The Chicago Bears defense has been nothing short of impressive through these first six games this season. In fact, they’re even starting to resemble their 2018 counterpart, a unit that developed into the NFL’s best defense.
Chicago’s defense is allowing just 19.3 points per game, they’ve been the best red zone defense through six weeks and they’re allowing the fewest touchdowns this season with eight.
But these next five games will tell us a lot about just how good this defense is as the Bears will face four of the top five graded offenses in the NFL, according to Pro Football Focus.
The Bears will face the Los Angeles Rams on Monday night before games against the Tennessee Titans, Minnesota Vikings and Green Bay Packers.
Much has been made about Chicago’s favorable schedule to start the season, where they’ve beaten teams like the Detroit Lions, New York Giants and Atlanta Falcons en route to a 5-1 record and currently sit atop the NFC North. But the Bears have also beaten two quality NFC squads in the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Carolina Panthers.
This next slate of the Bears schedule was always going to be the most difficult, where teams in their next five games have a combined record of 17-10 (including a putrid Vikings team that has five losses).
But the Bears defense has already tamed some high-powered offenses this season — including teams averaging more than 30 points in the Falcons, Bucs and Indianapolis Colts.
While this Bears defense will likely be able to hold their own against some of these impressive offenses, the question goes back to whether the Bears offense can do their part in order to convert those into wins.
Of those 5 Min is not one of the O's I'm worried about. All are in the top 15 in scoring, but only Tenn is in the top 10 Only LA, Min and Tenn are in the top 15 in total yards. LA top 5, Min top 10. GB is top 20, LA is top 25.
Minny O might well be getting a ton of garbage time yards/scoring but they are at least doing it. Cannot say the same for the Bears. All these teams are winnable if the Def keeps doing what it's done against TB and Car, if the def plays like it did the first 3 weeks they are going to be in trouble if the O cannot figure it out.
3 of those teams sadly also have top 10 def's in yards, Tenn is top 20, Minny is one of the worst. Only LA has a top 10 scoring Def, Ten, GB and NO's are all top 20. Minny again one of the worst.
The Bears O is going to have to find a way to move and score on these teams, moving will be tough, scoring maybe not so much
Every year there are tough offenses to be played. Our defense can slow them down but in the end we need our own offense to move the ball and score. If we just do the 3-and-out thing and just wear out our punter all day... well, that's not gonna end well for us. Hopefully the OL can look better. If they can do better then I think this offense has the talent to do well. Well enough, anyway. But if the blocking isn't there then we are just all gonna be screaming at the TV sets again. No run game. No passing game. Frustration, and probably we will lose games.