3 changes Chicago Bears made against Carolina Panthers that might stick around
The Chicago Bears beat the Carolina Panthers in a game that was a must-win. They were the better team and proved it. They also were starting to make some changes. We finally saw some things we needed to see, and there may be some tweaks that are going to stick around. What happened?
3. The Chicago Bears defensive line changes may stick moving forward
With the addition of Montez Sweat, we knew that changes were coming to the defensive line. The Bears eased him in a bit with just 65% of the playing time in week nine, but in week ten, we started to see more of what we can expect moving forward.
Sweat played 73.3% of the defensive snaps. On Thursday, he was behind Yannick Ngakoue, who played 80%, but that shift may start to lean towards Sweat in the future.
One obvious difference that comes with that is the role of DeMarcus Walker. Walker played 45% of the defensive snaps, by far a season low. His low before that was 58.4%.
He also moved around a lot more. Walker went from lining up against the left tackle on just 39% of his snaps to lining up on that side 68% of the time on Thursday night. Because Sweat is a good run defender, the plan will be to spell Yannick Ngakoue with Walker and improve the run defense.
Beyond that, Walker slid inside more often than usual. He spent 18% of his snaps along the interior on Thursday after just 11% all season. Last year, he was rushing along the interior on 32% of the snaps, so it is a start, but he is still not back to his old role.
Along the interior, Gervon Dexter played more, and Andrew Billings played less, but that tends to happen when the Bears lead and face teams who pass. Dexter played 29 snaps, and 25 of them were rushing the passer.
Still, we saw Dexter next to Justin Jones with Montez Sweat and Yannick Ngakoue, the best pass-rush group the team has. They also had Walker in for Dexter and Justin Jones as the inside rusher.
On run downs, we saw Walker, Sweat, Justin Jones, and Andrew Billings, which is the best run defense group the team has put out there all year. They even subbed in Zacch Pickens, a plus run defender for Jones, for a few snaps.
Expect to see Walker inside and against left tackles more, and expect to see Sweat play more. Do not think that Dexter playing more meant anything other than the Bears facing a team desperate to pass more.