Much like it’s nearly impossible for an offense to flourish without a quality quarterback, it’s extremely difficult for a defense to do much without a strong pass rush. The Bears have been learning that the hard way for years.
One of the biggest red flags of the Ryan Poles era is that the team has had the fewest sacks in the NFL at 93 in 53 games. Not surprisingly, they’ve allowed the fourth-most points during that span, whereas teams at the top in sacks like the Ravens, Eagles and Chiefs have been elite.
“The most important way and the quickest way to affect the offense is to be able to affect the quarterback,” Bears defensive coordinator Dennis Allen said when asked about igniting the pass rush.
When a defense doesn’t have that tenacity up front, it undercuts everything behind it. A slow pass rush creates time for downfield blocks on linebackers and asks the secondary to stay tight in coverage too long.
That deficiency will be magnified exponentially against a veteran quarterback like Dak Prescott, whom the Bears will face when they host the Cowboys on Sunday. He’s a 10-year veteran armed with dangerous wide receivers in CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens, and the worst thing the Bears can do is give him a comfortable amount of time in the pocket.
The problem Allen is trying to solve will sound familiar to former coach Matt Eberflus, who landed as the Cowboys’ defensive coordinator after the Bears fired him last season. Similarly to Allen, Eberflus didn’t want to blitz, but desperate times call for, well, blitzing.
When Allen was the Saints’ head coach the last three seasons, they called the second-fewest blitzes in the league. Defensive play callers like Allen and Eberflus prefer to generate pressure with four defensive linemen so they can manipulate coverage in the second and third level of the defense, as opposed to someone like Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores, who is brilliant at disguising and dialing up blitzes.
But one of the keys for any coach is tailoring the game plan to the players he has, not the players he wished he had. For Allen, that might require him to make some un-Allen-like moves.
When asked about being flexible in pressuring Prescott, Allen acknowledged “there’s a lot of different ways you can do that,” but pivoted to making a point that everything would look better in the pass rush if the Bears improved their run defense on early downs.
Facing a third-and-eight is straightforward. When it’s some more along the lines of third-and-three and the offense could plausibly run or pass, there’s a lot of guesswork.
“It’s not easy to get to the quarterback in those situations,” Allen said.
In the brief period when the Bears had a consistent pass rush with defensive ends Montez Sweat and Yannick Ngakoue in 2023, it elevated their entire defense. Sweat, though, hasn’t been able to do it by himself and has just 5 1/2 sacks in his last 18 games, including none this season.
Bears coach Ben Johnson said neither Sweat nor fellow starting defensive end Dayo Odeyingbo is making the most of their one-on-one matchups, and if that continues, it’s squarely on Allen to show some creativity and come up with an answer.
WHEN THE BEARS HAVE THE BALL
For a team that values tight ends like the Bears have lately, and with an offensive play caller who predicates a lot of what he does on having two of them on the field together, Cole Kmet and Colston Loveland have been hard to find in games.
Kmet, the team’s seventh-highest paid player this season, and Loveland, the No. 10 overall pick, have had the ball in their hands a combined five times out of the Bears’ 127 offensive plays.
Kmet was a top-10 pass-catching tight end two seasons ago with 73 receptions, 719 yards and six touchdowns, but has just three catches for 60 yards in the first two games. Loveland has 12 yards on two catches.
“The fact that the tight ends aren’t involved more is a reflection of me more than anybody else,” quarterback Caleb Williams said. “I’m on that.”
Both players need to be involved for the offense to get rolling.
Ben Johnson raved about Kmet in the offseason because of his versatility as someone who can block and line up outside as a wide receiver, and a veteran tight end should be Williams’ best friend as he tries to play more steadily.
And while tight end is one of the toughest positions for a player to transition from college to the NFL, the Bears can’t have a player drafted as high as Loveland making minor impact.
WHEN THE COWBOYS HAVE THE BALL
The secondary was supposed to be the strongest part of the Bears’ roster, but that’s not the case anymore. Top cornerback Jaylon Johnson won’t play this week and might miss the rest of the season because of a groin injury, and nickel cornerback Kyler Gordon is still out with a hamstring injury.
Worse yet, Tyrique Stevenson has played poorly, and the defensive backs had loads of communication snafus while getting torched by the Lions last week.
So how exactly are the Bears going to contain the Cowboys’ passing attack?
Wide receiver CeeDee Lamb is a four-time Pro Bowl selection and topped 100 yards in each of the first two games, and George Pickens averaged 947 yards per season with the Steelers before the Cowboys traded for him this year. Tight end Jake Ferguson made the Pro Bowl in 2023 and had 14 catches over the first two games.
That provides quarterback Dak Prescott with a big menu as he takes on a defense that got burned by the Lions’ Amon-Ra St. Brown and Jameson Williams, each topping 100 yards. They and quarterback Jared Goff, who won NFC Offensive Player of the Week with a 156 passer rating, gave Prescott and coach Brian Schottenheimer a template for how to exploit the Bears this week.
It would take a dramatic turnaround, not just empty promises about resilience, for the secondary to get a different result Sunday.