DB Answers Could Already Be in Place

The only moves made in the Bears secondary so far by new general manager Ryan Poles have been to bring back DeAndre Houston-Carson and sign Tennessee  Titans reserve safety Dane Cruikshank.

The cornerback crew that struggled in some of the critical parts of games remains intact, although backups Artie Burns (Seattle) and Xavier Crawford (Jacksonville) signed elsewhere.

So logically, at least one or two, perhaps even three of their draft picks, would need to go toward cornerbacks and safeties. When a team has as many needs as the Bears, it's difficult committing so many to a particular area. It's even more difficult now with free agency in its later stages, when it's mostly flawed players available.

The Bears might be able to get by with only one or two of those picks being devoted to the secondary and the reason is coach Matt Eberflus' scheme.

This is the third time he has been part of turning a 3-4 into a 4-3 defense, but the second time when he had a major role in the decisions. So what he did in Indianapolis after Frank Reich took over for Chuck Pagano could prove a solid example of what can happen.

The Colts did virtually nothing different personnel-wise. That is to say, they didn't scrap their secondary and bring in all new players in free agency. In fact, they didn't bring in a draft pick among the starters.

Eberflus used almost the same group of players in the secondary for a 2017 Colts team that placed 30th in yards allowed, 30th in points allowed, 28th in passing yards allowed and was 15th in the league with 13 interceptions as well as 20th in total takeaways. His 2018 secondary jumped to 16th in passing yards allowed, 10th in scoring defense, 11th in total yards allowed and placed ninth in the league with 15 interception and 10th in total takeaways.

The key was his cover-2 style of defense.

"It's an upfield, pressure defense No. 1," he said shortly after his first press conference as coach. "You can create a lot of takeaways, you can create a lot of negative plays for the offense."

Then came the key.

"And you can play guys early," Eberflus said. "You know, it's simple in terms of the techniques and fundamnetals and you can play guys early that way.

"So to me that way you can draft a guy, for example, Darius Leonard, you draft him, play him in there and he succeeds. Or you get a guy, you acquire a guy, you can bring him in and he can play right away. You know, free agents, it doesn't matter. If it's free agents or it's drafted guys or whatever it is because it's simple and it's player-friendly."

The only Colts player in the secondary who left when Eberflus took over was essentially left cornerback Rashaan Mevlin, who started 10 games in 2017. With the exception of safety George Odum, the rest of the players in the secondary were either seeing time in the secondary in a different defense in 2017 or were out injured and then in 2018 became available to play more. Odum was and undrafted player and had only two starts.

So they took the same group and converted them to this style Eberflus says is more friendly for players.

This being said, perhaps it's possible they'll get more out of Kindle Vildor in his second full season attempting to be a starting cornerback, or from Duke Shelley as the slot cornerback. It's possible Thomas Graham Jr. does make a huge leap from a player who got on the field for four games after spending most of his rookie year off the roster on the practice squad.

And if they are able to draft someone to play one or two cornerback spots, then they could fit in faster in this style of coverage.

The other thing this type of coverage can do is improve communications between safeties or between safeties and corneracks. This can't be bad after a year when breakdowns occurred with regularity and receivers a few times even went untouched when the went to the ground.

The Bears allowed 12 completions of 40 yards or more last year and only four teams gave up more. So it sounds as if this scheme will make coverage easier for Eddie Jackson and whoever else they eventually decide should play the other safety spot.

This can mean more picks devoted to turning around their offense or padding out a defensive front that looks woefully undermanned at the moment.