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

2. Chicago Bears run heavy zone

This is another thing that we expected to see coming into the season and now are seeing play out on the field. The Colts were a heavy zone team, and that has always been an Alan Williams staple.

So, it is no surprise to see that they are running on 58% of their defensive snaps. Last season the Bears ran zone on just 40% of their defensive snaps. although that was decently high. Rather, this speaks to how often the Bears have run zone this season.

This is one that changed a lot last week. With Daniel Jones running so often the team had to move into man coverage. It is easier to play man with the wide receivers that Jones has to work with, and they could not afford to have their defensive backs turn their backs to Jones.

Still, even against the running of Trey Lance, they were in zone 80% of the time, which is unheard of. With Aaron Rodgers and Davis Mills, they were probably in their more standard zone look, which is more often than not, but not as often as they did against Lance, and not as little as they did against Jones.

Still, you do see that while Williams prefers not to blitz and to run zone, he will blitz and run man against specific opponents because it calls for it. Fans may not love what the personnel is doing, but the playcalling has made sense based on the opponents.