The Chicago Bears suffered a very bad loss to the Dallas Cowboys on the road in their Week 8 matchup. The final score ended up being 49-29 with the Cowboys controlling the game for almost the entire clock. The Bears were outplayed and outmatched, and today demonstrated the severe lack of talent at many positions on this team, especially on the defensive side of the ball.
Once again, the Chicago Bears were hurt by their inability to stop the run
Player one: Team run defense
The inability to stop the run has been a nail in the side of the Chicago Bears this entire year. It was a problem again when the Dallas Cowboys ran for over 200 combined yards. Even without Ezekiel Elliot, Tony Pollard and company gashed the Bears, including a whopping 9.4 yards per carry for Pollard today.
It is clear that the Bears lack depth and talent on the defensive line. With the loss of Robert Quinn via the trade to the Eagles, the Bears also lack discipline and veteran experience on the defensive line, specifically on the edge. Justin Jones and Armon Watts have been serviceable up the middle, but Al-Quadin Muhammad, Trevis Gipson, and Dominique Robinson have struggled to set the edge on outside runs.
Teams have a gameplan to run to the edges throughout the year against the Bears, and now that Quinn is gone it will be even more of a problem. Quinn was not known for his ability to defend the run, but he was a veteran who would put himself in a position to make a play at the least. There were multiple times today when the Bears were out of position, in both the run and the pass. This led to a lot of the Dallas run plays getting to the second and third levels, and poor tackling did the rest.
The Bears are going to have to figure out how to play better team defense against the run, and the edge players and linebackers need to do a better job of getting more push on the edge. Overcommitment and lack of discipline killed the Bears in stopping the run today, and it has hurt them for most of the year so far.