2. Will the Chicago Bears blitz?
One of the reasons that Mills may be so poor against man coverage is that it is common to run man in the back end when you blitz. Mills is worse against the blitz than he is against man coverage, though.
This has shown through his first season, and like man coverage, it increased this year. So far he is seeing the blitz on 35.6% of his dropbacks, which is up 8.2% from last year.
Of course, what may help Davis Mills is that the Chicago Bears blitz far less than any other team in the NFL. It is fair to mention that the Colts did not blitz with Eberflus, but even he caught on and decided to blitz Mills last season.
Still, the personnel is different and we do not even know if Eberflus spent any time installing blitz packages.
The reality is that Davis Mills is poor against teams who blitz and teams who play man. The Chicago Bears’ core philosophy is to sit back in the zone and only rush four. On paper, these are the defenses that Mills comes to life against.