Chicago Bears: Buster Skrine is the biggest wild card on defense
The Chicago Bears allowed cornerback Bryce Callahan to walk away and replaced him with Buster Skrine. That move could be the most critical on the defense.
Even though the Chicago Bears’ roster was solid going into this offseason, they were busy tweaking the defense. Yes, the defense is mostly the same, but two key players left via free agency. Cornerback Bryce Callahan and safety Adrian Amos found greener pastures (in the form of dollars) elsewhere.
The Bears replaced Amos with Ha Ha Clinton-Dix. Most fans agree with the team that former Pro Bowl player Clinton-Dix is an upgrade from Amos. The other move, however, is questionable.
Bears general manager Ryan Pace tapped Buster Skrine to replace Callahan. That move raised more than just a few eyebrows. Many consider Skrine the biggest question mark on the defense. They point out that he has 78 career penalties committed as a big reason this is a risky move.
To that, the Bears front office and coaches say that the reason he committed that many penalties is because he was asked to do so much in a poor New York Jets defense that played man-to-man. They’ll also point out that he committed only seven penalties in 2018, the lowest total in his career. Also, that number is one less than the number of penalties Prince Amukamara committed.
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Furthermore, with the Jets Skrine had to amass 222 tackles in the last four seasons, while Callahan made only 122. During that same period, playing in the Bears zone defense, Callahan had 20 passes defended while Skrine had 30.
With the Bears, Skrine won’t need to do as much as he did in New York. Additionally, he’ll play more zone and have plenty of help around him. The team is betting that this situation will allow Skrine to play better in Chicago.
Another reason the Bears feel confident in Skrine is his durability. In his four seasons with the Jets, he missed just five games while Callahan missed 19. In 2018, he missed three games and missed the playoff game against the Philadelphia Eagles.
Him not being there could have been the difference because the game-winning touchdown was thrown at the slot where Callahan would have been. Yes, we don’t know if he’d make the play, but the chances were better with him in there.
In addition to Pace and the scouts liking Skrine, head coach Matt Nagy likes having Skrine, per the Chicago Sun-Times:
"“He’s one of those guys where he’s always around the football. He’s feisty. He’ll stick his nose in there on a nickel slot blitz. He’ll go in there and take your legs out. He plays the game hard, and he’s not a big guy. He’s not big at all, but he plays hard. I always thought he was just kind of sticky… You see he’s a mature professional. He’s going to be all-in with what we’re doing.”"
In case Skrine doesn’t play as well as the Chicago Bears expect, they have rookie Duke Shelley and veterans Sherrick McManis and Kevin Toliver. Shelley is already impressing and he appears to be the future for the Bears. Even if Skrine does play well, he’ll be holding down the fort for Shelley.
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It’ll be interesting to see how the Skrine signing works out. There are a lot of people out there expecting this signing to fail. There are also a lot of fans who will hold their collective breath waiting to see what happens. If this move does work out, this defense might end up being an all-time special unit.