5 questions brought up in Chicago Bears loss to Packers

After the Chicago Bears beat the San Francisco 49ers there was a bit of optimism for the team. However, like almost every other year, that was hit hard by the Green Bay Packers and Aaron Rodgers. Now that the team played a clean weather game and we saw them against a pretty good team, we can start to ask the following questions.

5. Is the run defense an issue?

Entering the game, we thought that this may be an issue. The biggest area where the Chicago Bears run defense is soft is on the edges. The 49ers attacked this early, but an Elijah Mitchell injury had them changing plans.

Still, the Packers saw that the 49ers were able to get outside the tackles on run plays, and they tested this theory themselves. Aaron Jones absolutely touched the Packers on the ground, and a lot of it was to the outside.

When you think of the Bears’ edge rushers, Robert Quinn and Al-Quadin Muhammad have reputations of being pass rushers, and not great run stuffers. Dominique Robinson is a rookie, and even Matt Eberflus has a history of struggling with outside zone.

Without the resources or the scheme to slow down the outside ground attack, this will probably be something that teams rely on often when they play Chicago. When you consider they only slowed down the 49ers after the Mitchell injury, you could argue that the outside zone is 2-0 at making Matt Eberflus and his scheme look weak against the run.