Chicago Bears Have Problems on Defense

Head coach Lovie Smith said that the Chicago Bears were this close to being a perennial playoff team in 2008. 

If they had beaten the Houston Texans in the final week of last season, the Bears would have automatically won the tie-breaker against the Minnesota Vikings and taken the NFC North division, to make the playoffs.  

Instead, the Bears lost 24-31 in Houston and finished with a 9-7 season record.  The Vikings went to the playoffs with a 10-6 record.

The truth is that the Bears were much closer to being a playoff team than that single loss. 

Five of the Bears’ seven losses were by less than a touchdown, and in three of those games—against the Carolina Panthers, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and the Atlanta Falcons—opponents scored with winning points in overtime or in the final minutes of regulation.  

If the Bears held on to win those games, they would have finished with a 12-4 record and could have enjoyed home field advantage throughout the 2008 playoffs.

Smith realized that the offense wasn’t the problem.  In fact, the Bears averaged about 23 points per game last season, slightly better than the Super Bowl XLIII Champion Pittsburgh Steelers' 22-point average.  

The Bears' weakness was on defense.  Last season, the Bears’ defensive ranking fell to 16^th overall from its top-five ranking during their Super Bowl year. 

The defense ran a new scheme that had mixed results.  The Bears had the fifth best rush defense in 2008 but its pass defense was ranked near the bottom of the league in sacks, receptions allowed, and passing yardage allowed in 2008.

                                                      NFL Pass Defense Rankings

	Bears	Steelers
Sacks	26th	1st
Receptions allowed	31st	14th
Passing Yardage	30th	1st

                                                                                      Rankings courtesy of the NFL

"The Bears play defense to take away the run first," analyst Brian Baldinger said of the team's 2008 regular season play, in a video on the NFL Web site, "and then they get to the quarterback along the way."

The new run-blitz scheme was a departure from Smith’s disciplined Tampa-2 defense.  10 defenders were on the line of scrimmage in the new defense, with a safety positioned 12-15 yards away from the line of scrimmage.  The open area behind the line of scrimmage and in front of the safety gave opposing teams opportunities to get back into the game. 

The Tampa-2 scheme, in contrast, positioned the three linebackers three to five yards away from the line of scrimmage, instead of on the line, and placed two safeties at the 12-yard distance.  

A review of game highlights posted on the NFL Web site showed that the run-blitz scheme failed to stop opposing offenses at key moments during games, especially in games the Bears lost.

Carolina QB Jake Delhomme and Bucs QB Brian Griese repeatedly completed 15-yard and 20-yard passes against the new run-blitz scheme to drive their respective teams to come-from-behind wins in week two and in week four.  

Titans QB Kerry Collins had similar success against the Bears run-blitz formation in Week 11 when his team switched to a passing attack, earning a 21-14 win.

Missed Tackles Led to Big Plays

“There’s nobody in the middle of the field (in the Bears’ new defensive scheme),” Baldinger explained. “If you can get past that first wave (of defenders) and break a tackle, you can get some big plays.” 

In passing situations, the run-blitz scheme left Bears defenders in one-on-one coverage.  If the wide receiver could get position on the cornerback and if the quarterback had time, the Bears' defense would give up first down yardage.  

The Bears allowed 40 receptions of 20 yards or more, about the league average, while the top-ranked Steelers only allowed 23 such receptions in 2008. 

Nearby Solutions, More Questions

Despite the dismal ranking, the Bears were close to having a Super Bowl-caliber defense in 2008.  

One fewer 20-yard reception allowed per game and the team would have been similar to the Steelers in pass defense.  One fewer touchdown allowed per game and the Bears would have had 12 wins last season.

When Smith announced that he would take over defensive play calling for the 2009 season and relieved longtime friend Bob Babich of the responsibility, he made a tacit statement.  

The Bears' defensive problems weren’t because of the players, it was the scheme that lost the Bears games. With the change in coaches will come a change in defensive philosophy.  Smith is likely to emphasize the Tampa-2 scheme during games and end the run-blitz scheme.

Whether the Bears will have the players to properly execute the Tampa-2 scheme will be Smith’s next concern. Injuries at cornerback, defensive tackle, and both safety positions created weaknesses in the Bears’ defense in the past two seasons.

Cornerback Nathan Vasher started in only nine out of 32 games in the past two seasons because of injuries.  The defensive line has been hampered by Tommie Harris’s knee problems and the Bears released often-injured safety Mike Brown at the end of the 2008 season. 

Head coach Lovie Smith was right.  There isn’t a big difference between the NFL’s best and the rest; one play determined the Super Bowl Champion last year.  Video of the play showed that the three Arizona Cardinals defenders missed swatting away the winning touchdown pass by a few inches.  

The solitary Steelers receiver who caught the pass remained in bounds by the tip of his toes.  Everyone was this close to being a champion.