Bears By the Numbers: The NFL Trend Setters

For once, the Bears are ahead of the curve.

Perhaps it can become a trend, but it definitely wasn't the popular route to take.

Bears GM Ryan Poles this past week continued doing what he felt was in the best interest of the team by trading away Robert Quinn for a fourth-round draft pick.

Poles was doing the same in the offseason when he 1) let Allen Robinson go in free agency and 2) drafted defensive backs in the second round over wide receivers like George Pickens or Skyy Moore.

Poles' tactics met with a tremendous backlash from both Bears fans as well as national media and the league's fans in general, as all bought the narrative about needing to supply Justin Fields with more help on offense.

During Thursday night football between Baltimore and Tampa Bay, statistics pointed out on the Amazon telecast that were brought to light in a Yahoo sports article by Jori Epstein pointed out the brave new world of the NFL.

Defense is now in.

When everyone focuses on passing and all the league rules contribute toward the current that says higher scoring and offense, the Bears, Ryan Poles and Matt Eberflus realized the importance of defense. They addressed this with their limited offseason resources.

They went for the defensive improvement first in the draft.

How do they look now?

It's easy to single out one specific player like Pickens, who the Bears could have taken and say they should not have taken Jaquan Brisker or Kyler Gordon, but the impact of both of those players is being felt now after they both made interceptions in Monday night's win. Both have shown steady improvement in a secondary rated third in the NFL against the pass despite having a pass rush with only 12 sacks.

Meanwhile, Pickens can catch passes but what is his impact? He's playing for a 2-5 team and only has the fourth-most pass receptions for his team with an offense that has been far too pass-happy to suit their head coach.

Defense Is the Trend

Beyond a couple of specific players, the Bears organization settled on a defensive coach as head coach when every other organization was looking at offensive coaches.

Now, it looks like defenses are the trend.

According to Epstein's article, the league is down at this point in scoring by 3.8 points per game from last year at 43.8 points.

It's more serious than the article suggests. It has dropped even further since the article's research because according to Sportradar, per team scoring is down in games by 1.3 points from 23.0 to 21.7.

It's been going this way now for several years. Scoring average per team hasn't been below 21.7 since 2009. At 21.7, they're now at 43.4-plus points per game. Scoring was down last year, as well.

The trend is obviously toward more defense and specific types. Teams are playing more zone and trying to avoid big plays, while forcing offenses to inch up the field.

"We're seeing a lot more scheme just on first and second downs from defenses than you did 10 years ago, probably 6-7 years ago," Epstein quoted Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy as saying. "You always talk about situational football, but I think first and second down is being treated more aggressively schematically on defense throughout the league. I think that's definitely something that's part of it."

Epstein reported there is 2.9% more cover-2 being played, 3.3% more quarters zone (cover-4) and 3.7% more cover-6 than in 2018.

Teams are being forced to take throws underneath zones.

Who lives by zone defense?

Oh yeah, Eberflus.

Offensive Approach Contributes

Offenses are contributing to this lower point output. The running game is back. Teams are averaging 119.3 yards rushing per game. That's the highest rushing average since 1988.

Rushing average has been generally up over the last five years since a three-year stretch from 2015-2017 when it was below 110 yards per game by teams on average. It hasn't been below 112.9 since 2017. But the 119.3 is big jump and part of the reason is more quarterbacks who can run effectively on more than just scrambles, like Justin Fields. And the other part is offenses using more and different types of runs, like end arounds with receivers acting like backs or receivers simply lining up in the backfield like Cordarrelle Patterson and Deebo Samuel.

Running keeps the clock running, improves ball possession time and shortens the game on the opposing offense. Naturally scoring drops.

The league will see all this and probably attempt to open up the game more by making it illegal to think about hitting receivers or to make a face at a receiver.

In the meantime, however, the Bears have been part of the cutting edge for a change. They have a coach who is part of the league trend, if not leading it. They lead the NFL in rushing and that's the trend. They're doing it, in part, because of a quarterback who can run. That's another trend.

It's looking quite different than the previous regime, when the Bears always seemed to be looking at what other teams and wishing they could come up with their own successful approach.

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