Both are solid all-around players who can defend the run and the pass, and they are just entering their primes as they prepare for their 5th NFL season. The depth behind them is pretty solid too, as Jack Sanborn impressed as a rookie last year and 5th round pick Noah Sewell drew positive reports from OTAs when he ran with the starters while Sanborn was out hurt.
Camp approaches, which means it’s time for me to grade the roster. Like I’ve done the last few years, I’ll grade on a 1-10 scale, with 1 being the worst in the NFL, 10 being the best, and 5 being an average NFL unit. Let’s get right down to it.
Key Players: DeMarcus Walker, Trevis Gipson, Rasheem Green, Dominique Robinson
Others: Terrell Lewis, Jalen Harris, Jalyn Holmes, D’Anthony Jones
This group is bad. Like, really bad. The saddest part is that this is still a significant improvement to what they had after trading Robert Quinn away last year, as Walker is clearly better than the departed Al-Quadin Muhammad, and Green improves the depth. Trevis Gipson is a capable rotational pass rusher when he’s not the guy opposing offenses are worried about, so I’m hopeful he can have something of a bounceback 2023.
This position group is the perfect storm of bad veterans and also no rookies to even consider getting excited about. Unless Dominique Robinson takes a massive step up from a disappointing rookie season, this should easily be the worst position group on the roster (and one of the worst overall in the NFL). It’s still possible Ryan Poles finally makes the defensive end signing he’s been teasing at for a few months, but even then the available options will likely take them from awful to bad.
Key Players: Justin Jones, Andrew Billings, Gervon Dexter Sr., Zacch Pickens
Others: Travis Bell, Andrew Brown, Donovan Jeter
While concerns about how terrible the Chicago Bears defense is right now might be warranted, there’s no real way of knowing if it will be a long term problem.
Since the trades of Robert Quinn and Roquan Smith, the Bears have struggled to get stops. Their defense has gone from a top-15 unit to, very likely, the worst in the entire league. There is certainly a lack of talent, but a significantly greater concern is that it doesn’t appear the unit is getting any better.
How many times must we see the entire team bite hard on a simple play action fake? That should be fixed by now. How are their defensive ends still not able to contain? (Didn’t Daniel Jones teach them anything?) It’s hard to say if the team lacks coaching or if the players are incapable of taking the coaching.
There are examples of defensive coaches who struggled early and turned it around and there are others who simply never were able to correct the issues. The Bears could’ve looked across the sideline for an example of the former last week as Robert Saleh had the worst defense in the league in 2021 and the Jets are a top five unit in 2022. Or, it could be like Brandon Staley who was given a pass for his 29th-ranked scoring defense in 2021 and, after an infusion of talent, still has the 29th-ranked scoring defense in 2022.
There really is no way to tell at this point.
Justin Fields was the major positive to come from Sunday’s loss to the Vikings. But that ground has been well covered. Today’s column looks elsewhere.
Second Half Defensive Dominance
The Bears have now allowed 26 points total in the second half this season, and one touchdown. They’ve also shown a knack for making the big play in the final two quarters, with Kindle Vildor continuing his solid season, adding his first career interception.
Jaylon Johnson isn’t playing. Roquan Smith whiffs on a big tackle every week. The middle of the defensive line is terrible. The pass rush is often nonexistent. But the Bears are emerging from halftime each week an inspired defense. It is a testament to the coaching staff.
Cole Kmet’s Season Begins?
Kmet had two catches against the Texans, three against the Giants, and now four against the Vikings. But if Fields is going to start attacking defenses underneath, like he did Sunday, Kmet is going to be the biggest beneficiary. He is also the only Bears receiving weapon that seems to work the middle of the field.
Rookies Making Plays
Kyler Gordon was a sure tackler and was inches from a game-changing pick six. (His coverage is still an issue.)
Dominique Robinson blocked a field goal.
Velus Jones Jr. scored a touchdown and looked to have a burst in the kickoff return game. (Why was he only on the field for 6% of snaps?)
You don’t win in the NFL playing a bunch of rookies, but their performances suggest a promising future for the franchise.
If the Chicago defense is going to establish itself as a good unit, Sunday in New Jersey is the perfect time to do so.
The unit’s numbers are a bit mixed, which probably best describes their performance. The team is 11th in points allowed and 20th in yardage. They’re 9th in passing defense, 30th against the run. That’s all fine, especially considering their talent. But a deeper dive is less encouraging.
They are 17th in points allowed per drive, 22nd in yardage. However, because they’re seventh in takeaways – The Eberflus Effect – they are 11th in DVOA.
At the very least, this defense is mediocre. They have a chance to be better than that. They struggled in the first half against San Francisco and Green Bay and had some issues early against Houston. But they have been lights out in the second half, another effect of having Eberflus at the helm. (A lot of this is due to Kyler Gordon’s second half performances being far superior to his first halves.)
They need to put it together for four quarters. Sunday is a prime opportunity.
The signing of Larry Ogunjobi was telling in that it shows the new Chicago Bears regime knows it has to maintain a solid defense for the development of Justin Fields, or whoever the long-term quarterback may be. Ogunjobi will fill a critical position in the Matt Eberflus defense, profiling as the prototypical three-technique, responsible for pressure up the middle. The contract, reported to be three years and $40.5 million, caused some uproar. Why? Because 2022 should rightfully be all about quarterback and it’s hard to argue a defensive tackle helps a quarterback. But this addition will help take pressure off of Justin Fields.
And the new defensive tackle is a very good player. He has had ten or more tackles for a loss, five sacks and at least 13 quarterback hits in three of the last four seasons. He essentially replaces Akiem Hicks, who hasn’t had ten tackles for loss or five sacks since 2018.
Trading Khalil Mack certainly sent mixed signals.
If the draft history of the Indianapolis Colts is any indication, Matt Eberflus is going to target front seven players who are exceptionally fast with long arms. In four years with Eberflus as their defensive coordinator, the Colts drafted six edge players and six linebackers. The sheer number of players at those positions in four years should be enough to raise eyebrows, but he also seemed to have a specific type, which could key Bears fans into some prospects after the NFL Scouting Combine this week.
Bears fans would be wise to begin familiarizing themselves with the linebackers in the 2022 draft. The Colts almost always took one and that’s surely because Eberlus — a former linebackers coach — prioritizes the position. (We saw in the mid-2000s how important having Lance Briggs and Brian Urlacher were to the Bears.)
