■ Biggs: Defense hasn’t delivered often this season. Plus scouting report, predictions.
Much is expected of Bears defense, but unit hasn’t often delivered
The Bears have fallen back on the idea that “the standard is the standard,” a line coordinator Chuck Pagano has repeated when it comes to the defense.
What exactly that is has become ambiguous in the second half of the season.
The play of the unit has deteriorated over the last two months, and I was wide of the mark when I wrote before the Week 15 game against the Minnesota Vikings that the Bears were going to have to lean on their defense if they wanted to make a late-season run. The Bears prevailed in what was essentially a playoff-elimination game, getting a couple of stops in the red zone and on fourth down in a performance otherwise filled with red flags and concerning signs.
A handful of games that appeared to be aberrations, blips on the radar for one of the best units in the league, have changed the standard for the Bears, who finished 11th in total defense, 15th versus the run, 12th versus the pass, eighth on third down, fifth in the red zone and 13th in points.
Over the course of the season, the defense stacked up well against the rest of the league. While the Bears were tied for 25th in takeaways and 17th in sacks, Football Outsiders’ final rankings had them eighth overall. But entering the playoffs, this is a different defense than the one that led the Bears to a 5-1 start.
The Bears did a nice job against the New Orleans Saints in the first meeting, limiting them to 2-for-13 production on third down. But quarterback Drew Brees was without his top two wide receivers in Michael Thomas and Emmanuel Sanders.
The Saints will be close to full strength unless running back Alvin Kamara is not cleared from the reserve/covid-19 list. The Bears are fully expecting to see him.
The Saints will be a huge task for a Bears defense that has surrendered 27 points or more in four of its last six games. Players have clung to the idea this remains an elite unit, but it has looked only upper bracket against the likes of the Jacksonville Jaguars and Houston Texans, who were without any of Deshaun Watson’s primary targets.
“I’ve seen ’em do it before,” said Pagano, who set the tone at the start of the week by showing players 20 clips of mostly good plays from the first meeting.
There’s plenty to be said for the power of positivity, but there just isn’t a recent example of this defense taking over a game since Week 5, when the Bears beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 20-19. At some point being overly optimistic fades into a delusion.
“In order to go down there and play well and beat this team, our game-wreckers, our five-stars have to play that way,” Pagano said. “Our four-stars, our three-stars, everybody has to play to their ability, you know?”
It makes sense, but what four-star players on this defense have regularly taken over games? Outside of inside linebacker Roquan Smith, who is expected to miss the game with a left elbow injury, what starters have been elite this season?
The defense isn’t what it was at the start of the season. It can be argued it isn’t as good as it was last season and is a long way off from the level it played in 2018.
It has been a difficult season for NFL defenses. There is no such thing as homefield advantage as empty stadiums make it easier for offenses to operate at the line of scrimmage in what normally would be hostile environments. But that’s across the board and not inherent just to the Bears.
If you were going to pick the biggest surprise of the season for the Bears, it would either be the complete failure of quarterback Nick Foles or the slow decline of the defense. The Bears have made huge investments in the defense — the signing of outside linebacker Robert Quinn was the biggest expenditure on an outside player — and the team is no longer elite.
Fans want to point the finger at Pagano, and it would be nice if the problem were that tidy and neat. It’s not.
Players 30 or older accounted for 37.5% of the snaps on defense — and that doesn’t include 29-year-old Khalil Mack, who will join that age bracket next season. The Bears have only three regular contributorson rookie contracts on defense, including Smith, defensive lineman Bilal Nichols and rookie cornerback Jaylon Johnson.
Units in decline can fall apart quickly, and defenses age faster than offenses because the NFL is all about running, hitting and being violent at the point of attack.
If you go back to 2012, the Bears were 10-6 but missed the playoffs despite being ranked fifth in total defense, eighth versus the run and pass, sixth on third own, third in scoring and first in takeaways. The next year, the Bears were 30th in total defense, 32nd versus the run and tied for 30th in scoring.
That was an aging defense that was coming apart, and there were extenuating circumstances as Lovie Smith was fired and Mel Tucker came in with orders to run the old system, not his own. This unit isn’t quite as old and isn’t going to go off the cliff like the 2012 Bears defense, but it’s fair to wonder if this is a process in motion or whether expectations on the defense should be adjusted in 2021.
The model the Bears created — winning with an elite defense and an improving offense — has produced a .500 record each of the last two seasons, and as concerning as some of the defensive issues are, quarterback remains the No. 1 concern facing the organization — and there isn’t a close second. The fear has to be that the championship window for this defense has closed.
For now, at least for this weekend, the Bears are dialed in only to the Saints and what it will take to spring the biggest upset on wild-card weekend. Pagano is right when he says the team’s best players have to perform. The media have said the same for weeks and waited for it to happen. It hasn’t.
The standard must be reevaluated in the offseason.
Scouting report
David Onyemata, Saints defensive tackle Information for this report was obtained from NFL scout
The 6-foot-4, 300-pound Onyemata is a Nigerian native who was a fourth-round draft pick in 2016 from the University of Manitoba, the same school that produced former Bears defensive lineman Israel Idonije. Onyemata, a three technique, had a career-high 6 1⁄2 sacks this season to go with 42 tackles in 15 games.
“Onyemata is one of the best threetechniques in the league that you don’t hear the media talk about. He’s one of the most underrated defensive linemen in the NFL, and he’s overshadowed because he’s on a line with Cam Jordan. And Trey Hendrickson has had a big year and Demario Davis is an All-pro talent at the second level. But that system wouldn’t be the same without Onyemata.
“He’s got disruptive traits. He’s got movement ability and that initial first-step quickness to penetrate up the field. He’s got good short-area quickness, that burst to get from zero to five or to the quarterback. He’s got pretty active hands, good counters and he can convert speed to power as well. He’s a really refined pass rusher. When you have those edge guys that the Saints do, that can force the quarterback to step up, and now you have Onyemata pushing the pocket. He can be a load inside.”