The Chicago Bears have no shortage of great defenses in their long history. One sad fact about the franchise is they have a tendency to waste most of those defenses due in large part to being paired with inept offenses. How many times have they done this? More than anybody would care to admit.
Aaron Schatz of Football Outsiders though thinks not enough people are talking about what this team has done recently. The analytics specialist crunched numbers from the entirety of the 2010s decade, determining the offensive and defensive trends of every team. He came to some pretty notable conclusions about the Bears. The offenses? Well, it’s not hard to guess.
It was the defensive findings though that were truly painful to hear.
“Both the 2012 and 2018 Bears rank among the top 10 regular-season defenses ever tracked by DVOA, going back to 1985. But the Chicago defense collapsed early this decade just when the offense finally got its act together, then the offense declined again as the defense worked its way back to glory…
…One thing that connected the good Bears defenses of the decade with the bad ones: tough schedules. Chicago was tied with Tampa Bay for the hardest schedule faced by their defenses this decade, ranked 11th on average.”
The Chicago Bears just can’t seem to put a complete team together
Timing is everything in the NFL. The Bears haven’t had the best when it comes to the 2010s. In 2012, they had a defense that finished 3rd in points allowed and led the league in takeaways. It was the last hurrah of Brian Urlacher, Julius Peppers, Lance Briggs, and Charles Tillman as a formidable core. Unfortunately, they were tied to an offense that ranked 28th overall and never found a rhythm all season. The Bears did go 10-6 but still missed the playoffs.
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What stings most about that is the offense jumped to 8th in 2013. Sadly by then it was too late.
As for the 2018 unit? It was #1 in the NFL. A whirlwind of sacks and turnovers that no opponent wanted to face. The offense was considerably better than the 2012 version led by the creative Matt Nagy at head coach. However, they failed to show up in the wild card round of the playoffs, managing just 15 points. Though in fairness it should’ve been 18 if Cody Parkey had hit that 41-yard kick.
The one year this franchise seemed to put both a good offense and good defense on the field at the same time was 1985. The last time they won a Super Bowl. That is not a coincidence. Until they are able to get both going in parallel, underachievement will remain.