Sean Jensen at the Chicago Sun-Times addresses the Bears defensive problems the last few games:
“The defense was ranked third overall, third in first downs allowed and tied for the league lead in fewest points permitted. But in the five games since, the Bears have allowed 26 points per game, and the defense has dropped to 10th overall and 11th in first downs allowed.”
The Bears players seem to agree:
“When he reviewed film of the game against the Jets, Briggs was disappointed in what he saw from the defense. And if the Bears are going to make a Super Bowl push, he said, he and his defensive teammates need to step it up.
“’It was poor,’ he said. ‘You look at the film, and usually it’s better than you think it is. This definitely wasn’t. It wasn’t the type of football we need to play to win in the postseason.'”
I couldn’t agree more. The Bears defense hasn’t played with much discipline lately. Even without reviewing film the average fan can see that the Bears are giving up big plays. Safeties are biting on short routes. Linebackers are out of their gaps. There’s a lot of over pursuit.
Fortunately the solution, or at least a big part of it isn’t tough to figure out:
“’We just have to get back to our fundamentals because we were playing fundamentally good football consistently [earlier] in the year,’ linebacker Pisa Tinoisamoa said. ‘So to get back to that would be the goal.
“'[Recent games have] definitely made us more aware — more conscious — of our deficiencies.’”
Better now than in the playoffs. So in that respect it’s not a bad thing. As long as they get a handle on it soon.