Why Defensive Change Might Be Gradual
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The first time Alan Williams tried the job the Bears have entrusted him with, things didn't really go so well.
He's thinking he learned some things since he tried running the Minnesota Vikings defense under Leslie Frazier.
"If I were to say no to that question, that would be a shame on me," Williams said.
Williams, the new Bears defensive coordinator, had initial success and then went out the door with the rest of Frazier's staff after a 5-10-1 Vikings season in 2013. He spent 2014-21 as a defensive backs coach for the Lions and Colts and now will not get entirely specific about what he'll do different in Chicago but it's apparent fitting his defense to players is something he does plan to do.
Whatever the problem in Minnesota was, that Vikings experience seems to have left a bad taste and four years working under Matt Eberflus in Indianapolis have Williams optimistic about another chance to lead a defense.
"There are some things," he said. "One is just the experience of doing your job over and over and over again, and then knowing different things.
"I've had the chance to be in a few different systems, so now you're bringing, too, the experience that I had in that other team and now you have the experience of different coverages, the experience of different fronts, the experience of different techniques, and then just a do-over, and I won't say exactly what I'd like to do over, but you learn from your mistakes, you learn the things that you did well and you take those things and you put those things in a bucket and you say: 'Take these things forward.' "
The experience in Minnesota included improving the defense in 2012 to 14th in points allowed after they had been next to last (31st) in 2011 under Fred Pagac. They were 16th in yards allowed under Williams after being 21st under Pagac.
Then the bottom they'd put back in came falling back out. After their playoff loss in 2012 to Seattle, the Vikings were last in 2013 scoring defense, 31st in yards allowed and the defense was dragged down by an offense that committed the fourth-most turnovers. They couldn't stop the pass, finishing 31st, and gave up the most passing touchdowns.
Now it's a different situation.
Williams is taking over a new defense as its boss after being on a different, successful staff with a successful approach under Eberflus. In Minnesota he'd been promoted from defensive backs coach after Pagac left and possessed far less experience.
He's also part of Eberflus' HITS approach and not using the system Frazier had with the Vikings.
"The HITS philosophy is a great way of being able to measure it," Williams said. "So with the hustle, the intensity, the takeaways and playing smart, we have a way of being able to gauge ourselves from one game to another or one season to another, in terms of, are we improving or are we falling short?"
Eberflus' HITS stands for hitting, intensity, takeaways and smart play. Coaches have a scoring system for measuring players based on loafs and big plays.
Players seem to love it, even if using acronyms can remind people of something Chris Farley's factional motivational speaker Matt Foley might say after leaving his van down by the river.
Besides the system for measuring success, Williams just relies on his experience.
"And then ultimately you try not to dwell on the past and you move forward and you try to self-aware and evaluate yourself in a very systematic way without being too hard or too lenient and you take those experiences and you try to improve," Williams said.
Preferring to reveal little about how his talent could change since it's not suited to the upfield, attacking style they'll use instead of the two-gap system with bigger linemen that they've had, Williams did spell out one change. It seems to be one pervasive throughout the team. It was something new offensive coordinator Luke Getsy spoke about, as well.
At least until they have ideal talent for their approach, there will be no forcing players to do what they can't do. Changeover might be gradual.
"So I may come in here and say I love zone coverage and our guys may be phenomenal man coverage players," Williams said. "So you know what? We're going to man. And if I come in and go, 'hey, we're going to be a four-down and I go, 'an odd front is what we do best,' or 'this guy two-gaps the best,' we're going to two-gap.
"And so, ultimately, we're going to play hard, we're going to play smart, we're going to take the ball away, but there are many different ways of doing that."
Getsy said much the same thing discussing how teams change offenses from year to year.
"So what you'll see is, the team that wins the Super Bowl has some different characteristics every year on offense and defense," Williams said. "There's no real one way to skin a cat, so I would be remiss if I just said, 'you know what, I'm bringing in my system and it's going to be my stamp and it's going to be mine, mine, mine.' Nope. That's not a good thing. It's going to be ours. It's going to be our defense, it's going to be our decisions, it's going to be our guys, it's going to be a collaborative effort. And ultimately I have to make a decision because I'm the defensive coordinator, but I'm making that decision based on what our guys do best.
"And so if you take the attributes of what your guys do best and you accentuate those qualities, you allow guys to do what they do best, the product is much better than sticking a round peg in a square hole, so to speak."
Experience can teach flexibility to everyone.
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