Bears Blitz

Published by Bear Heiser on October 13, 2014
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Chicago Bears

Just when we all were ready to count them out, the Chicago Bears sneak back into our good graces with a very large win over the Atlanta Falcons.

The offense put up 27 points, backed by a strong, turnover-free performance by Jay Cutler, and the defense put together a truly stunning performance by allowing just 287 total yards and 13 points to the high-powered Falcons offense.

The win in Atlanta brings the Bears back to even on the season through six games. Sunday’s game ball goes to Mel Tucker and his defensive unit—made up of many new faces—that didn‘t allow Matt Ryan and the Falcons’ offense into the red zone Sunday.

The Bears learned shortly before the game that linebackers D.J. Williams and Jon Bostic would be joining fellow ‘backers Lance Briggs and Shea McClellin on the inactive list. This left Tucker to start a group that consisted of Darryl Sharpton at middle linebacker and Christian Jones and Khaseem Greene on the outside. Head coach Marc Trestman spoke after the game about the predicament his defense was in entering the contest, via ChicagoBears.com:

I think that the guys on the defensive line and the back end really wrapped their arms around those young linebackers.They played hard. They were in the right place. We asked them to just, ‘do your job’ and not do anything more than that. They played exceptionally hard. Our entire defense and coaching staff deserve a lot of credit. They worked together.

Speaking of the guys on the defensive line. What a difference a week makes, right? After last week’s loss to the Carolina Panthers, Bear fans all were left wondering “when is the Bears’ pass rush going to flash?”

Well, those guys all came to play Sunday: Jared Allen recorded his first sack of the season; Willie Young added two more sacks; Lamarr Houston batted down a pass and had two hits on the quarterback, and Jeremiah Ratliff, in his first game back after missing three due to a concussion, didn’t show up in the box score, but he clearly was able to create some inside pressure alongside Stephen Paea, who also had a sack.

“You can talk about me and Jared getting there, but when you have the two inside guys pushing the pocket in the middle and a quarterback like (Matt) Ryan that wants to step up directly in the pocket, it’s night and day,” Young said, via Adam Hoge of The Game 87.7 FM.

While Allen and Houston were the two big-money free agents signed in the offseason by general manager Phil Emery, it has been Young who has been the most consistent producer on the line. Young has been an absolute terror for opposing quarterbacks this season, racking up a league-leading seven sacks through the first six games. Do you know how many sacks Young had in the 48 games prior to joining the Bears? If you guessed six, well…winner, winner chicken dinner.

It would be easy to say it was the defensive line’s pressure that held the Falcons’ third-ranked offense to just 13 points. Taking it a step further, though, the Bears defense played with a certain swagger in Sunday’s win—a swagger that hasn’t been seen in a few seasons.

The likeliest reason for the swagger? What is…the three new linebackers?

Ding, ding, ding.

The Bears defense played Sunday with a fire we had yet to see this season, and it was sparked by Sharpton’s energy in the middle.

Sharpton went out Sunday and recorded five tackles, a quarterback hit and a pass defensed. More importantly, he was the steady hand who, after only being signed by the team Sept. 25, made the defensive calls for a unit that has lacked leadership.

Calling defensive plays usually requires an adjustment period that lasts a few weeks. But Sharpton had an edge coming in, as he called plays last season in Houston and was the Texans leading tackler. Current Bears linebackers coach Reggie Herring was one of Sharpton’s coaches with the Texans.

“It made the transition a lot easier, having someone that I’m very familiar with,” Sharpton said, via The Game 87.7 FM. “(Herring) coached me for three years so that was a huge help. I have to thank him tremendously for getting me prepared.”

Sharpton, Greene and Jones seemed to be all over the field for the Bears. And this time that’s actually a good thing. There have been times in recent games when guys were all over the field running around like chickens with their heads cut off, but no, not Sunday. Greene led the team with eight tackles, while Jones, who was replaced on passing downs by Demontre Hurst, had four tackles.

The linebackers played with an intensity that struck fear in the Falcons, and it’s evident by the seven dropped passes by Matt Ryan’s pass-catchers. All seven drops came on plays where the receiver was headed inside or was running into traffic. They were egregious drops, too.

“We’re coached to run in there like a bat out of hell and go in there with rage and go after the quarterback,” Sharpton said, via Dan Durkin of CBS Chicago. “When you blitz, it’s a blessing, it’s a great opportunity to just shut your mind off and run in there and get after the quarterback.”

Speaking of the blitz, Tucker really pulled out all the stops in what could be considered his best performance since joining the team prior to last season. Tucker clearly entered with a good sense of how the Bears defense could at the very least disrupt Ryan and the Falcons’ No. 2-rated passing offense.

Ryan struggled against the pressure and misdirection shown by Chicago, and it started early in the game. Atlanta struggled immensely in the first half, gaining just 93 yards on 18 plays. Their five first-half drives ended in a field goal, punt, punt, punt and end of half.

On Atlanta’s third drive of the game, with the score tied 3-3, Ryan and the Falcons were facing a 3rd-and-7 from the Bears 36-yard line. The linebackers blitzed and Paea got inside pressure and sacked Ryan. Chicago then turned around and charged down the field on a seven-play, 79-yard drive that was capped off by a Cutler touchdown pass to Josh Morgan.

The defense played so well that Cutler, who comments on very few things that don’t relate to offense, even felt compelled to pay homage, via ChicagoBears.com:

They did an unbelievable job. To lose as many guys as we lost kind of toward the end of the week and have some of these young guys step up—some guys who don’t really have a lot of NFL experience—and play as well as they did, it’s a testament to how hard they’re working and a testament to how well our defensive coaches are instructing them.

What might be the most surprising aspect of the game plan that led to Sunday’s result is the fact that no one tried to hide the young guys on the field. Instead of trying to shield guys like Green, a 2013 fourth-round pick, and Jones, a 2014 undrafted rookie out of Florida State who had never started a game, the Bears coaching staff decided to let them loose.

“[The coaches] do such a great job giving everybody the confidence—they don’t treat anybody like a ‘backup’ or a secondary-kind of player—everybody gets treated with a great level of respect, Sharpton said, via Kevin Fishbain of ChicagoFootball.com. That’s one thing I love about this organization.”

It will be those same coaches who will be weighing in this week on whether or not the Bears should continue with this linebacking group moving forward, even with a healthy group of guys ahead of them on the depth chart.

Sure, it’s only one successful game, but sometimes that’s all it takes. The Bears defense has lacked an identity all season long. That all changed Sunday, when Chicago trotted out a group of linebackers who didn’t know any better. The group played with reckless abandon.

The swagger they brought to the field is something off which Allen, Young, Houston, Ratliff and the entire defensive unit fed, and it’s something that should be brought back next week against the Miami Dolphins.

This Bears team needed a spark, and it got one Sunday.

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