The Chicago Bears had a hard time getting to the quarterback last season. They were near the bottom in the NFL in both sacks and pressure rate. Many took this as a sign of the obvious problem. Their defensive line wasn’t good enough. They need better rushers up front. Outside of Montez Sweat, nobody stepped up. Austin Booker had a strong finish to the year but struggles to stay healthy. Gervon Dexter had 6 sacks, but disappeared for long stretches in between. One would think defensive coordinator Dennis Allen agrees with this sentiment.
You might be surprised. While Allen does agree the rush wasn’t good enough last season, he didn’t put all of it on the defensive line. He believes a big part of the problem last year was coverage allowing quarterbacks to get the ball out too quickly. Having coached for a long time, Allen has broken this issue down to simple math.
“Typically to affect the quarterback with a rush, unless you’re Myles Garrett or Von Miller back in the day, it’s really right at about 3.1 seconds…Prior to that, you’ve got to affect the quarterback with your coverage, meaning you’ve got to get him to have to go to his second or third read. And so, if the ball’s getting out in 2.5 seconds, statistically you’re not going to see a lot of sacks, a lot of hurries, a lot of hits. Sacks, hurries and hits need to come when the quarterback has to reset, and that typically is going to be 3 to 3.2 seconds. I felt like when the quarterback had to go to a second or third read, I felt like more consistently we were able to to affect him.”
When heard that way, it makes far more sense. Based on the best available data, the Bears’ defense allowed quarterbacks a Time To Throw average of around 2.69 seconds. That is considerably quicker than the 3.1 seconds Allen mentioned. It is no wonder the team couldn’t get sacks. Coverage wasn’t holding up well enough to give the rush enough opportunities.
Dennis Allen has always been a big believer in coverage dictating the rush.
If you look at his track record over the past several years, every team he’s been on has prioritized finding good cover corners. As head coach in Oakland, he spent the Raiders’ 1st-round pick on D.J. Hayden with the 12th overall pick. In New Orleans, he went after a defensive tackle (Sheldon Rankins) in 2016 and a cornerback (Marcus Lattimore) in 2017 before moving for an edge rusher. In hindsight, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the Bears focused on defensive tackle and cornerback this year.
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Both were major problems last season. None more so than the corners. Injuries plagued the position, with Kyler Gordon missing 14 games and Jaylon Johnson missing half of the season. Of the six cornerbacks who were targeted at least 10 times last season, none of them managed a passer rating allowed below 86.3. By contrast, the Denver Broncos, who led the league in sacks, had two below 75.0. Three of their guys allowed a completion percentage below 60.0.
| Player | Position | Targets | Passer Rating Allowed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jaylon Johnson | CB | 22 | 92.2 |
| Nahshon Wright | CB | 98 | 86.8 |
| Tyrique Stevenson | CB | 51 | 86.3 |
| C.J. Gardner-Johnson | S/Slot | 54 | 89.3 |
| Kyler Gordon | CB | 10 | 140.2 |
| Nick McCloud | CB | 27 | 140.7 |
The Bears need their coverage to be better.
It isn’t a coincidence that they’ve invested considerable resources to help with that. Cam Lewis in free agency. Malik Muhammad in the 4th round of the draft. Trading for Clark Phillips from Atlanta. Dennis Allen can’t expect his pass rush to get home, no matter how good they are, without reliable coverage. You might be able to work around that if you have a star like Myles Garrett, Aidan Hutchinson, or Micah Parsons. Otherwise, you need the secondary to carry some of that burden. We saw what happened to Green Bay last year after Parsons went down.
Allen isn’t naive. He knows Garrett isn’t walking through those doors at Halas Hall. No 1st round pick they made at edge rusher was likely to alter their fortunes. His best bet was what the Bears ultimately did: adding more explosiveness to the interior rush and improving coverage on the back end. They’ve done that with the cornerbacks, along with safeties Dillon Thieneman and eventually Coby Bryant. The hope is they can get everybody together healthy at some point
