Chicago Bears: 5 Takeaways from training camp so far

1. Defense is still dominant, even with roster turnover

One of the reasons many experts like to think the Chicago Bears regress in 2019 is because of the defense. They see how great the defense played last season and they don’t feel the unit can repeat that dominance again. They point out the roster turnover as well.

Adrian Amos and Bryce Callahan, two starters, left through free agency. In addition, Vic Fangio, the defensive coordinator, departed Chicago to become head coach of the Denver Broncos.

The Bears replaced Fangio with Chuck Pagano. Pagano was the head coach of the Indianapolis Colts from 2012-17. In 2011, he was the Baltimore Ravens’ defensive coordinator. He coached Ray Lewis, Ed Reed, Terrell Suggs and Haloti Ngata among other stars.

That means he is comfortable handling star players and star egos. That Ravens defense ranked third overall that year and the team ended up going to the AFC Championship Game, where, ironically, lost to the New England Patriots on a missed field goal.

So far in camp, the defense is showing that they haven’t lost much from last year. I’ve already mentioned how well Skrine is performing so far. Also, the leader of that defense, Khalil Mack, is showing no slowdown after another dominating year last season after receiving a huge contract. He won’t let the defense experience a letdown. He’s striving for greatness, not just this year but all-time.

Mack has been harassing the offensive linemen, getting into the backfield, and forcing Trubisky to speed up his decision making. All-Pro safety Eddie Jackson continues to be a ballhawk, snatching multiple passes intended for receivers.

Trubisky himself spoke on how good the defense is as he faces it every day, per the Chicago Tribune:

"“They’re no dummies. They are a really smart defense. They pick up on a lot of our calls and our routes and some of the adjustments, especially the DBs, Kyle (Fuller) and Prince (Amukamara). They’re really smart, and they know it’s coming sometimes. So we just have to be that much better, and that’s helped us stay on top of our game. Once they pick up on something, we have to change it so they can’t keep jumping it or staying on top of it. So that helps us evolve and get better as an offense.”"

It’ll be interesting to see how the defense performs during the preseason games. One of the changes Pagano is sure to implement is running a more aggressive defense. He will use Mack and Leonard Floyd to the fullest and have them harass the opponents’ backfields as much as possible.

As I mentioned, we are still early in training camp. There is still about a month left before the regular season begins. A lot can change between now and then. In the meantime, however, let’s enjoy what’s going on so far and see how things progress before the lights go on and the 2019 regular season begins.