The Chicago Bears defense has not been performing up to snuff, especially when you consider that they have defensive mind Matt Eberflus as their head coach. Still, many teams and coaches see the first four games as an evaluation stage, and it means that changes may start to come by the fifth week of the NFL season. That is exactly what happened, as we started to see small tweaks and shifts by the Bears defense.
3. Increasing Trevis Gipson playing time
One thing that had been irritating the Chicago Bears fan base is the usage of Trevis Gipson and Al-Quadin Muhammad. Muhammad came from Indianapolis, so he had a jump on the competition because of coaching staff familiarity.
Still, through four weeks of the NFL season, it was not close. Trevis Gipson had more pressures, more run stuff, and about half of the snaps that AQM had.
In week one, the split was 43-26, in week two, it was 39-23, in week three it was 37-24, and in week four it was 35-28. So, the difference in snaps was 17, 16, 13, and 7. You could see it coming, and finally, in week five, they made the switch.
Muhammad played 44 snaps while Gipson played 46 snaps. Of course, it is not the complete switch, but more like two ships slowly passing in the night. Still, from a big split to a small split, to Trevis Gipson now leading the small split, we have seen the shift over the past three weeks.
It is hard to say that this will not continue. Gipson recorded four pressures, and we hardly heard from AQM for another week. If anything, this will continue the trend and we may see an even bigger split next week. Heck, we may even see the starting designation change. It took some time, but the coaches did make the change.
2. Armon Watts playing more than Angelo Blackson
This was essentially the same debate as Gipson and Muhammad, and we wrote about how this change needed to be done sooner rather than later as well. Watts has had a better pass-rush win rate, and run stop rate, and he converted his pass-rushing into more production as well. We even added that Blackson may be best off as a rotational player, and asking him to step into a starter workload for the first time in his career is a bit much.
Still, through four weeks Blackson was much further ahead. He played 26 more snaps in week one, and 14 more than 20 more in the following weeks. However, in week four he only played 10 more snaps than Watts, which led to the flip on Sunday.
Armon Watts played 37 snaps and Angelo Blackson played just 30. This could honestly be better for both of them. Watts has been the better player, and we could get a better version of Blackson back in his rotational role.
It was a small change, and Blackson still started on Sunday, but it was a flip that you should expect to continue because Watts has continued to perform better than Blackson. Blackson spent training camp with the team and Watts was signed late. Still, the coaches now have a big enough sample that they cannot sit Armon Watts at the expense of Angelo Blackson any longer.
1. Moving Chicago Bears CBs around
One thing we have seen through the first four weeks is the Chicago Bears will not move their cornerbacks around. Kindle Vildor has played the last side every snap. Jaylon Johnson has always played the right side.
Gordon played the right side when Johnson was out, but the left side was Johnson was in. However, against the Minnesota Vikings, the coaches clearly trusted Kindle Vildor over Gordon and UDFA rookie Jaylon Jones.
So, instead of playing sides and letting the Vikings pick who, Justin Jefferson would match up against, the team made a change. Of course, this change came after the first quarter when Jefferson already racked up 91 yards.
Still, they decided to let Vildor follow Jefferson. Vildor played 32 snaps on the left and 36 snaps on the right. This is the first time the Chicago Bears had a cornerback follow another team’s wide receiver.
The move worked as Jefferson was held in check during the second half, and Vildor recorded an interception as well. It will be interesting to see if they do this moving forward, though.
Jaylon Johnson is always more comfortable on his one side, and if they trust Vildor in that way, they probably will not worry as much about doing this. However, what it does show is that when the time calls for it, they will not just sit there and play sides because that is what they do. If they feel the opposite cornerback is in a mismatch, they will call for their top CB to follow the others team’s wide receiver. Also, they will make that call in the middle of the game.
This was a loss, but a good sign that the coaches will be making changes as the season continues and they have seen their fair share of snaps.