Bear(ing) the News – A Chicago Bears Blog

Ted Nguyen at The Athletic on why the secret to a great defense is having a premium nickel:

Obviously, with the rise of pass-heavy offenses and three-receiver personnel, a third corner who can cover slot receivers is important, but with how good modern offenses are at creatively using their personnel, the demands of a nickel are as high as ever. Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio and Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald run a system that’s become the trendiest in the league. A core tenet of that system is being able to defend the run from light boxes and sub personnel (five or more defensive backs). To do that, the nickel has to be a third linebacker at times.

Also, offenses have trended toward throwing to the middle of the field, so the nickel will almost always be closest to the ball on run and pass. You want your best player to be consistently in the action. In 2009, Hall of Famer Charles Woodson won the defensive player of the year award after moving inside, which was a position change that was well ahead of its time. In 2020, Jalen Ramsey had a similar impact playing the star position, which is what Nick Saban-influenced systems call nickels. True multi-tool nickels don’t grow on trees, but the best defenses in the league have one, and moving your best defensive back there can pay dividends.

…The nickel position has evolved so much that coaches might even dedicate a specialized coach to them.

“I do think that’s something I would consider at the next place,” [Chargers defensive coordinator Jesse]** Minter** said. “For us, our secondary often meets together, and so they’re in that room from a pass-coverage standpoint. They’re with the safeties during some drills, they’re with corners during some drills. We’d get with the linebackers in certain run fit situations.”

As is usually the case with Nguyen, there are specific examples and plays that are demonstrated to back up his point. The whole article is worth a read.

This is why the Bears so badly missed Kyler Gordon, who was lost to injury for most of the season. They tried to get by with Nick McCloud and C.J. Gardner-Johnson but they didn’t have anyone on the roster that had the versatility to play the nickel cornerback position as it’s being played in the most modern NFL defenses. Nickel backs have have the versatility to be able to play cornerback, safety, off-ball linebacker and, in some cases, pass rusher. That kind of versatility is hard to find. The Bears couldn’t find it without Gordon.

It’s going to be interesting to see what defensive coordinator Dennis Allen does with this defense once he has everyone healthy. I also wonder if the Bears won’t be looking for more depth at the nickel position beyond Gordon. In an ideal world, Allen would hav more than one player who can fill in to get the job done. Such players may be tough to find now, however. Again, from Nguyen:

So, where do you find these types of players? The truth is, they are very rare, akin to finding great quarterbacks. You can find 32 guys who can play the position, but there are maybe five to 10 nickels who are truly exceptional game-changers. And if they are available in the draft, they should be bona fide first-round picks.

“The value of a great nickel is way higher than what most personnel departments think,” [Eagles safeties coach Joe] Kasper said. “Most personnel departments are really way behind the times. They think that they need the outside guy first and the inside guy second, and you know that inside piece is really a mid-round type guy. I totally disagree (with their going that low), the way that the game is going. When you look at it, you look at these offenses that run in-breaking routes off of reductions, and then that is already defeating quarter leverage. And then we talk like, ‘Oh, well, the corner is still the most important one.’ I just think that that’s grossly inaccurate if you’re talking about keeping up with the times.”

I watched the game last night with friends and, therefore, didn’t take notes. They know I’m a geek but there’s not reason to make it that obvious.

Nevertheless, here are a few brief comments from the game.

• So, so many drops. Drops are like huge penalties because you lose the yardage and the down. It’s hard to win when you have so many of them, and they were lucky to do it last week.
• Having said that, Caleb Williams didn’t exactly make it easy on the receivers yesterday. A lot of the balls that he threw could’ve been a lot more catchable under the circumstances. He wasn’t very accurate and that’s been the case on and off all season. Something to work on in the offseason, maybe.
• Speaking of the cold weather, I thought the Rams looked like the cold weather team yesterday. It was the Bears, who were having trouble holding onto the ball and, in Williams’s case, throwing it. I thought that was interesting, though I don’t have an explanation for it.
• The play calling inside the 10-yard line wasn’t my favorite. The Bears pounded the ball inside and they were getting nowhere. Not only that, but after doing it over and over again when they finally threw a pass from inside the five, they did it from the shotgun and didn’t use play action. I usually don’t question playcalling as a rule, but I do kind of wonder what they were thinking.
• It’s really pathetic that I’ve watched this game all my life and I still don’t know what a catch looks like. I can’t look at the non-interception by the Bears defense yesterday and then look at the somewhat infamous interception by Denver over a Buffalo player the day before and reconcile the two.
• Nice effort for the defense. All year long I have to say that I bagged on them. They worried me every game, and there were a lot of games where I didn’t think the Bears would win because I thought that the defensive line was so poor. But they held up pretty well yesterday. Kudos to them.
• I can’t remember exactly what my prediction was, but I know it wasn’t more than eight wins for the season. It was a wonderful, magical year. I enjoyed every minute of it.

Brad Biggs at the Chicago Tribune has 10 thoughts after the Bears Win over the Packers last Sunday. Here he addresses quarterback Caleb Williams’ 4th and 8 throw to wise receiver Rome Odunze in the 4th quarter:

It’s a big-time throw at any point in a ballgame. With the situation — fourth-and-8 with the Bears on their 43 and trailing 27-16 with 5:37 to play — the stakes couldn’t get much bigger. Fail to convert there, and Green Bay takes over on the plus side of the field with a chance to ice the game. The Packers rushed only four.

“He’s a guy that’s tough to contain,” [Packers head coach] Matt LaFleur said of Williams. “The whole plan was to try to especially eliminate his ability to go right. That’s what he likes to do. But certainly, I mean, he made a heck of a play, heck of a throw.”

LaFleur would have had a point earlier in the season. Williams was constantly looking to roll to his right and he was struggling to throw accurately when forced to go left. It awkward for any right handed quarterback to do that because you are turning to your right, against the momentum to the left, to square up and pass with any strength.

But this is outdated information now. Williams has been rolling to his left for a few weeks now and he’s been on the money more times than not. It’s still awkward and you can tell that because he literally jumped in the air with the “Jordan pose” to make the Odunze throw. But he’s got a tremendous amount of arm strength and he can use it to his advantage more than most quarterbacks in this situation.

Bottom line, I don’t think Williams is as hesitant to roll left as LaFluer thinks and I don’t think it hinders him as much as some people who were watching earlier in the year might be thinking.

Sorry. I was offline most of yesterday. It being a night game didn’t help, and I actually had to finish watching it this morning. As regular readers will know, I don’t usually post comments after night games, but this was a special one, and I couldn’t help myself.

• I thought going for it on fourth so deep in their own territory in the first half was crazy. And it wasn’t like it was fourth and one. It was relatively a long way. But I guess that’s what Ben Johnson believes in. Green Bay was kicking the defense‘s butt so badly that you kind of felt like if the Bears didn’t score, they were going to have no chance even at that point in the game.

• Way, way too many drops on both sides yesterday. It killed the Bears in the first half and hurt them later, too. I believe it literally killed the Packers at the end of the game.

• I thought the Bears missed a lot of opportunities on missed turnovers, and I was surprised that Williams threw two interceptions. He’s not prone to do that. But at least one of them was a fourth down where it turned out to effectively be the same as a punt.

• The defense started to blitz more after the half, and it was so nice to see them start to get a little pressure. Green Bay eventually adjusted, but what did the Bears have to lose, right? It also got them a little bit more penetration against the run, and I think it had an effect on some of those outside run plays where they were using their speed to outrun the Bears’ defense.

• I feel bad for him, but at the same time, thank you, Brandon McManus.

• I think decades of frustration got released yesterday, and I was glad to see so much of the celebrating going on. But I wish that the players and Johnson hadn’t done quite so much trolling of the Packers after the game. I know the Packers had said some things that didn’t sit well with them, but, personally, I’d much rather just quietly and happily get off the field and let the other team say nice things about you. But that’s just me. I guess the modern athlete (and coach) just doesn’t think that way.

Great game!

Defense

1. With injuries and backups all over the field on the Detroit offensive line, they still dominated the line of scrimmage. The Bears defensive line isn’t good enough yada yada yada.
2. The Bears struggled to get pressure on Jared Goff with their four man rush yada yada yada. Unfortunately, as has been the case recently, the blitz often didn’t get home either.
3. It looked to me like the Lions tried to pick on Nashon Wright. That has been happening with increasing frequency as well. The Bears may have to start thinking of playing Tyrique Stevenson more often in his place. That’s if Jaylon Johnson is healthy. Which he may not be because he got burned on occasion as well. Most of the passes that really burned the Bears were over the middle.
4. Similarly, I was surprised how often C.J. Gardner-Johnson was covering Amon-Ra St. Brown. That’s a pretty clear mismatch and the Lions managed to maneuver the Bears into it time after time. Gardner-Johnson hasn’t looked good in coverage the last few games.
5. The Bears played a lot of bend and don’t break defense but that meant that they were on the field a long time. The Lions dominated time of possession. There were times when the Bears were missing tackles and looked tired in the second half.
6. When Andrew Billings jumps offside, he really doesn’t do it halfway.

Offense

1. With head coach Ben Johnson being the Lions former offensive coordinator, the Lions obviously know the Bears offense better than any other team in the league. It was going to be interesting to see how the Bears handled that. There definitely were times when the Detroit defense looked like they knew what was coming.
2. The Bears came out and ran the ball 6 of their first 8 plays. Unfortunately he forgot about the run the rest of the first half. It ended about 50:50 run to pass. I understand that the Lions secondary came in weak. But the Bears have to run the ball.
3. The Bears seemed to want to attack the right side of the line with the running game. They certainly saw some success to that side.
4. As is usual, the Bears found some success throwing to their tight ends. Colston Loveland has literally become the center of the offense.
5. Caleb Williams played a reasonably good game. I thought the deep throw to DJ Moore that was intercepted was unfortunate. It looked like double coverage to me. But otherwise I thought he made good decisions and threw catchable balls. He eclipsed Erik Kramer for the most passing yards in Bears history.
6. The Bears seemed to me to put Williams on the move just a little more often in the second half. The Lions were getting decent pressure and were keeping him in the pocket.
7. Kudos to Theo Benedet. He stepped in for Ozzy Trapilo and did a pretty good job at left tackle today.

Miscellaneous

It would have been nice if the Eagles had played their starters and won their game against the Commanders this week. I actually thought they might be able to pull it off with their back ups. But no suchh luck.

The Bears won 2 division games this year and one of those was a miracle win against the Packers. Divisional opponents know you better than anyone and the other teams in the NFC North seem to have the Bears number. It would have been nice not to have to go to war against those same Packers next week.

Most fans outside the NFC North wouldn’t understand this because they consider the NFC West to be a superior division with better teams. But I would have felt a lot better had the Bears been playing an opponent from the West.

Brad Biggs at the Chicago Tribune writes about the travails of the Bears defense as the season winds up.

The Bears rank 28th in total defense, 28th against the run and 21st versus the pass. About the only category they’re doing well in — and it’s a huge one — is takeaways, in which they still rank No. 1 with 32. They have a league-high 22 interceptions but have allowed 57 pass plays of 20 yards or more. Only the Baltimore Ravens (61) and Bengals (59) have more.

Takeaways will be more difficult to collect against better teams in the postseason. The Bears have six in the last four games, but three were interceptions against struggling Cleveland Browns rookie Shedeur Sanders.

This is a better defense right now than the one the Lions crushed for 52 points in Week 2. Whether it’s ready for playoff football remains to be seen.

What was Allen’s message to the players?

“We’ve all got to be better,” cornerback Jaylon Johnson said. “He took accountability for the part he played, and, as players, we took accountability for our part. We just talked about being better.”

And just like that, the Bears moved on to the Lions for the regular-season finale Sunday at Soldier Field. It’s going to be challenging to go a lot further if things aren’t tightened up.

First, the good news is that the Bears aren’t the only team going into the playoffs with a major weakness. Ted Nguyen at The Athletic provides plenty of analysis of the problems that teams like the Rams, Texans, and 49ers are having with various aspects of play as they enter the postseason.

The team that is most notably missing from the list in the article is the Packers. Before Austin Booker sacked him with poor tackle height and concussed him, Jordan Love was playing with about as much confidence as I’ve ever seen from him. The Packers have been up and down but they could be dangerous in the playoffs. At minimum, they always seem to be ”up” for the Bears.

Second, Biggs emphasizes in the article about how poor the defense has been the last two games against the Packers and 49ers. The bad news, and more to the point, is that the Bears defense has been a problem since well before that. Despite the turnovers that the Bears have been getting, I’ve been wringing my hands, waiting for a good team to play well and expose this unit since the season began. I could clearly see that they weren’t good enough for an extended playoff run, and certainly anyone who knows what they’re talking about has said the same thing.

The Bears have had an entire season to find ways to overcome deficits in personnel along the defensive line and haven’t been able to do it. If they haven’t “tightened things up“ by now, I don’t think it’s going to happen. The only real hope that they have is that the deficiencies in the other teams that they face turn out to be as bad as theirs.

Brad Biggs at the Chicago Tribune answers your questions:

Why isn’t Tyrique Stevenson getting more playing time? He had some early season success, so much so that teams were going away from him. Jaylon Johnson has not been good and doesn’t even try to tackle. — @historyczar0

Johnson made a really nice play on the first snap Sunday when he read Jauan Jennings’ route and Brock Purdy’s eyes and broke up the pass, leading to T.J. Edwards’ interception return for a touchdown. Stevenson got into the game in the second half, playing 18 snaps when Johnson was rested. I asked Johnson about that after the game, and he emphatically declared that he’s 100% back from the injury that kept him on injured reserve much of the year.

Stevenson has been a little bit better this season. According to Pro Football Reference, opponents’ passer rating when targeting him is 86.3, a tick better than the 87.5 rating in 2024. Opponents have gone at Nahshon Wright with more regularity. He has produced some big plays with six interceptions but also has been the man in coverage on six touchdown passes as opposed to one for Stevenson. Wright took a poor angle on Christian McCaffrey’s 41-yard run.

There’s a decent chance we continue to see all three on the field Sunday and in the playoffs. They need to be better on the back end, but keep in mind pass defense is a combination of rush and coverage.

Johnson must be hurt. There isn’t a single doubt in my mind. And other teams know it. They’ve been targeting him far more often since his return than they did beforehand. And, as Biggs points out, Wright has been targeted a lot and was burned with regularity against the 49ers last week.

Having said that, let’s not forget the big picture. This question is off-base if for no other reason than because it’s the pass rush that is the biggest problem with this defense. If that was just average, the defensive backs would be plenty good enough for any reasonable fan to be OK with.

Brad Biggs at the ** Chicago Tribune **answers your questions:

Other than money, what levers do teams pull to keep their coaching staffs from being raided? What are the options beyond dollars? And do coaching salaries have any cap/limits to them? — @crickhowell

There are really no ways to prevent coaches from seeking career advancement. It will be a very good thing if other teams come to the Bears looking for rising stars in the coaching world in the next couple of years. That would be the result of a lot of winning. If the Bears are just getting started with Ben Johnson — and that’s surely what most everyone reading this is hoping for — then prepare for his staff to be raided in the future. Every team looking for a new head coach or to build out a staff will want a piece of Johnson.

Consider a partial list of coaches who once worked under Sean McVay with the Los Angeles Rams: Zac Taylor, Matt LaFleur, Kevin O’Connell, Raheem Morris, Brandon Staley, Shane Steichen, Brian Callahan, Dave Canales and Zac Robinson. You know the primary reason the Rams have kept rolling along? McVay…

If the Bears continue to excel, the time will come when Johnson’s staff is poached. He did a terrific job in building the current staff, and one thing that stood out is he made smart hires with key coaches he never had worked with, such as defensive coordinator Dennis Allen, secondary coach Al Harris and offensive line coach Dan Roushar. If the idea of Johnson losing coaches to other teams really irks you, I’d suggest putting your faith in Johnson to make quality hires for their replacements…

Winning coaches don’t just develop rosters. They aid in the development of coaches too.

These are all very good points. I’ve always claimed that hiring the right position coaches is an under rated part of being a head coach. But it’s more than just hiring them. It’s managing them in such a way that they actually become better coaches. The one feeds off of the other.

We’ve learned a lot about how demanding Johnson is of his players. How he makes a big deal out of every little detail. We’ve heard that coaches are detailed before but you always got the impression that it had to do with developing the game plan. Johnson is detailed when it comes to coaching the offense and, presumably to a lesser extent the, the defense. But on thing that you have to assume is that Johnson is just as demanding, if not more, when it comes to his coaches.

As Biggs says, judging by the results and the obvious development that many of the players have experienced at almost every position, he developing good coaches here. That’s something that we haven’t seen here in a very, very long time if ever.

It’s refreshing not to be thinking about who the Bears are going to be taking in the top 10 of the upcoming draft right now. But as it stands, the Bears are going to face a different kind of problem this offseason that is both less concrete and more important.

Brad Biggs at the Chicago Tribune has 10 thoughts after the Bears win over the Packers. Here he’s addressing the similarities between the 2024 Commanders and the current edition of the Bears:

Here’s the comp that is intriguing: The 2025 Bears are like the 2024 Commanders. That’s what one pro scout said.

“Got hot, started catching a lot of breaks then started making breaks,” he said. “Got good enough to go out and win two playoff games on the road and reach the NFC title game.”

Here’s the comp that is not intriguing: The 2025 Bears are like the 2024 Commanders. Same pro scout.

“All the breaks that went their way worked against them and they’ve totally fallen apart,” the scout said. “Four wins this season and a big mess.”

This guy wasn’t drawing a clear parallel between the Bears and Commanders but he did say he thinks some of the instant success for the new coach — Johnson for the Bears and Dan Quinn last year in Washington — and some of the fluky finishes make for a real comparison. It’s not a comparison game the Bears would want to take into the offseason, I know that much.

It’s not a comparison that any of us likes. But it’s something that the Bears are going to have to face in the offseason.

The danger to having a season like this is that you come out of it thinking that you are better than you are. The front office thinks that they are just one or two pieces away from a Super Bowl, and the coaching staff thinks that they have a bunch of good players that they can ease off on.

The Bears are really going to have to work hard to guard against this. I don’t think that Johnson is the kind of guy who will ease up on the players. At least it didn’t sound like it when he was in Detroit. And I’m sure that GM Ryan Poles understands that his inability to draft defensive linemen is what has made the pass rush and, to an extent, the run defense what it is. Add a much tougher schedule as the likely NFC North champions, and you’re facing a real uphill battle next year.

The Bears aren’t that good. Despite the difference in their records, it looked to me on Saturday night that they were a few Green Bay blunders away from not even being the best team in the division.

And let’s not forget that the Lions put up 50 on them in week 2. I think we all understand that they aren’t the same team now. But are they really that much better?

To be honest, you could argue that it wouldn’t be a bad thing for their long-term future for them to lose a game or two down the stretch and to be one and done in the playoffs. Either way, they’ve got a battle on their hands in the offseason just to avoid complacency.