Bear Digest

Bears Defense Faces Challenges in Trying to Halt Budding Threat

Jacksonville's recent offensive success mirrors what the Bears defense saw in their last two opponents but a few different wrinkles could end a positive trend.

Gene Chamberlain

Kyler Gordon comes up with a fumble against Carolina. The Bears defense has feasted on turnovers but can they do this against a Jaguars team with only five turnovers?
Kyler Gordon comes up with a fumble against Carolina. The Bears defense has feasted on turnovers but can they do this against a Jaguars team with only five turnovers? / David Banks-Imagn Images
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The Bears defense finds itself in a familiar situation against Trevor Lawrence and the Jacksonville Jaguars.

For the third straight game, they're going against an offense that seemingly has suddenly found itself.

What the last two opponents have found then against the Bears is trouble trying to move the ball against Jaylon Johnson, Montez Sweat, Tremaine Edmunds and Co. even after they've had success. This time there are some extraneous facors entered into the equation that could impact it.

The Rams had come in off easily their biggest offensive explosion of the year in a comeback 27-24 win over the 49ers and couldn't get past 18 points. The Panthers last week had back-to-back strong games on offense with Andy Dalton at quarterback before they got the kind of production from their veteran QB that they had earlier behind second-year QB Bryce Young.

"Were facing an offense this week that had an explosive performance last week," Bears defensive coordinator Eric Washington told media in London. "And it came through the rushing attack, it came through the quarterback, it came through big plays. And so they're getting themselves together at a good time for them.

"And we're going to have to make sure that we exceed their tempo, that we exceed their tempo in terms of pacing, in terms of what we need to do to get ourselves lined up and get set and to execute."

The Jaguars have a highly successful offensive head coach in Doug Pederson, just like the Rams did, but quarterback Trevor Lawrence hasn't had the overall success Dalton and Matt Stafford had for the last two Bears opponents. Still, they are 15th on offense and well balanced with an 11th-ranked running game and passing game with talented receivers and only two interceptions thrown this year. The last part of this matchup is key as the Bears have feasted off takeaways. They have 12 .

One difference for the Jaguars, however, is they're going to be coming off the disruption of coming to London so late. They had trouble Thursday leaving when they wanted because of hurricane Milton.

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The Jaguars have made a habit of coming over later in the week and have a 6-5 record in games in London, which is solid considering how bad their record has been over recent years overall. But the extra disruption of coming even later due to the storm after they've finally had something going on offense can't be of benefit.

Running into the seventh-ranked Bears defense can't be helpful, either. The key for Washington's defense has been pressure without blitzing to complement one of the best pass coverage groups in the league, and then effective blitzes when they do use it.

"We'd like to get into second=and-long, we'd like to keep him out of favorable down-and-distance situations, (in) third-down-and-long, second-and-long, we'd like to keep him in that environment," Washington said. "We've got to make sure that the pocket is getting collapsed. We're doing a great job of disguising our looks and not giving him information that he can easily access and figure out what to do with the football."

Losing Jaquan Brisker not only takes away an experienced part of the Bears pass coverage but he also has been effective using the safety blitz. It's not a critical Bears tool but one they've found out how to use. Without him, it might need to be altered to slot or linebacker blitzes.

"Our foundation is rush and cover starting with our four-man rush," Washington said. "We'd like the pressure to complement that. We don't want to live in that (blitzing) scenario but we'd definitely want
that to complement what we'd like to to do in our front with coverage. It's just a matter of speed of timing of making sure that we can affect the game without having to deploy a fifth guy, and when we do we need that person to be an enormous factor and they have so far."

The mere change from Brisker to Elijah Hicks is an extra factor to consider in this matchup. The Bears defense hasn't had to account for an injured starter since they lost to Green Bay last year 17-9 in the season finale. They have had every starter available for all five games to date.

Everything they’ve done so far defensively has been positive but a different challenge against a hot opponent in a different country can quickly reverse a trend.

Twitter: BearsOnSI

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

BearDigest.com publisher 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.