Bears Preseason Week 2: Position Battles (Defense)

Dennis Wierzbicki-USA TODAY Sports

Position: Free Safety

Ugly day all around for the Bears safeties. There were mix ups in coverage, missed tackles and a lack of impact plays. Chad Henne looked like Peyton Manning out there picking apart the Bears secondary, which is unacceptable.

Down: Danny McCray – Did a solid job tackling (4 tackles), but looked confused in zone coverage and on one play in particular failed to react when Tim Jennings jumped the short route allowing a 20-yd reception.

Down: Brock Vereen – Rough day for Vereen in pass coverage (-1.2 grade from PFF) and had an embarrassingly bad missed tackle on a short out pass. Vereen did have 4 tackles on the day including one for a loss, but the free safety needs to be strong in coverage and after two games Vereen hasn’t proven he can cover consistently.

Down: M.D. Jennings – Only got 14 snaps at the end of the game, which is a pretty clear sign the Bears don’t consider Jennings a starting option.

Up: Chris Conte – As much as it pains me to say, Conte is firmly in the mix for the starting FS job due to the poor play of his competition Thursday night.

Up: Marcus Trice – Has played both free and strong safety in limited snaps the last two weeks but he made the most of his time against the Jags with 2 tackles on 10 snaps. Trice is probably a practice squad guy, but is an interesting player who can really hit.