Death, taxes, and a Bears defense doing the brunt of the hard work with little or nothing to show for the effort.
Stop me if you’ve heard that one before.
But because Kanye West is speaking to me today (If you admire somebody, you should go on, tell ’em. People never get the flowers while they can still smell ’em), we’re gonna throw bouquets at the Chicago Bears defense.
This group limited Derrick Henry to 68 yards on 21 carries. That’s a 3.2 yards per carry average which represents a season-low for Henry in games in which he gets at least 20 carries. He was stifled and stymied at every turn, and was ultimately held out of the end zone. The passing game wasn’t much better, as the Bears defense had three sacks and six quarterback hits on Ryan Tannehill. Don’t let that 104.9 passer rating fool you. Tannehill completed just 47 percent of his passes and threw for a season-low 158 yards. Chicago’s defense never allowed Tannehill to get into a real rhythm. Not that it mattered, because Chicago’s offense never got into one itself.
And yet, the defense didn’t do enough (I guess):
While the Bears defense has been praised for its performance Sunday, it should be pointed out that the primary goal for the defense now needs to be takeaways. And there were zero. https://t.co/Btjf65kX5d
— Dan Pompei (@danpompei) November 9, 2020
Don’t get me wrong. I understand where Dan Pompei is coming from. The Hall of Fame pro football writer whose experience predates my existence on this planet is someone I’ve long read and admired.
HOWEVER, I believe the defense should be absolved for not creating a turnover. Forcing turnovers is *the* thing great defenses do. And they didn’t do it yesterday. But at some point, relationships go both ways. And to this point, the Bears’ defense is doing all the work while the offense does minimal with regards to reciprocation. That’s not how this is supposed to work.
This defense shouldn’t have to do everything in order for the Bears to scratch across enough points to win a game. Slowing down Henry, Tannehill, A.J. Brown, and Jonnu Smith is enough of a challenge. And the Bears defense it enough to give their offense a fighting chance. But it the offense didn’t take advantage of it.
The Bears crossed into Titans territory on seven possessions. Their first four occasions ended as following: Turnover on downs, punt, punt, fumble returned for a touchdown. If the Bears flip a coin and score points on any two of those four possessions, then we’re talking about a different ballgame. And we might not be considering how the defense’s inability to force a turnover didn’t do the offense any favors. Instead, that they scored points on their final three possessions that crossed the 50 is all for naught. This defense deserves better.