The Chicago Bears have multiple areas of their roster that haven’t performed at a high level. People love to pick on the wide receivers and the offensive line. Not nearly enough have talked about how bad the defensive line has been to start the year. They only have eight sacks in five games. That is never a good thing, especially when starting two rookies in the secondary. Yet somehow, their run defense has been even worse.
Corey Wootton played for the Bears from 2010 through 2014. Most of his time came under Lovie Smith during those first three years. He had a career-high seven sacks in 2012. So he’s very familiar with the Tampa-2 defense Matt Eberflus and his staff wants to run. After watching the team for five weeks, he’s seeing significant problems up front from starters like Robert Quinn, Justin Jones, Al-Quadin Muhammad, and Angelo Blackson.
He took to Twitter to explain the problem, which was not encouraging.
Tampa 2 defense really thrives with D-Line penetration. Bears D-Line isn’t penetrating. If you penetrate you disrupt everything. Doesn’t matter if you get reached if you drive your guy back and penetrate. That is why they struggle so much with outside zone runs. #bears #nfl
— Corey Wootton (@CoreyWootton) October 12, 2022
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It’s hard to get used to the tampa 2 because some D line don’t trust it. Football 101 tells you not to get reached so the natural reaction is to go in the direction of the zone to not get reached or cut off.
— Corey Wootton (@CoreyWootton) October 12, 2022
The Chicago Bears don’t have the horses to make it work.
Talent plays a crucial role in making such schemes work. Right now, the Bears don’t have enough. Quinn had 18 sacks last year, but that was in a different system. He’s never played in a true Tampa-2 before. Angelo Blackson and Trevis Gipson are holdovers from last year too. They’re not used to it. The same goes for Jones. Muhammad is the only lineman in that group with extensive experience in this system. Never mind the fact that most of those names aren’t what can be called top-tier guys.
Go back through history at the best Tampa-2 defenses. All of them have the same thing in common: loaded defensive lines. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers of the early 2000s had Warren Sapp and Simeon Rice. The Indianapolis Colts of the mid-2000s had Dwight Freeney and Robert Mathis. Don’t forget the Chicago Bears from 2010 to 2012 had Julius Peppers and Henry Melton. For this defense to work, it needs at least two Pro Bowl-caliber talents in the mix. The Bears don’t have that.
