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).

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It’s Mini-Bye week in Chicago! With that in mind, let’s check in on the 2023 Bears rookie class — today, we’ll do the first & second round players, then tomorrow we’ll cover the rest of the class.

Darnell Wright:

• Overall: In my opinion, Wright has been about as good as you can ask a rookie tackle to be. He’s displayed natural power in his hands both as a run and a pass blocker, but it’s been his pass-blocking that’s stood out through 5 games so far. Wright is often left on an island with little to no help and fends for himself nicely — he’s been beaten at least once or twice in every game he’s played in, but that’s all part of playing tackle as a rookie.
  • The key is that he bounces back — getting beaten happens at tackle, but he doesn’t let bad reps snowball. Montez Sweat beat him early in Washington (just like Rashan Gary beat him early in Week 1) but he adjusted his kick-step in later reps and held Sweat off as the game wore on. I love seeing that from a young-gun.
• Where he’s surprised me: Wright is fast when he’s run-blocking on the move, which I didn’t expect based on his Tennessee film. That WR conditioning test clearly paid off.
• Improvement area: Wright’s kick-step can be sluggish off the snap, making him vulnerable to rushers that can bend the edge with speed. Players like Montez Sweat, Rashan Gary, Aiden Hutchinson and others will give him trouble until this is resolved, but I doubt this problem will persist for long. If the issue is still present closer to Week 11, we’ll take a deeper look.

Gervon Dexter Sr:

• Overall: So far Dexter has looked more raw than I expected him to at the NFL level, and my expectations weren’t particularly high for his rookie year — his Florida film showed a bully with the brawn to take on anybody, but NFL OL are taking advantage of Gervon’s naturally high pad level and have stopped him in his tracks.
  • He clearly spent the preseason working on his get-off (which doesn’t appear to be an issue anymore), but now he’s got to find a way to apply his natural power to reps more often — if he can, he’ll impact many more reps.
• Where he’s surprised me: Dexter did a much better job of landing strong hands on his OL matchups early in reps against Washington, leading to some of his first pass rush wins of the season. You can see his power flash in reps like the two clips below (second one is a reply to the first, so click the link to see it).
• Improvement area: Beyond Dexter refining his fundamentals and finding way to lower his pad-level, right now Gervon Dexter has a funky quirk as a pass-rusher — I’m not convinced he can rush to his left. Even going back to Florida, he’s always preferred to attack towards his right-hand side or drive through his OL, and while he did attempt a few left-side rush attempts against Washington, those reps looked much less dangerous than many of his other rushes in the game.
  • This could be an offseason project, but keep an eye out — maybe Dexter surprises us.

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Happy Thursday everyone! The Bears’ defense reportedly showed out in their first joint practice with Indianapolis, giving the Colts’ offense early and finishing well in the late 2-minute drill. They’re playing with energy, finishing drills, and trash talking throughout practice — Adam Jahns writes that the unit has an ‘edge’, and that’s exactly what they’ll need throughout the 2023 season.

But which players are catalyzing the Bears’ defensive attitude shift? What worked last Saturday? What didn’t? To find out, let’s dissect the opening drive of last weekend’s preseason game and see what Alan Williams and the Bears’ defensive starters are cooking in prep for the 2023 season.

Our first two episodes of Dissecting a Drive covered the offense exclusively, so it’s about time we dive into the Bears’ defensive scheme! Lucky for us, Saturday’s Bears game provided us with a 12-play Tennessee touchdown drive that’s ripe for reviewing.

Keep in mind that because it’s the preseason, this is the most vanilla flavor of the Bears’ defensive structure you’ll see all year. That said, I can confirm that the Bears’ defensive bones are still in place throughout the drive — you’ll see a healthy dose of Cover 3, Cover 2, and Tampa 2 throughout this video and throughout the 2023 season, regardless of how the Bears tailor their calls to each opponent going forward.

In this drive, we see:

• A calmer, much-improved Kyler Gordon
• How Tennessee used pre-snap motion to create leverage for their run blockers
• The good, the bad, and the ugly from Dominique Robinson, Andrew Billings, and Rasheem Green
• Jack Sanborn’s big hits, big misses, and the impact Tremaine Edmunds will have on this defense
• TJ Edwards’ physicality and presence within the Bears’ defense
• How Alan Williams used subtle shifts within the Defensive Line Front to create mismatches for his DTs
• Tyrique Stevenson’s ups and downs
• And much, much more

Check it out and let me know what you think!

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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 

Saturday’s Standouts:

• Rookie CB Tyrique Stevenson had as impressive a debut as a rookie could have, especially given that the Bears played so much vanilla Cover 2 and Cover 3 that any outside CB would’ve struggled to shine. Last week on DBB we dove deep into Stevenson’s toolkit, and you could already see a notable improvement in his tackling form on Saturday — despite often needing to charge downhill and make tackles underneath, he completed every tackle he attempted, which is saying something when you end the day with 7 solo tackles!
  • Stevenson received a warm welcome to the NFL in only his first play, but I loved the resiliency he displayed throughout the rest of the half. He set the edge in the run game, he played sticky in limited man coverage reps, and gave Bears fans plenty to get excited about in his debut action. I love this kid & can’t wait to watch his growth.

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

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Darnell Wright, OT

and the interview…

Gervon Dexter, DT

and chatting…

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