It was a tale of two halves for the Chicago Bears defense in Sunday’s 29-22 loss to the Minnesota Vikings. It was a brutal first half showing, where Chicago had no answer for Minnesota’s high-powered offense.
Quarterback Kirk Cousins completed his first 17 passes; receiver Justin Jefferson had 10 catches for 138 yards; and it looked like it was going to be a blowout.
Bears defensive coordinator Alan Williams held himself accountable for not having his players prepared to execute the game plan against the Vikings.
“If there’s a play that’s not successful, I go, ‘How can I help the guys be more successful?’” Williams said, via NBC Sports Chicago.
The Bears have been a second-half team all season under Matt Eberflus, which has kept them competitive in games. Unlike the previous regime, we’ve seen a team that makes adjustments at halftime. Among those adjustments was Williams electing to run with two-high safeties more often on defense.
“That’s where I think, ‘Hey, Alan, help the guys out,’” Williams said. “Like I said before, our guys are super positive on the bench. They look at me and they go, ‘Coach, just tell us what to do. Tell us how to do it, when to do it, what to do.’ Our guys are fantastic about doing that. If you have players that do what you ask them to do, ultimately the burden is on my shoulders, not the guys.”
The defense has gotten off to slow starts in games, including in Minnesota. They surrendered three consecutive touchdown drives before stopping the Vikings on their next four possessions.
It makes you wonder what this team could accomplish if they put together a complete game, which is something Williams blames himself for.
“It’s my job to get them ready to go early on,” Williams said. “So it’s completely on me. And I think the better that we play, the more confidence that they’ll have. Starting off the second half, we are— I like to look at the positive parts of it— the second half, that we’re playing lights-out football. And so we just want to make sure that we can move that second half into the first half, first quarter, second drive, second quarter.
“We’ll look and see what we did in the second half and the energy that we bring, the tackling, the turnovers, all those things, make sure that theyー we want those things to show up in the first half.”
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