Each week it falls to offensive coordinator Adam Gase and his staff to devise a strategy and the tactics to deal with another NFL defense. The process involves starting with the intricacies of that defense, in this case the Minnesota Vikings and specifically what they are doing that has made their pass rush No. 8 in sack percentage after ravaging Detroit’s Matthew Stafford last weekend for seven sacks in the Vikings’ throttling of the Lions in Detroit.
The Vikings have 15 sacks over the past four games, and where exactly that pressure is coming from.
“I have no clue,” Gase said, with a sort-of smile. “They do a great job as far as disguising who is coming. That is why coach [Mike] Zimmer has had the success he has had over his career. He makes it tough offenses, he always has.
“You saw last week what it did to Detroit, so it’s been that way for a long time and you just have to do a good job of giving the quarterback options, making sure that we do a good job in our protections, knowing who to block and working our system.”
[MORE BEARS: Bears facing a more dangerous Vikings 'O' by being less AP-centric]
The Vikings operate out of a base 4-3 scheme but assault the “A” gaps on either side of opposing centers.
During Vikings Week the fixation has been on Adrian Peterson, while understandable given the Bears’ history, can obscure what has been happening on the other side of the football in Minnesota. And it is a source of considerable concern to the Bears.
NFL
And that concern is likely to extend well into the future.
How did they get this good?
While the Bears have struggled through three general managers over the past five years, making changes in large part because of draft misses, the Vikings have quietly hit on draft picks that are the major reason why they are 4-2 and becoming a threat in the NFC – tied for No. 2 in the NFL in points allowed and No. 7 in yardage given up.
[MORE BEARS: Bears moving on without Jeremiah Ratliff, but it’s not easy]
A significant proportion of those draft hits have been on a defense that has five starters from among their No. 1 picks. So good has been the Minnesota drafting that Trae Waynes, a cornerback who was among the Bears’ cluster of seven prospects worth the No. 7 overall pick in the 2015 NFL Draft, is down the depth chart as the No. 4 cornerback after the Vikings took him 11th. Part of the “problem” for Waynes is that the Vikings signed two-time Pro Bowl cornerback Terence Newman last offseason. Newman was the No. 5 pick of the 2003 NFL Draft by the Dallas Cowboys.
(For comparison purposes only, the 1985 Bears had four No. 1’s starting on their defense. It was a different NFL-personnel era, obviously, and hardly anything scientific, but there it is.)
And the minefield confronting the Bears is not restricted to first-rounders. Linebacker Eric Kendricks, a 2015 second-round selection (No. 45 overall) out of UCLA, was just named the NFC Defensive Rookie of the Month. Kendricks had 20 tackles, four sacks and one pass defensed in October. His first three starts were the Vikings’ last three games and Kendricks and had at least one sack in all three games.
Nose tackle Linval Joseph was a second-rounder of the New York Giants in 2010.
[SHOP BEARS: Get your Bears gear right here]
All of which has come together in a “balanced” defense, ranked 13th in rushing yards allowed per game and 11th in passing yards, reflective of the Vikings standing eighth in sack percentage after putting Detroit quarterback Stafford down those seven times last Sunday (the Bears sacked Stafford twice the week before).
“They are a tough defense,” said quarterback Jay Cutler. “Third down they’re really tough [No. 5 in the NFL] and first and second down, they’re no slouches either. They have some stuff that presents a lot of problems for us. The offensive line being the way that it is, we’re going to have to make sure our communication is on point and hopefully the guys on the outside can make some plays for us.”