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Bear Digest

Dennis Allen and His Past Linked to Current Bears Run of Injuries

One Chicago podcast, citing Dennis Allen's Saints record with soft tissue injuries, asks if demands by the Bears defensive coordinator put players at risk.
Gene Chamberlain|
Is it possible Dennis Allen's past problems are being relived in Chicago?
Is it possible Dennis Allen's past problems are being relived in Chicago? | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

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Chicago Bears

The Bears' secondary experienced a season from hell in 2025 in regards to soft tissue injuries, and Thursday's third padded practice resulted in a handful of defensive injuries stacked upon some injuries they already had for this .

The end result is a training camp with rookie Dillon Thieneman playing out of position, with Cam Lewis playing safety at 183 pounds and the Bears wondering if they'll ever see Kyler Gordon again. It's also causing some to wonder about coaching methods, and in this case defensive coordinator Dennis Allen.

Former WSCR host and Bears beat reporter Dan Bernstein, on his 312 Sports podcast, not only questions whether there is a link between Allen and his coaching methods and the Bears' defensive soft tissue injuries in the secondary, but ties this to what the Saints went through when Allen was head coach and even before he was the head coach.

The biggest indictment of Allen's methods was a quote Bernstein read from Saints GM Mickey Loomis about Allen when they fired him in 2024. It was a widely reported quote as it came from a press conference.

"Dennis Allen, I think, is a fantastic football coach but it gets right back to what stares at you right in the face, that we've had an abnormal amount of injuries and we haven't been able to overcome that," Looms reportedly said. "And so that puts pressure and stress on the organization and ultimately it was caused (sic) for a change."

Reporter-based stats are shocking

Bernstein then cites reporting by Nick Underhill of Neworleansfootball.com in which numerous statistics about missing players due to soft tissue injuries were given, but one statistic that really stands out was how they had their starting defense available only for "10 of the 51 games" Allen was head coach.

The obvious major error in this statement aside — Allen only was head coach for 43 games and not 51 — the trend cited is alarming and it was reported on numerous times by Underhill during Allen's time as coach.

Bernstein cited another number, saying the Saints in 2023 were the seventh healthiest team but still had abnormally high numbers of games lost by their defensive backs. They had 14 players show up with soft tissue injuries in 2023 or 2024. The claim being made is that the Saints instantly became much healthier once the Saints fired Allen.

This was all brought up by Bernstein through a mysterious listener/viewer/confidant whose name was only given as "Bryce."

The numbers do sound damaging and the Bears have had soft tissue issues since Allen arrived. They used to have them before he arrived, as well. There were years when Lovie Smith's defenses started training camp with third-team players all over the field because they had so many soft tissue injuries. It's not uncommon in football, especially in training camp.

A scary trend

The whole topic came up after Thursday's practice but DBs Dallis Flowers and Gervarrius Owens suffered what appeared to be knee injuries and not soft tissue. This isn't known because the Bears do not give out specifics on injuries in training camp unless it's a severe one. Even then, they are always sketchy with this and it is not merely the Ben Johnson/Allen regime. They've been this way since Matt Nagy left. The real drop in communicating what injuries are occurred while Smith was coach. At one time, the Bears let reporters come up to former trainer Tim Bream and talk to him about players, and they had Bream even give a few impromptu press conferences.

THE DIRTY LITTLE SECRET ABOUT BEARS' SO-CALLED EXPLOSIVE RUNNING GAME

But the Bears did have cornerback Terell Smith leave practice early this week. Montez Sweat also left Thursday's practice.

However, safety Coby Bryant's injury is not a soft tissue injury. It was a dislocation, bone bruise and slight fracture. Safety Elijah Hicks reported to camp with a shin injury and not a calf, hamstring, groin or injury of this type. The injury to Kyler Gordon did occur while the team was conducting organized team activities, although it's unclear if it happened in practice or when Gordon was training on his own or conditioning at Halas Hall.

Last year, Jaylon Johnson's soft tissue injury problems started with one he had on his own during offseason work. Linebacker T.J. Edwards had soft tissue problems all year long, even back to training camp. His injury earlier this year was just rehab from a broken leg and then a muscle strain suffered in his own training.

Injuries of this type occurring in the offseason away from the facility can't be traced back to the training staff and defensive coaches. Sure, the training routine might be something given to a player to take back with them and follow in the offseason but it's the execution of this plan which is key. And no one on the team is overseeing said execution of the plan if a player is away and injures him self. It's on the player then.

Chicago sample size too small and uncertain

What happened in New Orleans sounds alarming, but not all of the injuries the Bears have had directly fit into this category of soft tissue injuries caused by their practice routines or in-house training regimen. It's much more vague.

Unfortunately, the way to test this theory out further is for the season to progress and if more players start going down with soft tissue injuries there would be questions. But that could also mean a season down the drain.

It's an interesting theory but equally troubling is the emphasis by the Bears on full-contact play in practice to a great extent. That blame would go both on Allen and Ben Johnson if non-soft tissue injuries keep occurring. A cart was brought on the field and Owens had to be loaded onto it Thursday. Flowers struggled to limp off with medical personnel supporting him on either side. Those don't sound like soft tissue, unless they actually tore the hamstring completely.

More needs to be known about the injuries they have now before forming an opinion on all of this.

Last year Tremaine Edmunds, Edwards, Gordon, and Jaylon Johnson all had soft tissue injuries at the same time. The Bears were bringing in players off the street just to get by, and Allen was lauded as a genius for getting the defense to respond anyway, as they led the league in takeaways.

If the injuries all prove to be soft tissue and the trend continues, it can't speak well for the future of the defense on the coaching side because repeating their league-leading takeaway act would be difficult to accomplish.

The other real question to be asked is whether all of these soft tissue injuries for the Bears are really uncommon throughout the league? It's always this way in training camps.

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.

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