Chicago Bears Secondary Exposed in Loss at Lambeau Field
The game against the Green Bay Packers was nothing short of disappointing. The Chicago Bears lost the turnover battle, committing five turnovers. It was a very disappointing showing on both sides of the ball for the Chicago Bears.
Even though the turnovers were a huge problem and every aspect of the game seemed to fall apart for the Bears, the defense was still noticeable. The defense fell apart before everything else. Losing the turnover battle didn't help either, as it kept the defense on the field longer than they should've been.
The Bears' secondary got exposed big time against the Packers.
The Deep Ball
The Packers were leading the Bears 14-7 at halftime, a manageable deficit to come back from. Then the Packers started to run up the score in the second half.
Jordan Love was able to launch the ball downfield at will in the second half. It was a large part of the reason that, despite the 31-7 score, the two teams had similar time of possession. Prior to this game, Love had completed 56% of his passes.
Against Chicago, he completed 80% of his passes. The stats don't do it justice, though.
This same Packers team got taken to overtime by the New York Jets and played a close game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, neither of whom have played well this season. In those games, the Packers struggled to put up more than 20 points. To this point, the most points Green Bay had scored this season was 22 against Minnesota in Week 1.
The Bears allowed the Packers to put up a season-high 31 points.
Why the Bears' Secondary got Exposed
The Bears typically use man coverage on defense. They like to control the tempo and disguise their coverage.
However, in the second half, the Packers were capitalizing on the matchups in the secondary. One of those matchups was Christian Watson beating Dillon Thieneman, which resulted in a touchdown and multiple deep completions. The Packers averaged 10.8 yards per pass attempt. That means basically any pass Love threw was a 1st down.
The adjustment to zone coverage was much needed. Given the Packers' success through the air, their rushing statistics were surprising.
The Packers averaged just 2.7 yards per rush and finished the day with 70 rushing yards. They didn't really need to run the ball with how successful they were at throwing the ball downfield. Yet Dennis Allen and the defense didn't attempt to run more zone to stop the bleeding.
With the Packers' lack of success on the ground, if the Bears' defense was able to control Love and the Packers' passing attack, the game would have stayed close.
What this Means for the Future
Seeing the secondary get exposed the way that they did can have a dramatic effect on the rest of the games this year. The other teams in the league have seen where the Bears are vulnerable on the defensive side. The Bears need to make adjustments in their defensive scheme to prevent what happened today from happening again.
If adjustments are not made, the Bears' defense may hold them back from reaching the playoffs.
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