Middling Monsters
Where have all the big plays by the Bears defense gone?
Chuck Pagano promised to “leave no bullets in the chamber.” The Chicago Bears defensive coordinator knew the stakes of Sunday’s game against the Green Bay Packers and understands firsthand how damn difficult it has become to disrupt Aaron Rodgers, who’s favored to win his third NFL MVP award while enjoying what many believe is the best season of his career.
But Pagano promised last week that his defense would give Rodgers and the Packers their best shot in the regular-season finale — from strategic wrinkles to coverage disguises to good oldfashioned extra effort.
“Everybody understands the opportunity in front of us,” Pagano said, “and that these opportunities don’t come around very often.”
The Bears agreed they couldn’t afford to fall into a trap of being overly conservative. They had to challenge Rodgers with a variety of looks that could make him uncomfortable. They had to try to make the Packers quarterback play at least some of the game on their terms.
They had to attack at opportune moments.
So there the defense was Sunday afternoon in a big moment of a huge game. Second quarter, Bears ahead 10-7, Rodgers facing third-and-4 from the Packers 28 yard line.
Inside an empty Soldier Field, the “Bear Raid” siren was still blaring with public address announcer Tim Sinclair trying to provide some added ambience.
Bear down! It’s thirrrrrrd dowwwwn!
Pagano called for a simulated pressure with second-year cornerback Duke Shelley assigned to rush from the slot. The Bears, though, would send only a fourman pressure with lineman Akiem Hicks dropping off into coverage. But ideally, Pagano hoped, Rodgers wouldn’t see Shelley coming, wouldn’t have a trump card up his sleeve and wouldn’t be able to convert.
Edge rusher Robert Quinn ran in to replace Barkevious Mingo for the play. Packers coach Matt LaFleur went to his play sheet. Rodgers gathered his offense in the huddle.
When the Packers came out in an empty backfield with Marquez Valdes-Scantling, Allen Lazard and Robert Tonyan spread to the right and Davante Adams in the slot to the left inside of running back Jamaal Williams, Quinn seemed a touch frazzled. He raced toward the right side of the Bears defensive front before reversing back to the left and running into linebacker Josh Woods as he detoured.
LaFleur sensed “confusion” from the Bears. “There was something messed up,” he said.
Bears coach Matt Nagy disagreed, however, emphasizing Quinn’s frantic effort to get lined up was dictated by the Packers formation and “didn’t affect the play at all.”
“There wasn’t any confusion,” Nagy said.
Rodgers, meanwhile, had an option of bringing Williams back into the backfield for added passed protection. But when he recognized the Bears defense wasn’t quite locked and loaded, he made a decision to keep things exactly as they were.
“Stay there!” he yelled to Williams.
The play clock was winding down. Amid the chaos, LaFleur felt tempted to burn a timeout — for a split second. Then he remembered Aaron Rodgers is his quarterback.
“I’m like, ‘You know what, I’m going to trust that he’s got it under control.’ ”
Of course Rodgers had it under control. As he surveyed the Bears defense, he noticed an advantage to his right within the coverage. He saw what he wanted and took the snap.
Shelley came screaming out of the slot as a free runner and hit Rodgers 2.23 seconds after the snap. But Rodgers didn’t need that long. His pass was already away, perfectly precise down the right hash and into Valdes-Scantling’s hands as he blew past 30year-old linebacker Danny Trevathan for a 72-yard touchdown.
The Packers had the lead. By yardage alone, it was the biggest play of their 35-16 win over the Bears. It also was another reminder of how thin the margin for error is against Rodgers and, even worse for the Bears, evidence that their defense is no longer the dominant, championship-fueling force it once was.
Production dip: In an NFC North-clinching win over the Packers in December 2018, the Bears sacked Rodgers five times and got a win-sealing fourthquarter interception in the end zone from safety Eddie Jackson.
In the 2019 season opener, the Bears limited the Packers to one touchdown on 13 possessions while recording five sacks and seven quarterback hits.
This season? In two games against the Packers, excluding kneel-down possessions, the Bears defense gave up 10 touchdowns on 15 series, didn’t force a turnover and allowed the Packers to average 6.3 yards per play. Rodgers was sacked just once on 56 pass plays. He completed 75.5% of his passes, threw for 451 yards and eight touchdowns and posted a passer rating of 140 in those two wins.
The Bears are headed to the playoffs as an 8-8 wild-card team. But it’s clear their defense just isn’t the playmaking dynamo it used to be and will need a nearperfect performance Sunday in New Orleans to disrupt another high-powered offense and another future Hall of Fame quarterback in Drew Brees.
The Bears defense also heads into wild-card weekend shorthanded with standout linebacker Roquan Smith unlikely to play because of a serious elbow injury, cornerback Jaylon Johnson still “day to day” with the shoulder injury he suffered Dec. 13 and Buster Skrine still not cleared to return after suffering a concussion in Week 13.
Return on investment: The idea that this defense — as constructed and with the inconsistency it has shown this season — is still championship caliber is now a fantasy.
Quinn and Khalil Mack, whose combined salary-cap hit for 2020 is north of $32 million, totaled only 11 sacks between them.
Jackson, a two-time Pro Bowl selection, went without an interception for the first time in his career.
Kyle Fuller had only one pick. Hicks, meanwhile, hasn’t had a sack since dropping Atlanta Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan for a 4-yard loss in Week 3. Hicks has seven tackles for a loss this season.
As a unit, the Bears finished in the bottom five of the NFL in interceptions with 10. They finished in the bottom half of the league in sacks — 17th with 35.
They allowed 23.1 points per game, up 31% from their leaguebest effort in 2018 (17.7 ppg) and dropped out of the top 10 in total yardage allowed (344.1 per game) for the first time since 2016.
Including Sunday’s loss, the defense went without a takeaway five times. The Bears lost all five games.
After leading the NFL with 36 takeaways and 27 interceptions and posting an NFC-best 50 sacks in 2018, the Bears have averaged 18.5 takeaways, 10 interceptions and 33½ sacks in the two seasons since.
That drop-off is staggering.
Now what? All of it makes the dream of a surprise January run seem far-fetched. Yet it seemed particularly notable that Nagy offered words of encouragement for his defense in his Monday morning news conference.
“I just have a lot of trust in our guys,” he said. “And now it’s their job when they get an opportunity to make a play, they’ve got to make plays. That’s really what it comes down to. They understand that. And I believe in our guys. I really do.”
But is Nagy’s trust suddenly misguided?
Statistically, the defense’s decline over the last two years is undeniable. This isn’t the unit that seemed to change games at will in 2018, the one with a knack for taking the ball away in pivotal moments and then also frequently punctuating their takeaways with touchdowns and well-choreographed celebrations.
(Remember the fun of #BearsSingToAnything?)
Even within this season, the Bears have regressed. Through eight games, they had the NFL’s best defense on third down and in the red zone. Opponents to that point were only converting 29.8% of their third downs with just 40% of their red-zone visits ending with touchdowns.
Over the regular season’s final eight games, opponents converted 47.9% of their third downs with a 73.9% success rate in the red zone.
The Bears defense allowed 25 touchdowns in the final eight games after allowing just 14 in the first eight games.
All of this, of course, has longterm ramifications. The defense was supposed to be the engine of a five- or six-year run of excellence that kept the Bears in Super Bowl contention on an annual basis. But if this group is slowly fading and getting older and losing its teeth even with so many established big-name, highly paid standouts still around, how can the Bears perform an honest assessment to determine which page of the troubleshooting guide they now must turn to?
How much of the decline is a result of the current scheme? Or should Pagano shoulder most of the blame as the overseer? Or are too many players simply not playing up to their potential?
Nagy was asked Monday what his trust and belief in his defense is based on given the unit’s inability to create game-changing splash plays regularly this season. His answer was far more of a dodge than a gushing endorsement. He stressed the need for more sacks and more takeaways and for his defensive players to make plays when there are plays to be made.
Jackson, Mingo and Kindle Vildor all failed to corral potential Rodgers interceptions Sunday.
“With where we’re at right now in a win or go home type (situation) in the playoffs, we just want to go back to making sure all of our guys are truly focusing on the fundamentals and techniques and the basics, right?” Nagy said. “So when you get out there you’re able to truly just win your oneon-one battle and just play ball. That goes back to who these guys are as people. I know how bad they want it.”
Remember, Nagy was entirely peeved after the last time the Bears played the Packers, when the defense was shredded for 393 total yards and 35 points in a blowout loss.
“That’s not who our defense is,” he said the following morning. “Our guys need to understand where we’re coming from with that. … That’s not our identity on defense. And they’re big boys. They can handle it. And trust me, they’re going to agree with everything I’m saying.”
On Sunday, the defense seemed to play a little better. But they still gave up five touchdowns, failed to pressure Rodgers consistently and contributed to the Bears’ largest margin of defeat this season.
In two first halves against Rodgers and the Packers this season, the Bears defense allowed six touchdowns on six possessions. Not a single stop to speak of.
Included in that was the 72yard touchdown pass to ValdesScantling that the Bears didn’t have an answer for. “Aaron Rodgers has seen a lot of defenses, you know?” Nagy said.
Sure enough. Fair point.
It’s just that the Bears defense Rodgers had seen in recent years used to be much more imposing. This group is no longer that.
It leaves the Bears in a vulnerable state.