Jaquan Brisker Aims for More Than the Ball

Bears rookie safety Jaquan Brisker has some personal goals for this season that look rather unattainable except for the fact his early production at practice has come at a very rapid pace.

A week of practices in training camp have Bears safety Jaquan Brisker thinking big thoughts.

No one with the Bears will mind it if he can fulfill some of the rather lofty goals he set down for himself, such as defensive rookie of the year.

"It crosses my mind," Brisker said. "It's definitely on my notebook. It's a goal. It's one of the goals. That's a big goal for me.

"It's a goal but it's always team first, always think of the taking this team to the playoffs and keep going from there. Everything’s gonna fall into place after that."

If Brisker does it, he would be the first safety to accomplish it since 1990 first-round draft pick Mark Carrier did it for the Bears.

The Brisker "notebook" has Lombardi Trophy ranking over individual trophy.

"That's one thing: Win a Super Bowl and then the individual success is gonna come," Brisker said. "So whatever comes with it is gonna come, so I really don’t think about stuff like that too much. I just let it flow."

After his first two padded practices and a week of work, Brisker has left impressions on teammates. Coach Matt Eberflus isn't surprised by the early success Brisker has achieved.

"You can just see it," Eberflus said. "I'm a big guy that looks at gear change, where he can really speed up, and then body control after he does that to make plays. He has that. You have to be able to do that in the open part of the field.

"Some guys are fast but they don't know how to control the body to make the plays. He has that great body control, and you can see that adjusting to the ball in the air to make an interception, adjusting to the alley when the runner changes his angle to slow down, speed up and to maintain the inside angle to run the alley and make the hit. So, he's done a lot of those things. You can see it. It's evident on tape that he has it."

Brisker said he has seen improvement daily.

"Today, I broke on a ball with my eyes," he said Wednesday. "I feel like last week I wasn't too good with my eyes. I was just looking at the quarterback.

"But today I made a huge improvement in traffic today. I cut across the middle of the field. Should have been a pick. But I broke on it with my eyes and got a deflection."

Part of his ability to get to the ball could include forced fumbles. He never had one in college even with a reputation for big hits, but the Bears want to re-establish the "Peanut punch," the old tactic used by Charles Tillman when he played in a similar style defense. Tillman had some advice for all the defensive backs about his specialty when he spoke to them in the offseason.

"Just really different strip techniques and just being a great Bears defense here in Chicago is gonna go a long way," Brisker said. "People aren't going to forget about you. Just different techniques on how to strip the ball, when to do it.

"Most likely they're not really going to expect it if you're coming full speed and just punching at it. They're going to let it go so he's just saying give it all you got. I talked to him (Tillman) at the combine also because he was with my group. And he also talked to the rookies when he first got up here.

When Tillman played for the Bears and Lovie Smith, they used to practice takeaways and returning the ball after virtually every incomplete pass. The Bears are trying to apply some of this to their practices, although not quite to the same extent.

"We have a lot of different takeaway drills," Brisker said. "And team reps also. Just always scooping up the ball and running 10 stripes. Just always make sure we're doing something that involves turnovers, whether that's ball in the air, we're breaking at a 45-degree angle, or just scooping it in and tapping it back to our teammates.

"Just make sure we've got the ball in our hands. They always emphasize it in individual and team reps."

A few days after his first practice, Brisker had made a pick and was feeling his oats.

"You know, I'm definitely trying to be the takeaway king," he said.

Takeaway king one day, then it's defensive rookie of the year the next.

After leading the NFL in takeaways in 2018, the Bears have finished 22nd, 25th and 26th. So some sort of halt to the trend is in order. Defensive backs have a charged-up attitude about being able to accomplish more takeaways and better energy is exactly the type of thing that could accompany a drastic switch in a team's fortunes.

"You could feel it in the air, you could feel it all around," Brisker said. "The energy's just different. We're all on the same page. We're all moving with a different swagger.

"And we're just going to continue to get better."

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