Biggest Bears Problem Remains

It's only four days into training camp and the pads will not come on until Tuesday, but improvement in the passing game has already been apparent through Justin Fields' better efficiency.

Ask the people he's going against on a daily basis.

"He definitely is getting the ball out quick, going through his reads and you can tell he's comfortable back there and he's putting the ball on a dime," safety Jaquan Brisker said. "Like, he's diming. He's throwing dimes out there."

The extent of Fields' improvement is always the key factor here. He needed to improve a great deal.

However, the real Bears problem is one that will take pads and all three preseason games to address, along with every remaining practice: They were not a physical defense last year and couldn't go toe to toe with a physical team.

They were pushed around last year, bullied off the field, and bringing in linebackers Tremaine Edmunds and T.J. Edwards will help immensely. This is true.

Their secondary can be better than it showed late last season, although safety depth remains an issue.

Nevertheless, defenses are made up front. Even if the Bears are more stout against the run, they lack the quality, experienced defensive linemen they need to keep the pressure off Edwards, Edmunds and third linebacker Jack Sanborn, or to make it so defensive backs have more chances to make plays on the football.

Nothing that has happened in training camp so far has proven anything one way or the other about their defensive linemen because they aren't hitting yet, but it doesn't need to be proven.

As pass rushers, free agent acquisitions DeMarcus Walker and Rasheem Green have always been mid-level to below average defensive ends. They didn't get better overnight or by putting on navy and burnt orange uniforms. Walker's real value might be when he shifts inside to rush the quarterback from a tackle position.

Without edge help and without dominant interior rush men, the Bears will be prone in the secondary again far too often.

There are attempts to add an edge rusher for passing situations on-going and this is apparent just because GM Ryan Poles does not want to talk about it.

It's obvious how deficient they are on the edge when Rams castoff Terrell Lewis has caused the biggest stir in camp so far of any edge rusher. He applied pressure a few times, the last one during a Friday play that resulted in Fields throwing an interception to Edwards. Other than that, their edge rush has been no more effective than last year.

At this point in free agency, any addition is only a band-aid type of approach. It might provide a few sacks at various points but nothing more.

These available players are unsigned in August for reasons, and those are the flaws in their games combined with miscalculations about the value of their own pass rush talents as they tested the marketplace. Simply, if they were better, they would have been signed long ago.

In the case of the Bears, there is this belief yet in the development of Dominique Robinson and maybe Trevis Gipson at end, but both are playing with the backups in camp.

They won't know any of this with certainty until they get a good look in preseason games. If they have an answer before preseason games, then it doesn't bode well for either and for the mix with veterans, because with pads on in practice they are still not allowed to tackle the quarterback. It will take closing out with sacks to know.

Defensive coordinator Alan Williams will be watching closely then for particular aspects of improvement.

"How fast, how hard, and how, again, with violence, that can these guys play," he said. "And then, can they execute their assignment with excellence. And then, the overall, can they finish? That's a big deal. Can they finish, because we don't want to see good, good, bad. Good, good, bad is alignment is good, assignment is good, they can't finish and make the play.

"So I want to see at the end whether it's good, good, bad or bad, bad, good–they start bad and then they have the ability to finish the play–it's can they finish the play when it's their play to make? So that's what I'm looking for in a nutshell."

The clock is ticking on adding help from outside, whatever minor assistance this might provide.

Williams won't speculate on the impact a player like this added in camp or even just before the season could have.

"Some guys have experience in the system," Williams said. "Their experience may have them come in and they're ahead of the game. Other guys may come in from a different system and the terminology is different, the techniques are different. I just like to deal with what's on my plate, what I have out there. If they give me something else on my plate, I'll deal with that when it comes."

In 2018, they added a pass rusher to former defensive coordinator Vic Fangio's plate at the very last seccond and it worked pretty well. That was Khalil Mack.

However, there is no Mack in this group. There are a few players who can add a sack, like Yannick Ngakoue or Jadeveon Clowney. There are a few older guys who can add a sack but not much else, like Justin Houston.

The pool of edge rushers does not include a dominant all-around player who can change the course of games on any play, run or pass, like Mack in 2018. Every other team in the NFC North has players who can do this. The Bears do not.

That kind of player required two first-round picks and some change to acquire in 2018.

They could always trade for Chase Young, but he hasn't proven anything more than any of the available free agents. In fact, he's even a bigger question mark because his high for sacks is 7 1/2, he has played one full season and is coming off a horrible knee injury. He's starting his career all over again.

The Bears are too inexperienced at defensive tackle to take over games with their interior pass rush and lack edge rushers needed to collapse pockets from the outside. They still need multiple quality defensive linemen in the future and this will become more apparent when those pad come on both for practices and preseason games.

The rookies they picked this year on the interior–Grevon Dexter and Zacch Pickens–are not going to develop fast enough to fill the void because it is so expansive.

For now, they'll need that improved pass connection and the ball coming out of Fields' hands faster because they'll need all the points they can manage this year.

Their defense is the real problem. It always was last year, too, but no one really wanted to recognize this.

It's always easier to blame a quarterback than it is to chase one.

Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven

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