Ask anybody about the prospects for the 2023 Bears, and the conversation immediately turns to quarterback Justin Fields.
But if the Bears are going to be more than a sizzle reel for Fields come fall, don’t forget about what could be their true strength.
The secondary.
In a league which is increasingly about throwing successfully and defending against it, Chicago faces an intriguing battle led by both talent and potential.
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The defensive backfield consists of seven-year veteran and former All-Pro safety Eddie Jackson, alongside a rising star in Jaquan Brisker, who is coming off a stellar rookie season. At corner, fourth-year man Jaylon Johnson is in a contract year on the outside, while rookies Tyrique Stevenson and Terell Smith battle opposite him. In the slot, Kyler Gordon is trying to improve from a middling first campaign.
Under second-year coach Matt Eberflus and his blitz-averse scheme, the secondary will be relied upon heavily both in terms of different looks and time in coverage.
“We ask our guys to play a variation of coverages and that’s important because it helps us cover different skill sets,” Eberflus told Sports Illustrated on Friday at the team’s training camp in Lake Forest, Ill. “It’ll help us to disguise our coverages to make it hard on a quarterback. That in turn gives the defensive line another tick to get home. It’s a really important piece for us for our secondary to be able to do that. Those corners do a good job. Obviously, we added two young guys in Tyrique Stevenson and Smith. … Those guys are doing a really good job of picking up those schemes and techniques, and we like where those guys are.”
Last year, the Bears blitzed only 18.2 percent of the time, ranking 25th in the league. As a result, they totaled a league-worst 20 sacks while checking in 31st with a 15.9 percent pressure rate. It was the weakest spot on a unit which allowed 6.1 yards per play, only better than the Lions.
Enter Yannick Ngakoue, who was signed Thursday night to a one-year, $10.5 million deal. For Jackson, he found out about the news Friday morning before practice through a text from Brisker. Ngakoue, 28, has 65 career sacks, only three fewer than the rest of Chicago’s defensive line depth chart combined.
“It’s just getting scarier and scarier,” Jackson says. “You’re just adding more talent and more talent. When that’s starting to mesh together, everyone in here has seen what’s going to happen. You’ve got a very large group of talented players actually locked in and who really love football; that’s more fuel to the fire. We feel like we just keep taking it up a notch.
“We added (Ngakoue) and it’s like it’s up, this thing is headed in the right direction. I hate to sound like a broken record every year saying the same thing, but, man, this is a different feeling right now. You feel the culture shift. High energy. Flying around. Ready for this thing to head into a different direction.”
If the Bears become a contender this year, Brisker is a name to watch.
Perhaps because of Chicago’s league-worst 3–14 mark, Brisker went underappreciated nationally but certainly isn’t within Halas Hall. As a second-round rookie out of Penn State, Brisker amassed 104 tackles, four sacks and an interception despite missing two games with a concussion.
“Brisker is a guy that’s driven,” Eberflus says. “He’s driven to be the best he can be. He focuses on himself. With skill development, the mental side of the game, the preparation side of the game, coming to work, he demands the best out of himself every single day. We talk about competitive greatness … he doesn’t take plays off. That’s what makes him a good player and that’s what will help him ascend to be one of the elite safeties in this league.”
Luckily for Brisker, he needn’t look far for a guide to such a lofty goal.
Jackson, 29, is a two-time Pro Bowler who picked off four passes and recorded 80 tackles despite missing five games last season.
Surrounded by youth, Jackson has become a needed voice on the field who also leads by example, giving Chicago’s defensive backs an anchor.
“He works extremely hard in practice. He puts it out there every day; everybody sees that,” Eberflus says. “He’s vocal on the field. He’s making all of our calls in the secondary and he’s always on point, so he models that execution piece of it. And when things happen, good or bad, he’s always in there talking with the guys about it’s always on to the next play. We just have to play one play at a time and do that as best as we can, and maximize that rep, and move to the next one. He’s done that.”
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Still, questions persist in the secondary.
One is whether Gordon can acclimate to one spot after vacillating between the slot and boundary as a rookie. Without a defined role, he struggled, posting a Pro Football Focus grade of 49.8.
The move inside for Gordon can be attributed to Eberflus’s belief in his ability to blitz with unique bend, along with being good in run fits while being a willing tackler. Meanwhile, Chicago drafted a pair of boundary corners in Stevenson and Smith this spring, both of whom are competing for the perimeter spot opposite Johnson.
“Right now, it’s equal reps with those guys,”says Eberflus of his rookie corners. “With Smitty and Tyrique going with the [starters]in the nickel group, those guys have been battling in there. It’s really about knowing what to do and how to do it, and then playing fast, working your technique. Those guys have been doing that.”
As summer turns to autumn in Chicago, the Fields jerseys will be in full bloom. The anticipation should be running high, wondering what the third-year quarterback will do after watching him become a weekly highlight.
But for the Bears to win, they need more than Fields. They need the defense to regain its teeth.
If that’s going to happen, it’ll be the secondary leading the way.
