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Dennis Allen's Great Bears Secondary Gamble Going Off Contrary to Plan

The Chicago Bears defensive coordinator decided to revamp his secondary and the look they have for opening day is not the risk they intended to take.
Gene Chamberlain|
Titans tight end Kylen Granson makes a catch over the arms of Bears safety Dillon Thieneman in the final preseason game.
Titans tight end Kylen Granson makes a catch over the arms of Bears safety Dillon Thieneman in the final preseason game. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

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Chicago Bears

Bears defensive coordinator Dennis Allen didn't like all of his pieces after last season, and the Bears will apparently have five different starters against the Carolina Panthers Sunday when the NFL season begins.

Not all of them were intended to be there, of course. Injuries have made the interior of the Bears secondary a total question mark. It's safe to say Allen got what he wanted with a new secondary, but only two starting secondary players are the ones he wanted there to start the year.

In fact, considering they led NFL lead in interceptions last year with 23, the Bears' secondary situation looks closer to a catastrophe than a planned intentional rehab. They would have been better off bringing back everyone. The injuries to Coby Bryant and Kyler Gordon altered everything, but the GM and coach need to plan better for such disasters.

The Bears are starting two rookies and another newcomer. The newcomer will either be Cam Lewis or Xavier Woods. Most likely it won't be Woods, who was relegated to second team most of his time in Bears camp and preseason. Lewis can play either slot cornerback or safety but is better suited to the slot and the Bears had him as starting safety through most of camp and preseason, Woods wasn't even with a team when training camp began. He was essentially a street free agent.

How common is two rookie DBs starting?

Using rookie safety Dillon Thieneman at safety and rookie cornerback Malik Muhammad in the slot as starters is a complete rarity, based on NFL depth charts.

Only one other team in the NFL will start two rookies in its secondary. That's the Miami Dolphins, a team considered to be at the start of a complete reconstruction, when such moves are common. Chris Johnson is at nickelback and fifth-round pick Michael Taaffee is a starting safety for Miami.

In fact, there are only seven teams with a rookie starter in their secondary and four are safeties. Besides Thieneman and Taafee, Treydan Stukes of the Raiders and A.J. Haulcy of the Colts are slated to start at safety.

What Thieneman is doing as a rookie opening-day safety starter is not common, even for first-round picks.

Few rookie safety starters

First-rounder Caleb Downs was labeled the next great NFL safety and he isn't even really a safety. This isn't to say Downs can't and won't play safety, but he has been the Dallas nickel cornerback for the most part and ESPN has Malik Hooker and Jalen Thompson listed at safety. In fact, Downs is likely to be at safety when Dallas isn't in nickel personnel, but most teams are in nickel and/or dime personnel more than they're in base packages.

Emmanuel McNeil-Warren, another safety the Bears considered, couldn't win the starting spot with Cleveland. Ronnie Hickman starts over him.

The Bears have a real problem with their safety-slot cornerback situation. It's not a lack of talent. Rather, it's inexperience. Even one of their veterans in the secondary lacks experience both at his position and in this defensive scheme. That's Cam Lewis, who has spent a career as a backup and split time close to evenly between safety and slot cornerback.

Thieneman hasn't been a disappointment. His preseason Pro Football Focus grades say he was slightly above average, which is solid considering his lack of experience. But even Allen is realistic about what's ahead.

"He works his tail off, he's 100 miles an hour all the time on the practice field, and he's smart," Allen said. "So, if you have those characteristics and you're willing to work like he is, he's going to continue to improve."

He needs to improve and he needs the experience. Obviously this is true for Muhammad, who not only was drafted to play outside at cornerback but didn't even play nickel in college.

"You're going to see something each and every day that you hadn't seen yet," Allen said. "And the key is, can you learn from those experiences and put that back in your memory bank so that the next time you see a similar formation, a similar stem, a similar motion, whatever the case may be.

"You kind of start to develop that library in your brain that allows you to recall. Then now you're starting to anticipate more than react.”

And it takes time.

Pressure on Lewis less than ideal

As for their experienced player in that trio, Lewis, Allen admits it wasn't easy for him because he had to play nickel besides safety during training camp, preseason and the offseason.

“It’s easier when you an just go and play one position and that's the only thing that you do, and you get all your reps at that one position," Allen said. "The progress gets accelerated tremendously when that's the only thing that you do.

"Yet, when you're a veteran player that's played in this league, that's played multiple positions in this league, I don't look at it as a major challenge.”

It's still a challenge, and one made all the more difficult when two of the other starters in the secondary have never been on the field for a regular-season NFL play. Allen had a big influence on who they brought in as replacements. Ultimately, he' be among the accountable for this gamble.

It's all enough that the object of many Bears fans' wrath in the past, cornerback Tyrique Stevenson, looks like a calm, steadying influence in the secondary as opening day approaches.

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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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