The Bears really would prefer not to talk about Matt Eberflus anymore.
It was an era of underachievement and mismanagement they’d love to forget. Even the defense, Eberflus’ specialty, wasn’t as good as it should’ve been and never cracked the top 10.
But when they talk about what new defensive coordinator Dennis Allen is doing, they keep coming back to the same word: aggressive. They also talk about being physical and even a little nasty. And while every defensive-minded coach uses those words, it seems to be landing differently under Allen.
“I don’t want to really get into the comparison type thing, because that really does us nothing right now,” Bears linebacker Tremaine Edmunds said when asked what would be different about the defense under Allen compared to Eberflus. “But just as far as defense this year… D.A. is aggressive. That’s one thing that we’re going to see.
“As far as his style of play, he’s aggressive and that’s something that I see now. That’s going to set us up good — being able to challenge when we need to challenge, being able to get off the field when we need to get off the field.”
The change in disposition has been unmistakable in training camp, and the Bears will offer a preview of how they’ll attack this season when they host the Bills on Sunday for a preseason game. It’ll be Allen’s first time calling a game with his first-string defense after most starters sat out the preseason opener.
They aren’t sure exactly who they’ll be facing on the other side, as Bills coach Sean McDermott hasn’t said whether he plans to play starters.
Incidentally, Allen got a shot with the Bills nearly 30 years ago as an undrafted safety out of Texas A&M, but was cut during training camp.
The Bears already have backed up their big talk in joint practices with the Dolphins and Bills recently. They manhandled the Dolphins and caught them off-guard with how rough they played — safety Kevin Byard encapsulated the day by saying he had to make sure one Miami player understood that he was just “a little boy” — and rose to the challenge Friday with a similar performance against the Bills, a perennial contender.
In addition to the overall tone the defense set, Edmunds, Byard and cornerback Nahshon Wright each intercepted a pass from reigning MVP Josh Allen. Edmunds called it a step forward and said he was “extremely happy” with how the defense looked.
Each week, there’s been more evidence that this is a sharp change from Eberflus’ defense.
Allen loves to shuffle defensive ends and tackles all over the line, including an intriguing 5-2 package with an extra tackle. He wants tall cornerbacks jamming wide receivers at the line of scrimmage and playing man-to-man coverage instead of zone, which Eberflus favored. And when two-time Pro Bowl corner Jaylon Johnson comes back from his leg injury, he’ll — finally — be assigned to follow the other team’s best receiver.
“We will be tighter in coverage, a lot of different looks, a lot of different personnel,” safety Jaquon Brisker said. “Dennis Allen calls a different game [than Eberflus]. Two different coordinators, for sure.”
The change is not solely a credit to Allen. Signing 10-year veteran Grady Jarrett at defensive tackle has had a multifaceted effect.
Jarrett, 32, is the most accomplished player on the roster other than guard Joe Thuney and has added two crucial elements to the defense: a relentlessly serious approach with the expectation that everyone else comes to work with that mentality and a disruptive force in the middle of the line.
The Bears hope young players across their defense will learn from Jarrett’s work ethic, but he’s been far more than a mentor. Seemingly fully back from the torn ACL he suffered in 2023, Jarrett has been an absolute wrecking ball in training camp.
“You wouldn’t even guess, really, how old he is,” Edmunds said.
Adding Jarrett might finally give the Bears a surplus where they’ve had a deficit at defensive tackle. He and improving young player Gervon Dexter, a 2023 second-round pick, figure to be the starters. Veteran Andrew Billings is behind them and plays with them when Allen calls for the five-lineman front, and second-rounder Shemar Turner is working back from an ankle injury to get in the mix.
The five-man defensive line is a run-stopping maneuver for a team that gave up the fifth-most yards in the NFL last season. It’s intended to create one-on-one matchups against the offensive line.
“Any time you’ve got a group of five good rushers against five offensive linemen, I like our odds,” Dexter said.
Opponents will surely want to pass against that scheme to take advantage of fewer defensive backs on the field — ”They might not want to throw after they see our rush,” Dexter rebutted — but the Bears have enough talent in the secondary to take the risk.
In many ways, Allen was the perfect hire for new coach Ben Johnson. Johnson is 39 and getting his first crack at the head job. He was a teenager when Allen started coaching. This will be Allen’s ninth season as an NFL coordinator, and he spent six seasons as head coach of the Raiders and Saints. He had a top-10 defense five of his last eight seasons as coordinator or coach of the Saints and slipped out of the top half of the league just once.
Both of his head-coaching stints were failures, but came with a lot of lessons. He also is unlikely to get another shot, giving Johnson a chance to have continuity if this goes well.
“We have this shared vision of coming off the ball up front, attacking blockers, playing on their side of the line of scrimmage,” Johnson said. “Then, in the secondary, coming up and challenging receivers, rerouting, playing tight coverage.”
The pieces seem to be there, led by elite talent in Jaylon Johnson and Sweat and layered with more depth than the Bears had in years. Many of the players are returning from last season eager to prove they’re better than they looked, and Allen has something to prove, too.