Tashaun Gipson a Strong Favorite for Such an "Open" Safety Battle
Do the math.
New Bears safety Tashaun Gipson has made 23 career interceptions and 47 pass defenses while playing for three different teams, so trying to adjust and make plays while fitting into a new system is something he did twice prior to this season.
Deon Bush has played in one system for four years and never made an interception while making three pass defenses. Bush had three other opportunities to be the starter and never won the job outright.
So when defensive coordinator Chuck Pagano says what he said about competition between Gipson and Bush at the safety spot opposite Eddie Jackson, it does ring a bit hollow.
"They're going to get an equal number of snaps with the Ones and they're going to have to come in here and compete day after day after day," Pagano said. "It's going to be a little bit different, obviously, with no preseason but we're going to create the competition and create the situations to where we can do an honest eval on those guys and give them both an opportunity to win that job."
Defensive backs coach Deshea Townsend went Pagano one better at being even-handed.
"Bush, he has a super knack of finding ways to make plays on the ball, and if he can continue that, that's the only thing he needs, just to make the most of his opportunities and his reps that he's about to get in this camp coming up," Townsend said, about a safety without an interception in four seasons.
It's good to talk up the battle in camp but this one rates about as even as the right guard battle on offense, where Germain Ifedi has four years of starting NFL offensive line experience at both guard and tackle and Rashaad Coward 10 games on the offensive side of the ball.
Gipson even went to the same college as Pagano.
"Not too many safeties left around who went to the University of Wyoming so I've got an affinity for that," Pagano joked. "He's a talented guy."
This Bears' 3-4 defense has been strong for the past four years and in three of those years they made 10 interceptions or less. In the one year out of the four when they were utterly dominant, they made 27 interceptions.
It's pretty easy to see the goal for this year is to get more interceptions, and sitting the 30-year-old veteran safety who has plucked it 23 times in order to play someone without a career interception in four years probably doesn't fit the game plan.
So Bush would move into what has to be one of the deeper safety groups in the league, considering the Bears also classify DeAndre Houston-Carson, Sherrick McManis and now Marqui Christian among those battling for roster spots.
The other great question about safety is whether one of these players fits in better playing alongside Eddie Jackson than the others. This part does appear a wash, although Gipson's experience at least includes some starting exposure in this manner.
The plan isn't simply to make one of them a box safety and put Jackson back deep every down.
"You just don't want to (say): 'OK, we've got a free and we've got a strong,' " Pagano said. "We just don't want to line up and Tom Brady comes to town on a Thursday night and just tell them because if they turn on the tape and every time we're in single-high defense, it's always 39 (Jackson), it's always 39. So no matter what we are doing, if he always ends up there, that's not good for our disguise.
"(Jackson is) really good in the deep parts. He's good down low, he's a good blitzer, so we're going to play to his strengths and we're gonna play to all their strengths. I gotta do a better job as a play caller of putting all the guys, all 11 guys in the right spot to make plays and then as far as the competition there, the traits part, ball skills, anticipation, range, you gotta be able to tackle, blitz, we're gonna ask them to do a lot of things so all those things we're looking for, they both can do that, Deon and Gip."
One has done virtually everything a safety gets asked to do for the last eight years in the league and can be a way for the Bears to elevate the safety position over what they had last year. That player's identity is fairly obvious.
Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven
