While everyone is talking about the Chicago Bears‘ quarterback situation between rookie Justin Fields and veteran Andy Dalton, it’s the defense that should be generating an equal amount of buzz at training camp.
Over the last two seasons, the Bears struggled in a couple of major areas on defense under Chuck Pagano: sacks and takeaways.
Now under the leadership of new defensive coordinator Sean Desai, the Bears are taking a familiar defensive approach.
Takeaways. It is all about takeaways.
“A ton of takeaways and turnovers,” Nagy told the media this last week. “A ton of them.”
Chicago Bears head coach Matt Nagy and his staff are zeroed in on an aggressive defensive approach during training camp.
When asked about his defense and the team’s approach during camp, Nagy made it pretty clear what they’re focused on.
“When those guys go to bed at night, just think about intercepting the football, stripping that football. Be crazy about it. Everywhere you go.”
Nagy’s obsession with takeaways is refreshing, because of just how bad the Bears have been in the last two years in this category. After Vic Fangio left, this unit fell off dramatically when it comes to taking the football away.
In 2020, the Bears came up with just 18 takeaways. By comparison, the Miami Dolphins led the league with 29 of them. In 2019, the Bears finished with 19. Again, the league leader was far ahead of Chicago — the Pittsburgh Steelers with 38.
In order to make the focus even clearer with his unit, Desai has introduced something called the “turnover bucket” during training camp.
The idea is that, whenever the defense takes the ball away during camp, a big blue bucket comes out onto the field and the player who came up with the ball gets to dunk the football into the bucket.
So far, the team has really taken to the turnover bucket.
“We want to make sure that when we get a takeaway, everyone knows that we got one,” Desai said.
This obsession with turnovers feels very reminiscent of the Fangio era, for sure. However, going back even further, it feels a lot like the Lovie Smith era. Under both coaches, the defense was expected to hound the football. On every down, it was about crowding to the football.
That’s the mantra these Bears are adapting once again, and the unit is responding well thus far.
Chicago’s defense has enough great players to be a top unit once again in 2021, but it’s all about taking the football away. With the right attitude and scheme, there is no reason why they cannot come up with 25-plus takeaways this coming season.
As long as the defense comes up with a good amount of takeaways this season, the Bears will be an improved team. While many like to project another season hovering around .500, the talent speaks otherwise, and it starts on defense. This unit is out to shock the NFL like they did in 2018, and it begins and ends with taking that football away.
