Bear Defense Asserting Itself
The Bears defense is starting to take shape in the mold of Matt Eberflus' Colts defenses.
It's just taken a lot longer, almost a full year longer than his first Colts defense took. Then again, they didn't need to entirely gut the roster for cap purposes with the Colts the way the Bears have done.
Bears linebacker Tremaine Edmunds likes to point to the first six games and a 1-5 start as the formative period.
"Obviously we faced a lot of adversity," Edmunds said. "Adversity builds character. You find out a lot about your team, you find out a lot about yourself."
The Colts team started 1-5 in Eberflus' first Indianapolis year, then caught fire and made the playoffs.
No one is walking around projecting it for this team. After all, that team had Andrew Luck at quarterback.
But the defense does seem to be mimicking what the Colts did to become strong on that side of the ball throughout Eberflus' run with the team.
Strong run defense and taking away the ball keyed that defense and the same has happened over the past three weeks, even the last four to some extent.
They've given up less than 100 yards rushing the last four games, less than 47 the last three games.
The Bears rank fifth against the run, second in yards allowed per rush attempt. Last year they finished 31st against the run.
"It takes all 11 to have a good run defense, and we've had some good ones," Eberflus said, referring to his time in Indianapolis.
His Colts teams were top 10 each of his four years. The first team he had allowed just 94.8 yards rushing a game after the first seven weeks.
"Again, we're in the middle of the process of this season, so we've got to keep doing what we're doing and do it better," he said. "And it's everybody—to me it starts in the middle with your defensive tackles and it starts with your linebackers having the ability to get downhill and to create little space for the runners to run.
"Then you work to the outside—the defensive end's gotta do a great job setting edges. When you create that inside cup and squeeze the run game off like that, I think it’s really good. Then it goes out to the perimeter."
Eberflus includes the secondary in there as space closers, even the cornerbacks.
"It's the safeties too—the safeties running the alley and making sure they're doing a great job with their pursuit angles," he said.
Better run defense leads to more difficult down-and-distance situations for offenses and that can lead to more turnovers and better third-down defense. They've given up 4 of 22 on third down the past two games after starting the year last in the league at higher than a 50% rate.
Scoring on Sunday on defense was a huge plus.
"Obviously the defensive touchdown, when you get one of those it gives you an 80% win rate," Eberflus said.
The six takeaways in the past three weeks are only a small sample of what they anticipate the defense can eventually.
"That gives you a big chance at winning," Edmunds said. "We got lot of playmerkers on defense. We've got to keep repeating this performance, repeat keep taking the ball away."
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