3 notes on Chicago Bears DC Alan Williams defense through four games

Now that Alan Williams has been calling plays for the Chicago Bears for four games we can start to assess what he is bringing to the team. With a good reference, we can look into what we expected him to do, what he did through one game, and then what the Chicago Bears ended up doing last season to see the changes for Alan Williams.

So many will kill him for the run defense, but we wrote before the season that the personnel was going to get torched on the ground no matter what you do. With that in mind, what has Alan Williams brought to the Chicago Bears?

3. Chicago Bears remain a low blitz rate team

One thing we knew coming into the season was that the Chicago Bears would not blitz much. While their edge rushers are not great against the run they all have strong pass-rush ability. Alan Williams and Matt Eberflus have never had a reputation for blitzing, so it makes sense that they would not change in Chicago.

Last season the Chicago Bears blitzed on 22.6% of their snaps. With Eberflus as defensive coordinator, the Colts blitzed 20% of the time. So far this season, they are down at 12.7%. This ranks them 31st in the NFL, with only the Buffalo Bills blitzing less.

It is interesting to remember that Leslie Frazier was also in the mix for the head coach job of the Chicago Bears. While that number is low, it is actually boosted by the fact that they blitzed Davis Mills on 30% of his dropbacks and Daniel Jones on 40% of his.

Mills is known for being awful against the blitz, and Williams ramped it up about three times as often. However, with Aaron Rodgers and Trey Lance, they were at 3% blitzing. It is good to see that Williams is mixing things up and will blitz quarterbacks who struggle against it.

Still, he is clearly looking to get home with four on most occasions.