The Chicago Bears had barely a day to enjoy Sunday’s 31-23 win in Atlanta before their coordinators were asked about Thursday night. When defensive coordinator Dennis Allen was asked on Monday what he makes of Drake Maye’s up-and-down season, he skipped past the bad games.
“When I watch the tape, I still see a lot of really good things,” Allen said. “They do an excellent job of throwing the ball down the field. They got some speed at the receiver position. They take their shots. I think Drake Maye’s one of those guys that does an outstanding job with his feet. There’s been times where you watch it and there’s pressure on the quarterback and he makes people miss and creates some plays down the field. So I see him doing a lot of good things. I see especially his athleticism showing up, and his ability to throw the ball down the field has been exceptional.”
Allen, offensive coordinator Press Taylor and special teams coordinator Richard Hightower spoke to reporters virtually from Halas Hall. Both teams are 4-2, and the New England Patriots visit Soldier Field on Thursday, October 22, four days after the Bears won in Atlanta and the Patriots beat the New York Jets 26-19.
Asked whether Maye reminds him of Caleb Williams, Allen did not bite. “I’m probably not great at comparisons,” he said. “I do know this. Not only do we have to worry about him with his arm, but we got to worry about him with his feet too. So those are challenges that we have to deal with.”
“Rules games” on four days
Allen said the short week limits what a defense can add. “Well, look, it’s challenging. It’s really challenging,” he said. “The biggest thing that our guys have to understand is we have certain rules with which we operate defensively. These are the things that we do based on what the offense shows us. And so I always look at these as kind of rules games, because you don’t really know what the offense necessarily is going to do. It’s really hard to put in a lot of crazy stuff. So you try to have some things that maybe the opponent hadn’t seen and kind of go from there.” He ended his session by telling reporters: “If you guys let me go, I’ll go in there and start formulating that plan.”
Part of that plan is what to do with Kyler Gordon, who had three sacks and two forced fumbles in Atlanta in his first game of the season. Allen said he did not go into the game expecting that, and he warned that the blitzes are now on film for the Patriots and everyone else. “It’s on tape now,” he said. “I’m assuming that everybody else in the league is paying attention to it, and it won’t be surprising to anybody.” He said Gordon would also be asked to do other things. “They won’t all play out that way,” Allen said.
He was just as pleased with how the defense held Bijan Robinson to nine carries. “It’s a lot easier to stop him when he only touches the ball nine times in the run game,” Allen said. He also praised Daniel Hardy, who had a sack. “There’s nobody on our team that works any harder than Daniel Hardy,” Allen said.
“He hadn’t played in almost a month”
Williams went 30 of 36 for 305 yards and a touchdown in his first game since Week 2, after a torn hamstring cost him three games. Taylor said the only worry going in was rust. “The thing you’re most concerned about going into that game was just he hadn’t played in almost a month. So, is there going to be some rust to it?” he said. “I think our training staff did a great job of getting him ramped up for that. He threw on Wednesday well before we had a walk-through just to stay fresh, because we knew we needed to walk through for the guys that had been playing.”
“The most impressive thing was that he hasn’t played since Week 2,” Taylor said. “To come back and to be on point, to be on rhythm, to be as accurate as he was in his first outing in a while, credit to him, credit to the skill guys.” He said he did not know Williams had completed his first 12 passes until he was asked. “I was not, no,” he said. “More often than not, we’re not looking at the stats.”
Taylor said Williams did a good job of taking what the defense gave him and that most of his incompletions were throwaways. “When a guy is in rhythm, you just kind of let him go,” he said. “It didn’t feel like he was forcing things. It didn’t feel like he was going off script too often.” He was less happy with the 12 penalties for 133 yards that kept putting the offense behind the sticks. “We had way too many penalties,” Taylor said. “That’s not something we want to live with.”
The hook-and-ladder and the red zone
On the first drive, on third-and-11 at the Atlanta 42, Rome Odunze caught a short pass and pitched it to Roschon Johnson, who got out of bounds at the 28. The drive ended with Colston Loveland’s 14-yard touchdown. “That’s something Ben’s run for a while now,” Taylor said of head coach Ben Johnson. “The first time I saw it was Ben running it in Detroit. It’s kind of filtered throughout the league. We had it up a couple times last year, got called, that was probably the best we’ve executed it.” He said the Bears usually practice it with D’Andre Swift in Johnson’s spot.
Chicago scored touchdowns on four of five trips inside the Atlanta 20. Going into the game, it had scored touchdowns on only nine of 21 red-zone trips. Taylor said nothing in the scheme changed. “There weren’t any schematic changes or anything like that,” he said. “It was more just our guys did a great job of executing in those situations and punching it in for us. And we knew we weren’t going to be able to settle for three in those situations against those guys.”
Swift ran 16 times for 44 yards and two touchdowns, while Roschon Johnson had 13 carries for 51 yards and a score but lost a fumble in the fourth quarter. Asked why Swift was used sparingly after halftime, Taylor said: “I think there’s a mindfulness to preserve him a little bit. It’s a long season.” He added: “Swifty was ready to go if we needed it.”
Guard Jonah Jackson, who has a hip injury, is the bigger worry up front. “Jonah’s kind of been our steady force,” Taylor said. “He’s who we want to be.” He said Luke Newman played well in his place and noted that Jordan McFadden started a playoff game for Chicago last season. “We’ll see where Jonah’s at and if he’s got a chance to play on Thursday or not,” Taylor said.
Banana balls and “damn near in tears”
The special teams forced two turnovers in Atlanta. Josh Blackwell recovered a muffed punt late in the first half, and Nick McCloud recovered a kickoff-return fumble forced by Zavier Scott in the third quarter. Hightower said punter Tory Taylor’s kick was another of his “banana balls,” which spin sideways and bend. “Blackwell was flying on the play,” Hightower said. “He was the fastest on the grass yesterday for special teams. I think he hit 21 miles an hour, so he was rolling.”
Blackwell did not try to run with the ball, because a muffed punt cannot be advanced. Hightower said that was the right call. “You do not want to lose an opportunity to recover it, not knowing the rule and trying to advance it,” he said.
Receiver Jahdae Walker gave Atlanta 15 yards twice: once for roughing the punter on a fourth-and-11 in the third quarter, and again when he was ejected after a fourth-quarter kickoff. Hightower said he found Walker in the locker room after the ejection. “He was damn near in tears,” Hightower said. “He was very remorseful, because he knew what he did affected the team and it hurt the team. But what I will say is that Jahdae plays with a tremendous amount of passion, and I’m not going to coach the passion out of him. We want the passion, we just want it in between the whistles.”
He explained what the penalty cost. Hardy and Blackwell had stopped the returner at the Atlanta 19, and the 15 yards moved the ball to the 34. “It’s a hell of a special teams kickoff coverage play, and then we had to tack on the personal foul,” Hightower said. “The main thing is we can’t ever hurt the team.”
Hightower said the next test is doing it again on four days of rest. “Our locker room is resilient,” he said. “And now we got to find out if we can stack it again on a short week, because that’s the next challenge.”
What Vrabel sees
Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel described the Bears the same way on Monday. “They’re physical. It’s a physical football team,” he said. “Defensively, they’re connected. Dennis has always done a great job.” He added that the Patriots have to change one number from the Atlanta game: “We’ll have to be great tacklers and do something to try to change the fact that their offense is out there for 73 snaps and their defense is out there for 50.”
The Patriots visit the Bears at Soldier Field on Thursday, October 22, at 8:15 p.m. ET (3:15 a.m. Friday in Cairo). The game streams on Prime Video.
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