NEWSLETTER
Pro Football Focus’ team of analysts recently ranked the run defenses for each of the NFL’s 32 teams and there’s plenty of good news to discover if you’re a Chicago Bears fan.
For starters, the Bears’ rush defense ranks ninth overall, which hell ya! Any time you can boast a top-10 unit in any facet of the game, you’ll take it. And because the Bears are scheduled to face talented running backs such as Dalvin Cook, Todd Gurley, Saquon Barkley, and LeSean McCoy, among others, this season, having a strong run-defense will certainly come in handy.
Morever, the Bears’ roster has strong run defenders at each level of the defense. Defensive ends Akiem Hicks and Jonathan Bullard were highlighted by PFF as two of the top three returning run defenders, with safety Adrian Amos rounding out the top three after a season in which he posted the fourth-highest grade against the run among safeties.
Adding rookie linebacker Roquan Smith to this group should make this group even tougher to run against. And we shouldn’t forget about top reserve linebacker Nick Kwiatkoski, who earned PFF’s third-best run-stop percentage among inside linebackers last season. If Bullard can keep up his fine work against the run in an expanded role now that Mitch Unrein is a member of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, then I don’t expect this group to miss a beat.
Sure, the Bears’ pass-rush leaves something (OK, a lot) to be desired, but at least this group can claim run-defense and pass-coverage as strengths to lean on, while the edge defenders get things sorted out.
Browsing through the rest of the run-defense rankings, one thing that stands out is the number of Bears 2018 opponents who rank in the middle of the pack or worse by PFF’s standards.
Chicago is scheduled to face seven teams that rank 16th and lower in the analytics site’s run-defense rankings, which should leave Jordan Howard, Tarik Cohen, and the team’s starting offensive linemen licking their chops. The Buffalo Bills (16th) are the best of the bunch, but the Los Angeles Rams (21st), Seattle Seahawks (24th), Detroit Lions (26th), San Francisco 49ers (28th), and Miami Dolphins (32nd) each rank in the lower third of the rankings.
The expectation is that the Bears’ passing game will be much improved with Matt Nagy and Mark Helfrich working together and calling the shots on offense. But with Howard and Cohen running behind a bolstered line coached by Harry Hiestand could make the passing attack that much more potent. For Mitch Trubisky to reach his full potential, he’ll need a reliable ground game to lean on in times of need. Not only do the Bears have that, it appears as if the schedule will help that group quite a bit.
