Bear Digest

The Way Forward in NFC North Has Been Shown to the Bears

Analysis: The tendency is to look at the Bears trailing good teams in the NFC North and see it as hopeless but they're only two games out and flaws in those teams have been detected.

Gene Chamberlain

Matt Eberflus directs the defense onto the field in Sunday's Bears victory over the Rams.
Matt Eberflus directs the defense onto the field in Sunday's Bears victory over the Rams. / Matt Marton-Imagn Images
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Four games is enough of a season to see the landscape well

It's not as easy to see what's ahead when you're looking up at everything, like the Bears are in the NFC North. It's easier to see the panorama from the lofty perch of No. 1.

However, the Bears are only two games behind the division-leading Minnesota Vikings and finally have begun addressing some of their greatest problems to date.

The first four weeks have shown the path the Bears need to pursue to overtake other teams in the NFC North if they are going to eventually "...take the North and not give it back," as GM Ryan Poles so famously said.

Each of the other divisional teams have revealed their flaws. The Bears need to exploit them and in most cases have what they need to do it.

Minnesota Vikings

The Bears can match up against the Vikings because they can play pass defense better than any team in the division and the passing game is Minnesota's greatest strength. What they need to do to have the upper hand against Minnesota is cope with the real key to the Vikings' surge, and that's their defense.

As good as the Vikings have been on offense, they always are and this won't change. They can run and pass.

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The key is burning Minnesota's defense. Brian Flores' scheme is based entirely too much on the blitz. It covers up for obvious personnel inadequacies in pass coverage within the secondary and at linebacker. The Vikings are blitzing on 40.8% of plays according to Stathead/Pro Football Reference. That's second most in the NFL.

The Bears can be blitz beaters. In fact, they've been trying to operate an offense with a wide variety of screen passes, so much so that offensive coordinator Shane Waldron is being criticized for excessive use. But it will start to work when other aspects of the offense take off, and the Bears will be well situated then to expose Minnesota's risky defensive scheme for what it is -- a huge gamble.

The best part for the Bears is they can keep working at this because they don't face the Vikings until Nov. 24 and when they do it's at home. They have plenty of time to sharpen those blitz beaters.

Green Bay Packers

There are a couple keys to attacking Green Bay and everything will change now for the Packers as winless starting quarterback Jordan Love operates the team.

The key here is the pass rush because Love's problems last year and even this year in his two games, have come when under pressure. He's very accurate but under heat he doesn't always make the wise decisions. The playoffs last year against the 49ers were a perfect example. The same thing happened against the Eagles.

The Bears drew criticism for the lack of pass rush help they brought in during this past offseason, but they did add players and what they didn't add was a big name. It doesn't mean they haven't upgraded the pass rush.

The pass rush that doesn't need to blitz to succeed has been boosted halfway up the league standings in sacks.

Last year the Bears were seventh from the bottom in pressure percentage and now they are seventh from the top in pressure percentage at 29% and have done it the right way as they're only 23rd in blitz percentage, and on 2% fewer plays than last year, according to Pro Football Reference and Stathead. They should be able to pressure Love with their front four now and they already play pass defense like few other teams in the league have been doing.

More importantly, the Green Bay defense itself looked highly vulnerable in two games as the Eagles and Vikings had few problems moving the ball on them. Green Bay still has a scheme to adjust to, just like the Bears do on offense.

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Detroit Lions

This is more of a problem for the Bears because it's going to take Williams getting the passing game going. To do it, their tackles have to handle Aidan Hutchinson while Williams needs to keep making progress with the passing game.

The Bears totally outplayed Detroit last year in both games, winning one and giving away the other one in the final few minutes when it was already won -- in classic Justin Fields style.

One edge they'll have already is that they get to play one game against the Lions at Soldier Field at the end of November and Jared Goff will freeze as he always does in poor weather.

But beating the Lions is a different matchup for the Bears in other ways this year. Detroit's run defense is better than in the past. The Lions, on offense, are capable of burning the Bears in their six-man look when trying to play pass coverage. This is because the Lions have a running game capable of producing big gains with Jahmyr Gibbs.

However, the Lions have shown they still struggle playing pass defense. The wild game with Seattle was an example.
They gave up over 300 yards passing to Geno Smith and Matt Stafford and Tampa Bay didn't even need that to beat them. It's on Williams to get that passing game up to speed.

As good as the NFC North looks like it has become, there are enough flaws for the Bears to exploit should they finally get their own issues covered up or eliminated. And the schedule is working their way because they don't face those teams until well after their bye.

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.