Chicago Bears Defense Ghost Of Defense Past

[ChitownGetEm23]

The Chicago Bears have gone from being a defensive power house to being softer than a bed filled with cotton pillows. Let’s take a look at the history of the Bears over the past 13 years and their defensive rankings to compare to this year’s team. In 2000 the Bears finished with a 5-11 record in Brian Urlacher’s first year as a Bears and the defense was ranked 20th. That 20 looks better than the embarrassing 28th the Bears are currently ranked now. Still 20 isn’t a great number let’s move through the years and look at the growth and downfall of this Chicago Bears defense. In 2001 the bears finished a dominant 13-3 with the 1st ranked defense before being eliminated by the Philadelphia Eagles. That year the Bears defense couldn’t be touched, barely allowing rushing yards and passing was a distant thought on that Bears secondary. In 2002 the Bears dropped off and went 5-11 while being ranked 25th in defense. Still 25th isn’t anything to be proud of but it’s better than the product they have put on the field this year. In 2003 the Bears went 7-9 while being ranked 22nd defensively; and follow that season up in 2004 by going 5-11 but being ranked 13th defensively. Again both of those years the Bears had nowhere near the offense they have now but were still able to produce decent defenses. In 2005 the Bears dominated as they went 11-5 while having the 1st ranked defense in all of football. Following up the 2005 performance the Bears ran into 2006 with a 13-3 record, the 3rd ranked defense, and went to the Super Bowl to lose to the Colts and Peyton Manning. Once again, the offenses in 05 and 06 were terrible but the defenses kept them in games and kept them winning. In 2007 the Bears dropped off a bit struggling to a 7-9 record and finishing ranked 16th in total defense. From 2008-2012 the Bears would be defensively ranked in the top five 2 times ,outside of the top ten 3 times, have a combined record of 45-35, and still don’t look as bad as this team does. The Bears finally get a well-rounded offense with multiple weapons and you think things are pulling together, but guess again. The defense has taken a year off obviously and Mel Tucker is the one standing alone in the spotlight to take the harsh criticism. Now granted the loss of Melton, Briggs, and Tillman was huge; but you can’t blame it all on injuries. There is no fire in this current Bears defense and the secondary is a ghost of what it used to be. Sadly I don’t see much upside for the Bears defense in the upcoming years, except that Jonathan Bostic could turn out to be a great MLB but has a long ways to go. The Bears are going to have to rebuild on the defensive side of the ball. With aging players like Charles Tillman, Julius Peppers, Tim Jennings, and Lance Brigg; the Bears are going to have to draft talent. Of course there is free agency but then you get trapped in paying a player big for his last years success and that doesn’t guarantee he will play at the same level moving forward. Perfect examples of that would be Derrell Revis and Nnamdi Asomugha, both got paid big and both have failed to meet expectations. The Bears have made mistakes in the past by signing aged defenders like Adam Archuleta who couldn’t cover a senior citizen on a moped and miss every tackle he had an opportunity to make. James Anderson was supposed to make an impact and up until last week I forgot he was even on the team, that’s how irrelevant he has been. The Bears are kicking themselves for letting Nick Roach go as he would have been a nice veteran presence to have when the Bears lost Melton and Briggs. Israel Idonije would have been nice to have when Melton and Collins went down with injuries; but the Bears let him go to a divisional rival over in Detroit. Who else misses Mike Marinelli?? Every Bears fan hand should be in the air as our defense line has been a mirage of what they were last year. You can’t change the defensive scheme right now either as the Bears don’t have a skilled enough secondary to strictly run man or they don’t have enough LBs to run the 3-4. Don’t get your hopes up for the remaining season the Bears are done in my opinion, and this is coming from a hardcore diehard fan. Unless there is some sort of Holiday miracle that causes the Bears defense to go back to the future and transform into the 85 defense; you can theoretically kiss this season good bye.