Dennis Allen is down his best player.
The Bears’ new defensive coordinator will have to operate the next few weeks of training camp without cornerback Jaylon Johnson, whom the Bears say has a leg injury that he suffered during offseason workouts.
“I know Jaylon’s going to do everything he can to get himself back and get himself ready as quickly as possible,” Allen said Wednesday after the Bears’ first practice at Halas Hall. “He’s a consummate professional. So I feel good about him being ready when his body’s ready to go. So from that standpoint, not a ton of concern there.”
Allen, though, is teaching a press man system that couldn’t be more different than Matt Eberflus’ Tampa 2 coverage.
“Obviously we’d love for him to be out there,” Allen said. “That’s not the way it is right now, and so we’re not going to get into what the consequences of that are or anything like that. We’re going to focus on … coaching the hell out of the guys who are out here, getting those guys better, and when Jaylon’s out there, he’ll add a lot to our defense.”
Allen has been through these issues before. He’s seen almost everything during the course of an NFL career that started in 2002.
That’s 24 training camps.
“Training camp is like a long, dark tunnel and there’s no light at the end of it,” he said. “You just got to focus on one day at a time, one rep at a time, one practice at a time.”
Ben Johnson hired Allen to try to offset his own deficiencies. Johnson, 39, has never been a head coach at any level. Allen, 52, was the Raiders’ head coach from 2012-14 and the Saints’ boss the last three seasons. He’s also served as the defensive coordinator for the Broncos and Saints.
“The one thing that I’ve been thinking about a lot is, leaning on the people around me,” Johnson said Wednesday. “I’ve got a very experienced coaching staff by design.”
The Johnson-Allen pairing is the next-generation version of Matt Nagy retaining defensive coordinator Vic Fangio, who was 19 years his senior, when he was hired as the Bears’ head coach and offensive play-caller in 2018.
Call it Grizzle and Sizzle — a veteran defensive coordinator with a nasty streak paired with a hotshot play-caller. The Nagy-Fangio pairing was a smashing success in their only year together. The Bears went 12-4 in 2018, posting their most wins since 2006, before Fangio was lured away to become the Broncos’ head coach. Had Cody Parkey not double-doinked a playoff field goal, the Broncos might not have had the patience to wait on Fangio.
Eberflus, by contrast, was a first-time head coach who never hired a coordinator with head coaching experience.
Bears defensive tackle Grady Jarrett spent the last 10 years facing Allen when the defensive tackle played for the Saints’ rival, the Falcons. What he’s learned about Allen up-close only confirmed what he saw from afar.
“The grittiness, the attention to detail, the knowledge of knowing what everybody should be doing from front to back …” he said. “How it all works together and communicating to us as a defense what his expectations are on a daily basis has been something that I’ve really, really been appreciating. …
“He definitely is somebody who is as hungry as ever just to go out there, compete and play football and have some players that are ready to go out there and hunt for him.”
Asked what was difficult about facing Allen as a Falcon, Jarrett winced. His pride, he said, wouldn’t let him give the rival Saints any quarter, even now.
“I respect Dennis Allen,” he said. “I’m very happy to be playing under him now. And those teams were gritty for a good reason.”
