Underpaid Tashaun Gipson Overperforms

The Bears managed to maintain some continuity in their secondary this year as they'll have the same safety tandem back for the first time since 2017-18, even if they lack the really big hitter at this position.

The draft had ended and Ryan Pace was trying to push aside an inquiry suggesting he hadn't done enough on the defensive side of the football.

The Bears GM brought up the name of Tashaun Gipson.

"Resigning Gipson was big for us," Pace said.

Considering they waited more than a month into free agency and only 10 days before the NFL Draft to get the deal done for Gipson, and also that he was made only the league's 56th highest-paid safety on average with a one-year deal worth $1.835 million, it's easy to wonder about how big they really thought it was.

This was what the market place brought, though, and it's surprising considering what Gipson brings to the secondary. The two are probably too alike in playing style for it to be an ideal mix. There is no real hammer as a strong safety, but rather two good deep safety types. 

Gipson is coming off a season when he intercepted two passes, which was two more than $58.4 million safety Eddie Jackson. Jackson averages 2.5 interceptions a year over his career while Gipson is averaging 2.8 interceptions over a career five years longer, which is obviously a more difficult average to attain.

Last year Gipson was better than Jackson in terms of defending the pass when he was targeted. He had a passer rating against on targets of 96.3 and allowed 63.6% completions, while Jackson allowed a career-worst 67.4% completions for a career-worst passer rating of 110.1. The figures came from Pro Football Reference's Sportradar.

The point was not to compare who is a better safety but to show Gipson was far better than the pay level the Bears were able to get him at, and there is every reason to project he can be at least as good in 2021. 

Two stats suggest it wasn't a one-sided comparison in Gipson's way. He still allowed one more touchdown pass (3-to-2) than Jackson, and Jackson had to make 16 more tackles than Gipson. The Bears would rather have Jackson more in a role of ballhawk than they had him at the past two seasons, and this is how they used him under Vic Fangio. They should do the same with Fangio disciple Sean Desai now as defensive coordinator.

Desai pointed out a reason why the Bears could expect better safety numbers from both.

"I don’t know if it's going to allow us to do anything different," he said about getting Gipson back. "What it's gonna allow is those two guys' relationship is gonna grow and you (media) know this, just go through the history of football or any sport. If you want to be good, like when those Bulls teams were good in the 90s, they had the same players playing over and over and they were communicating with each other and that helps.

"And for us, that's what is going to help us in the back end. When Gip and BoJack are back there and they're communicating and they're communicating and handling all of the coverage assignments, that helps because now they know how each other plays. They know what each other's preferences are and how to take care of different issues on the back end and I think that's the biggest growth that we'll see there."

The last time the Bears safeties looked locked in thought was in 2018, when Adrian Amos and Jackson were in their second year together in the same system. They used different safety tandems in 2019 and 2020, but now have continuity.

As much as anything, it's why Gipson's statistics don't figure to decline too much in his second Bears season.

Tashaun Gipson at a Glance

Career: 10th season, 25 interceptions, 54 passes defended, 516 tackles, 13 for loss.

2020: 2* interceptions, 7 passes defended, 66 tackles.

Key Number: 3, the number of missed tackles Gipson had in 69 attempts.

2021 Projection: 2 interceptions, 6 passes defended, 58 tackles.

Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven