Have these Chicago Bears defenders officially flipped roles?

The Chicago Bears roster is not quite where they want it to be, so the team has been shuffling a few things. One of those is the defensive line. The team grabbed Armon Watts on waivers after he was released back in August, so it should be no surprise that he is a backup. However, that tide has been turning in recent weeks.

While Angelo Blackson currently has 322 snaps, and Armon Watts has 277 snaps, it is clear that Watts is not the starter, replacing Blackson.

Have Chicago Bears pushed Armon Watts over Angelo Blackon

Below you can see their snap count comparison by game. Armon Watts is still behind on the season because you can clearly see how far behind he was during the first three weeks. However, Watts was flashing at that time, and Blackson was not.

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In week four, they started to make the split closer, then in week five, the switch came. Blackson led the duo in snaps during weeks six and seven, but then in week eight you really saw the shift.

Now, they have not looked back, as Watts leads in snaps the past three weeks, as well as four of the past six weeks.

When you break down the difference between run and pass defense, it starts to get more obvious what the Chicago Bears are doing. Below is how the two split their run defense snaps.

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Once again, it started with Blackson getting the work. However, in week five, Watts saw a lot more run-down work. Blackson saw a huge drop in run gameplay. In week seven, they just did not face the run all that often. However, weeks eight, nine, and ten show you exactly why Watts is outpacing Blackson. They want Watts on the field to defend the run, not Angelo Blackson.

Below is the comparison for the Chicago Bears pass rush snaps. This is a bit more mixed but does show that the big difference is run defense.

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In this case, Blackson even out-snapped Watts in week 10 when it comes to pass-rush snaps. The split on weeks six and seven is clearly because the team faced more passing downs than they faced running downs.

This tends to add up. Blackson has four pressures on 181 pass rush snaps, while Watts is at 3 pressures on 129. That leads to Watts being slightly better on a per-snap basis,  but Blackson has a 7.1% pass rush win rate, while Watts is at 3.1%.

On the flip side, Watts has 147 run defense snaps with an 11.1% stop rate, while Blackson is at 141 snaps and a 7.9% stop rate.

The difference has obviously not been game-changing, but this at least shows that the coaches are applying what is going on in their game plans. They are trying to get better in both areas by playing to their strengths, the talent is just not good enough right now.