Scouting the Bears: Where They're Strong and Weak
The Bears head toward their June organized team activities and minicamp, largely unchanged despite all their changes.
The many moves they made either replaced other players or strengthened points already strong.
It's little wonder many projections regarding the 2020 season consist of records between 7-9 and 9-7, right about where they were last year.
In a regular NFL season, most teams project to fall in this area anyway.
Here are their strengths and weaknesses, and it's difficult to see how remaining offseason virtual or real work and a training camp will do anything to change this.
Strengths
Defensive Front
Whether it's against the run or against the pass, a team coming to play the Bears can anticipate the gret need to get the ball out of the quarterback's hands quickly, or creating some sort of misdirection from either a run or passing standpoint. Mixing in ruse can also help.
They have to expect their quarterback is going to the ground if he takes more than three seconds to pass. It's going to be worse now with Robert Quinn on board. One of the league's best at beating one on one pass blocking the last two years only makes Khalil Mack and Akiem Hicks all the more effective. The Bears may now be able to get home with a three-man rush instead of the four-man rush they usually use when they're in nickel.
And with Hicks, Eddie Goldman, Danny Trevathan and Roquan Smith, the ability to run anywhere is as difficult as ever. The only thing that's ever made it possible for opponents to run on the Bears since Hicks, Goldman and Trevathan became a triangle of power in the middle has been getting an early lead or injuries. The Bears were first against the run and fifth in yards allowed per rush when they had a healthy defensive front. Even with injuries last year they were ninth overall and sixth in yards allowed per rush.
Preventing the Deep Ball
The secondary of Eddie Jackson, Ha Ha Clinton-Dix, Prince Amukamara, Buster Skrine and Kyle Fuller allowed only 40 completions of 20 yards or longer and only two teams were better. With Adrian Amos instead of Clinton-Dix and Bryce Callahan instead of Skrine, they allowed 39 throws of 20 or more in 2018 and only three were better.
The question is whether Jaylon Johnson as a rookie can adequately replace Amukamara, because the Tashaun Gipson for Clinton-Dix swap doesn't appear on paper like a problem.
The Bears play mostly zone so getting it deep on them is difficult anyway, and they love disguising their coverages so it becomes all the more difficult to get a read on the target.
It's better not even challenging the Bears deep but testing the intermediate and short routes or hitting them with screens.
Returning the Ball Sadly, it's a strength teams can easily compensate for by kicking out of the end zone or punting it to the other side of the field or out of bounds.
Weaknesses
1. Slow Offense
The Bears are plodders. They tried fixing this, but adding 35-year-old Ted Ginn Jr. and throwing rookie fifth-round burner Darnell Mooney into the mix is hardly the kind of threat to instantly transform an offense.
As dynamic a player as Allen Robinson II is, he isn't a vertical threat. The tight ends added are not vertical threats. Jimmy Graham moves in slow motion compared to his old self and Cole Kmet's strength was route running and being physical, not his 4.7-second speed in the 40.
Even at running back, David Montgomery is a starter who ran a slower 40 time than backup Ryan Nall. Only Cohen's speed here and the threat of using Patterson are game-breaking possibilities, but Patterson hasn't shown he can be of help and they haven't gotten the ball to Cohen in open field enough for him to make a difference.
The lack of speed forces the Bears to rely too much on coach Matt Nagy to scheme players wide open, and in the NFL this rarely happens.
Defenses can cheat up and choke off teams that lack the speed to burn them deep.
2. Deep Passing
Much has been made of how Nick Foles is better as a deep passer than Mitchell Trubisky and he is. It's like being asked if you want your engine to die on the interstate at rush hour or out in the middle of the country on a two-lane highway. It's going dead on you either way. Being better than Trubisky at getting the ball downfield doesn't make Foles good. He averages only 7.0 yards per pass attempt for his career, which is pretty mundane. It's just that Trubisky's 6.7 is poor.
So you might see improvement here from poor to mediocre.
When defenses have no fear of your receivers or running backs beating them for deep passes, and they know the quarterback can't get it to them consistently anyway, they'll really clamp down on top and smother an offense.
3. Second-Level Blocking
Bears blockers might occupy defenders initially but they are not using a scheme allowing them to clear away the point of attack and the blockers are not adept enough at their job to then bounce off into the second line of defenders and create havoc. It's how Montgomery can average a broken tackle every eight runs and rank in the top seven in the league, get into the top 10 in broken tackles but still be one of the worst backs in the league at average yards gained after contact (1.6 yards). The next defenders arriving are there too soon for him to do anything about it after he sheds the first tackler. It's how the Bears ranked 30th in the number of 20-yard-plus runs they had for the whole season.
Adding Germain Ifedi isn't going to do much to change any of this.
Defenses can crowd the line of scrimmage to smother the running attack, and when the Bears try to use the pass to chase them off, well, see the first two weaknesses.
Summary
If you're a team coming to Soldier Field to play the Bears this year, fear not. Just put in a tape from last year and it's still relevant regardless of their changes.
Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven
