Focus for Bears Defense on the Secondary
The Bears defense has holes to fill.
Whereas the offense reports to camp on Tuesday for Wednesday's first practice with only one position manned by an inexperienced player—and they know Teven Jenkins is the rookie playing the spot—the defense has question marks.
The first one is the defensive coordinator himself, Sean Desai. Any questions about Desai start and end with his in-game strategic skills and not his ability to handle practices or coach players. He's been coaching in the NFL for eight years.
So the Bears won't have an answer about Desai's skills until they start playing regular-season games.
The holes they need to fill are in the secondary and it's where any eyes watching the defense need to be focused.
Here are five players to watch on defense when camp opens.
1. CB Kindle Vildor
His all-around coverage ability last year encouraged coaches to the point where they are letting him compete with veteran Desmond Trufant for starting left cornerback, but Vildor is somewhat limited in one respect. He did not play the slot in college and really hasn't been a slot coverage cornerback with the Bears. So if he loses the battle on the outside with Trufant, it seems unlikely the Bears would move him to the vacant slot cornerback position.
Last year had to be considered an adjustment period for him because he moved up from a smaller school (Georgia Southern) to a much higher level of competition. His tackling seemed better than some scouts gave him credit for in college, but his coverage technique needs better consistency, as a 131.2 passer rating against/target reflects.
2. CB Desmond Trufant
One aspect of Trufant's game should give the Bears hope but everything depends on his health. The broken arm he had in 2019 can be waved off. The broken arm isn't a matter of conditioning, but his problems last year came from hamstring issues and those often are the result of conditioning. The hamstring was particularly devastating to Trufant because of his strength as a cornerback. According to the Detroit News, Trufant's great strengths as a cornerback when he came there from Atlanta were his quickness—not flat-out speed but how his footwork and technique blended together to let him stay with receivers. In recent years he has not use his hands too much in coverage to the point where he was drawing defensive pass interference penalties but last year had two DPIs and two holding penalties, the first time since 2015 he had more than one DPI penalty. In fact, in 2019 when he played nine games and then broke his arm with Atlanta he didn't have a single penalty. Trufant averaged. It wasn't this way early in his career. In 2015, Trufant drew six pass interference penalties and two holds, while in 2013 he had four DPIs, a hold and an illegal contact. If Trufant remains healthy the flag totals should be down. If he's healthy and they're not down, then the Bears might have a cornerback who is a little too old at 31 when the season kicks off. If you think penalties are not necessarily important, consider Kyle Fuller committed no more than four in any year of his career until the last two. Then he committed 15 total over two years and he was removed from the team. Last year he had a team-high 104 yards in penalties, the most by any Bear since Tim Jennings had 107 in his final Bears season of 2014.
3. CB Duke Shelley
The Bears are about to find out whether it's possible to have an understudy take over at the slot cornerback spot. Shelley was the backup behind Buster Skrine for two years and didn't exactly sparkle when he got on the field as a replacement in last year's final three games. He has the first shot at keeping this position. His lack of height and speed weigh against him but often players at this interior coverage position make up of both with grit and tenacity, along with coverage technique. Shelley has not proven he has any of this yet, although he has been a decent open-field tackler. Skrine came to the Bears with a reputation for committing penalties and in two years had only seven penalties. He actually needed to be more aggressive. He didn't make enough plays on the football and often was simply making tackles on completions to open short receivers. Shelley followed this same pattern to an extent, but now the Bears need him to step up and be aggressive in coverage. A penalty now and then might be a necessity if you're going to get turnovers out of this position.
4. CB Thomas Graham Jr.
It's possible he'll be brought along in camp slowly because he is a rookie who opted out last year, but his attitude is anything but that of a player who is content with staying back in the shadows. Scouting reports noted his aggressive style and cited it as a possible reason he'd be better in the slot. If Shelley doesn't bring an aggressive enough approach, the Bears could get it from Graham. His ability to play the ball in the air was a strength as he had eight interceptions at Oregon. But Shelley had eight INTs at Kansas State when he was in college.
5. OLB Robert Quinn
If you're at camp or follow what goes on daily and you see Quinn starting to get too many "veteran days off," it's time to panic. Quinn came to last year's camp and didn't work. He didn't practice until Aug. 29, only a few weeks before the regular season began. "It's a personal reason; I’m not getting into that," Quinn said of his absence after his first practice at a Soldier Field scrimmage. "But at the same time I'm going to look at the benefit of it. At least I'm a little fresher. My body's not too beat up."
While everyone else beat up their body, Quinn was freshening. He returned and then was quickly gone again because he couldn't practice or play in Week 1. He played in Week 2 and the rest of the season was a whirlwind of nothing.
This defense won't succeed in 2021 without something of value from Quinn and it starts with work during training camp. He already is putting himself squarely under the microscope by not practicing at minicamp for an undefined injury.
Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven
