Are Chicago Bears and Matt Ebeflus ready for Kyle Shanahan’s run scheme?
One of the keys to the Chicago Bears’ home opener against the San Francisco 49ers will be the match of coaches. With Kyle Shanahan vs. Matt Eberflus, you have an offense against defense. While Eberflus will not be calling the plays, it is Alan Williams who is bringing the same scheme and identity from the time the two shared with the Colts.
As a defensive coordinator with the Colts, his defense only faced off against Kyle Shanahan and the Colts once. They won the game, but the run defense did not walk away from the game feeling all that great.
Because the 49ers were losing they abandoned the running game. However, Elijah Mitchell posted 107 yards on 18 carries. He had four rushes of over 10 yards, all coming on zone rushes. You can see he was having plenty of success when getting outside, which is highlighted by the green.
Coming into the season a big question the Chicago Bears have is their edge run defense. This has always been the biggest knock when it comes to Robert Quinn, and Al-Quadin Muhammad was on the field when the 49ers were attacking him on the outside.
Trevis Gipson is clearly the top-run defender of the edge group, but even he is not great in this area. The team will be relying on their linebackers a lot, but linebacker manipulation, and using so much misdirection is what Shanahan thrives on. Perhaps Matt Eberflus saw Shaq Leonard struggle in run defense and said if he becomes a coach he wants an OC who runs outside the zone.
To beat the 49ers’ rushing attack you have to be able to set the edge against their tackles and force things to the inside. The Colts could not do that with Eberflus back when he was with the Colts.
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They do not have the personnel to consistently hang with the 49ers on the edges in this game. It will be a huge test for Alan Williams to prove that he learned something from seeing Eberflus and the Colts’ defense struggle to contain Shanahan. It will be one of the keys to the game because otherwise, the Colts scored 30 to beat the 49ers. We are not sure if the Bears will come out and put up points like that.