Bears Camp Notebook: The Defense Dominates

Today was a scorcher down at camp. It was a good sign that we didn’t really see any cramping today. Health-wise, the team appears to be at almost full-strength, which is a nice change.

By my count, Sitton (paternity leave), McPhee (PUP) and Langford (ankle) were the only Bears not present. Benny Cunningham had on an orange “don’t hit” jersey, although he did everything but contact drills.

The theme of the day today was the play of the defense. They really brought it today. While the overall practice yesterday lacked a bit of enthusiasm, the defense came out like they wanted to dominate, which they did. Here is the good and the bad from the second day of padded practices.

The Good

Secondary - The secondary looked fantastic today. During team drills, they were consistently blanketing their assignments and forcing the quarterbacks to their secnond, third and even fourth or fifth reads. Amukamara, Cooper and Fuller really stood out today.

I also found it interesting the Harold Jones-Quartey was running with the starters today. There does seem to be a rotation however.

Defensive Line - In the contact running drills, the defensive line was giving no ground. The backs were consistently being bottled up with the exception of 2 Tarik Cohen runs towards the end of drills.

Eddie Goldman and Akiem Hicks looked great in these drills. Both collapsed the pocket and drove the line of scrimmage backward. Jaye Howard was lined up with the 2’s but I think that will change. He is a huge man and looks very athletic.

Quarterbacks - Both Glennon and Trubisky had pretty good days today, despite the fine play of the secondary. Glennon was shaky early in practice but recovered nicely the rest of the way. Glennong is actually sneaky athletic. He seems to move around pretty well at he practices like this is “his” team, which is nice to see. Trubisky only had the first snap fumble today, which is an improvement over yesterday.

Sanchez was again the least accurate of the quarterbacks. He started with back-to-back interceptions and was the only quarterback not to score on the latter drives. He did look a little better with getting through reads today however.

Tight Ends - This group continues to impress. The only tight end that hasn’t really stood out to me is MyCole Pruitt. If the Bears keep four tight ends, the competition between Brown and Braunecker looks to be fierce. Both have looked good each day and have done nothing to make me think they aren’t solid NFL players.

Dion Sims, Adam Shaheen and Zach Miller are going to be a nightmare for opposing defenses. These guys all bring every day and have a ton of talent. John Fox said this was a strength and he wasn’t lying.

The Bad

Running Backs - Outside of Tarik Cohen, who was spectacular again today, the running back group was rather lackluster. They seem to be giving Jordan Howard the star treatment early in camp, I am assuming to keep him healthy. Otherwise this was not the group to watch today.

Linebackers - I thought this group looked really good yesterday, especially in coverage. Today however, they seemed to take a step backwards. Nobody stood out in rushing drills, mainly because the defensive line was so good, and in coverage, they seemed to be giving up a lot of completions on shallow crossing-routes over the middle.

Danny Trevathan did suit up but did not participate in any of the team or contact drills. I believe that he will continue to be brought along slowly. It was a positive step tough that he was in pads and uniform.

Offensive Line - This group mainly struggled in run-blocking today but they were still down the starting guards. I reluctantly put them here because I don’t think they were bad per se, but they weren’t particularly good either.

The snaps were much better today and Hroniss Grasu seemed to play better as well. Kyle Long was also back on the field but did not participate in the team drills. Again, coming back from injury, this was to be expected, but a positive sign none the less.

Standouts

• Tarik Cohen continues to impress. His juking ability is crazy good and he seems to get lost in the shuffle a lot. He is really fun to watch.
• Tanner Gentry had several nice catches today. If he can learn to excel on special teams, he has a good shot to make the roster.
• Kyle Fuller and Prince Amukamara were really good today. Both of these players were shutting down their man virtually all day.

That’s all I have for today. I will be heading back to camp on Wednesday (8/2) and Thursday (8/3) so make sure to follow me on Twitter for live updates. My guess is that next week will be more exciting as more of the playbook should be installed by that time. We will also likely the see the defense running some more exotic looks.

Until next time, happy camping and Bear down!

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