RUNNING INTO MORE TROUBLE
Bears’ defense faces big challenge in trying to contain kamara
Alvin Kamara was the best player dealt in the Mitch Trubisky trade— the Bears sent the No. 67 pick of the 2017 draft to the 49ers, who flipped it to the Saints, who used it to pick the star running back — but he’s a lot of other things, too.
Defensive coordinator Chuck Pagano seems intent on listing them all.
“He’s a game-wrecker,” Pagano said. “Nightmare.” What else?
“He’s as good as any receiver in the league,” Pagano said. “He can run the whole route tree. From the backfield, split out, in motion, whatever it is. He’s just phenomenal — and the game’s so easy to him. He’s just floating and gliding and he breaks tackles and he can stop and start, get to full speed on his second step, make guys miss.
“We have to do a phenomenal job. It’s like ‘Where’sWaldo?’ ” Coach Matt Nagy listed traits, too.
“Whether it’s getting the handoff and hitting the outside zone, the inside zone, whether it’s breaking tackles, catching the ball out of the backfield, being able to make a guy miss in space,” Nagy said. “And then in protection, too, he’s able to stay in there and protect when he needs to.”
Pagano knows the Bears can’t completely stop him Sunday, when they play the Saints at Soldier Field.
“If you can hold this guy under 100 . . . scrimmage yards,” he said. “you’re probably going to have a good day.”
The Bears have allowed two running backs to total more than 100 yards this season— the Lions’ Adrian Peterson and the Buccaneers’ Ronald Jones.
But that doesn’t tell the whole story. The Bears are allowing 4.3 yards per carry, which is 0.4 yards more than last season, 0.6 more than 2018 and the most since 2016. Monday against the Rams, the Bears found themselves with an increasingly familiar feeling— theywere bullied on the ground, giving up 34 carries for 160 yards.
The Bears have allowed as many runs of 10 yards or more this year as they did all of last season. The 27 such rushes are four more than they allowed in all of 2018.
They Bears have been bullied by pedestrian backs, too. Only Jones and the Falcons’ Todd Gurley rank in the top 20 in rushing yards per game. Kamara, though, is “one of the premier players in this league,” inside linebacker Danny Trevathan said.
Defensive end Akiem Hicks was even more colorful in describing Kamara, who has run 75 times for 364 yards and has already caught 46 passes for 460 yards.
“You have to have respect for those special players out there,” he said, “that can stop on a dime and leave you 9 cents change.”
The Bears expect to get a steady diet of Kamara and fellow running back Latavius Murray on Sunday, particularly if Soldier Field, as expected, is enveloped by strong winds and freezing temperatures.
Kamara missed last year’s meeting on the lakefront with an injury. When he was a rookie, the Bears held him under 100 yards— he ran eight times for 28 yards and a touchdown and caught three passes for 48 in the Saints’ home win. That was three Pro Bowl appearances ago, though. “You want to make sure you can contain [the Saints],” Hicks said. “You gotta play with all 11 guys. You gotta get everybody to the football, because this is not an easy tackle. This is going to be a challenge that we’re going to have to meet this weekend.”