How Personnel Might Alter Bears' Defensive Scheme
The great personnel concern about the Bears on defense and how it relates to their scheme has centered around safety.
There is another with potentially greater impact, but safety is still something to address.
The Tashaun Gipson and Eddie Jackson situation at safety is not automatically a perfect fit by any means.
The worry is whether they can get Gipson to be a box safety at times, at least to the extent Jackson is also used this way. The Bears want to see Jackson playing ball hawk in back at least as much as the other starting safety. And the idea isn't to make one of them a traditional strong safety in the box to stop the run but to make them interchangeable.
Last year Ha Ha Clinton-Dix failed at this, and they found a way to make it work with Jackson doing more of it than they wanted. It wasn't ideal.
Gipson says he has the ability to do this, even if he initially was almost always a deep safety.
"The last three years of my career, you go back to the last two years in Jacksonville and last year in Houston with a guy like Justin Reid who's an athletic guy, we were super interchangeable," Gipson said. "That's one of these things when they signed Barry Church; they wanted to see more interchangeable in Jacksonville. The later part in my career, I've been a more interchangeable guy. And I'm super comfortable."
At least this might allow them to maintain the same scheme but adjust for Gipson's adaptability.
It's probably not the case with the other potential concern. It's a $70 million concern.
Robert Quinn received a five-year $70 million deal but by bringing him in the Bears may have forced scheme change on coordinator Chuck Pagano's defense.
When the Bears signed Quinn, he expressed some trepidation about being an outside linebacker in this system. His problem was with the left side as opposed to right side and not necessarily being a linebacker as opposed to a 4-3 end.
"Well, from what I know, the only thing that was challenging about the 3-4, if you look at my career, I've never really played the left side," Quinn said. "So I mean, I think we've got a comfortable understanding that hopefully I get to stay on the right side.
"If we've got to flip-flop, I guess I've got to get more comfortable playing on the left. As I get older, I realize that you've got to be a little multi-talented, or be able to change."
The discomfort came in 2017 during his final Rams season when Quinn played linebacker for the only time in his nine-year NFL career.
"I don't want to say I felt uncomfortable, it was just really the first time I've really played the left a lot," he said. "I think I had 8 1/2 sacks that year, not to talk about myself."
The big difference is putting his hand down on the ground and coming off with explosion to get around tackles. He's standing up in the 3-4 and not putting a hand down to explode.
Pagano has had success and failure taking longtime defensive ends and making them into 3-4 outside linebackers. Robert Mathis did with Pagano's Colts and produced 27 1/2 sacks in two seasons, including an incredible 19 1/2 sacks during an All-Pro year at age 31. Dwight Freeney probably tried doing it a year too late at age 32 and had struggled, then had injuries and moved on.
The Bears will move their linebackers from left to right side on occasion to fit offensive tendencies and also take advantage of Mack's skills. They also did it to take advantage of mismatches.
They may not need to move Mack off the left defensive edge as much because Quinn, who turns 30 on Monday, is a dominant pass rusher while Leonard Floyd was not.
It still can cause a scheme adjustment, though.
The real problem is not the side but standing up on the edge. That 2017 season was one of Quinn's worst in terms of Pro Football Focus grades, even if he did have a healthy 8 1/2 sacks. He had a 58.7 PFF grade, his third lowest and a point from his lowest.
If Quinn can't fit this role as well, then the Bears need to adjust their scheme and it looks less and less like Vic Fangio's successful system and like some sort of a hybrid.
Regardless, they're not going to get Quinn standing up and dropping into coverage the way Floyd did, and this in itself alters the scheme.
They've brought in Barkevious Mingo as a potential relief outside linebacker who can cover the pass or pass rush, but his effectiveness at either is questionable. It's not at the level Floyd's was, or even former backup Aaron Lynch.
Mingo, who also could play inside, has had just 13 quarterback hits and three sacks over his last five season while former back up Aaron Lynch had 17 quarterback hits and five sacks in two seasons.
Whether it can all work without drastic change is questionable, but with a fast inside linebacker like Roquan Smith behind them they can find a way to compensate with pass coverage from a linebacker.
It's either that or Pagano is going back to the drawing board.
And this might not be a bad thing, because unpredictability with personnel is always an asset, especially during the early season in unscouted situations.
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