This is a major issue for Chicago Bears

While a lot of the talk this week is about the Chicago Bears offense, and their struggles, just as many fingers should be pointed at the defense. Half of the reason the offense ran so few plays was that the Packers dominated time of possession with a heavy running attack.

While the Chicago Bears run defense was not exposed against the 49ers, that was mainly because Elijah Mitchell went down with an injury. He had six rushes for 41 yards before then.

So, Mitchell joins A.J. Dillon and Aaron Jones as back to have success against Chicago on the ground. One obvious issue with the Bears run defense is their edge rushers.

When you look at their edge rushers, Robert Quinn has never been a good run defender. Neither has Al-Quadin Muhammad, and Dominique Robinson is just a rookie. That makes Trevis Gipson the best edge run defender, and even he has had his issues.

With that in mind, teams are attacking these four on the edges and having immense success.

Against the 49ers, they had 19 rushes outside the tackles and compiled 131 yards. They had 19 rushes inside the tackles go for 72 yards.

In the following week, Green Bay had 22 rushes for 125 yards on the outside, while they had 14 rushes for 49 yards between the tackles. The run defense has not been bad up the gut, but it bordering on all-time bad on the edges.

This is going to be tough to fix. Matt Eberflus and Alan Williams come from a scheme that relies on their front four winning and creating lanes for their linebackers. If the front four is losing on the edges, most of what Eberflus and Williams want to do is going to have to go out the door.

They are not going to see Quinn turn it on and all of the sudden become an elite edge defender. Their scheme should change, but it would be the opposite of what Eberflus does. Eberflus is going to push his edge rushers to keep working, but this is going to continue to be an issue that teams consistently go after.