thedrifter
02-04-07, 08:00 AM
February 4, 2007
Bears Make It a Practice to Force Turnovers
By CLIFTON BROWN
MIAMI, Feb. 3 — After falling short of the Super Bowl last season, the Chicago Bears’ coaching staff sought ways to make its defense even more ferocious. The coaches studied videotapes. They charted plays. And they found an answer.
“We created 26 fumbles last season, and only got 10 of them,” Ron Rivera, the defensive coordinator, said during an interview Thursday. “This year, we wanted 11 guys running to the football. We wanted to play faster. We wanted more turnovers.”
The Bears led the N.F.L. this season with 44 takeaways, which included recovering 20 of 32 fumbles, And they want their next takeaway to be the Lombardi Trophy, awarded to the winner of Sunday’s Super Bowl XLI between the Bears and the Indianapolis Colts. No matter the opponent, no matter the magnitude of the game, the Bears have four specific defensive goals every game:
¶To hold the opponent to 17 points or fewer.
¶To force at least four three-and-out series.
¶To force at least two turnovers.
¶To put the offense in scoring position at least once, or to score at least one defensive touchdown.
If the Bears accomplish those goals against Indianapolis, Rivera says, there will be a championship parade in Chicago. The Bears’ defense has carried them this far, finishing the regular season with four more takeaways than the next closest team, the Baltimore Ravens, and eight more than the next closest team in the National Football Conference, the Minnesota Vikings.
The inconsistency of Chicago’s offense and quarterback Rex Grossman has been much discussed. Yet the Bears were the second-highest scoring team in the league during the regular season, tied with the Colts. Their 26.7 points a game came in part because their defense and special teams often scored, or gave the offense superb field position.
In their 39-14 victory over the New Orleans Saints in the N.F.C. championship game, the Bears forced four turnovers that led to 13 points, using the art of the takeaway to set the tone for the game. All N.F.L. teams talk about forcing turnovers, but the Bears obsess about it. During every practice, whenever there is an incomplete pass, defensive players keep running to the ball until one of them recovers it. Defensive end Alex Brown said that he and his teammates sometimes reacted to the ball as if they had been hypnotized.
“Every single practice, it’s emphasized, over and over,” he said. “I’ve never been around a team, college, high school, that talks about turnovers this much. I have to catch myself during games sometimes, because there’s a dead ball on the ground, the ref’s blowing the whistle, but I’m still chasing it. We’re just trained to do it. The way we practice, it creates a sense of urgency when it comes to taking the ball.”
Bears Coach Lovie Smith, a former defensive coordinator in St. Louis and linebackers coach with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, challenges his defense to take the ball at every opportunity. If one defender is making a tackle, somebody else should be trying to strip the ball. Deflecting a pass is good, but intercepting it is much better.
In his quest to have a fast defense, Smith has not been bashful about giving playing time to young players. Starting safety Danieal Manning is a rookie, as is defensive end Mark Anderson, who led the team with 12 sacks.
“I’ve always been a coach that believed in playing rookies,” Smith said. “We look to see who our best players are, period. It doesn’t matter how old they are.”
When Rivera watches videotape, he often freezes it to count how many Bears he sees in the frame.
“If I only see two or three guys in the frame, I get on the other guys,” he said. “It’s an accountability thing. They take a little bit of pride in it. They don’t want to get called out.
“When it comes to forcing turnovers, some guys just have an innate sense to do it. Charles Tillman is terrific at it. Brian Urlacher is very conscious of it. Adewale Ogunleye thinks about it. When you’ve got three or four guys believing in it, it kind of spreads to more guys.”
Several times this season, the Bears’ defense has taken over a game with takeaways. The most notable example came in Week 6, when the Bears rallied from a 23-3 deficit against Arizona to win, 24-23, with the defense and special teams combining to score three touchdowns. On the Bears’ first touchdown, Anderson sacked Cardinals quarterback Matt Leinart and forced him to fumble. Safety Mike Brown recovered and ran 3 yards into the end zone. Later in the game, Urlacher stripped the ball from running back Edgerrin James and Tillman recovered, running 40 yards for a touchdown. Minutes later, the Cardinals punted to Devin Hester, who returned the ball 83 yards for a touchdown.
When the Bears sense that their offense needs help, they increase their appetite for a turnover.
“We say it to each other on the sideline, ‘We need to get the ball back, right now,’ ” said Tillman, a starting cornerback. “It’s big for momentum when you can get one, because a lot of times, that’s what sparks the offense.”
The Colts certainly know about Chicago’s knack for takeaways, and they have worked in practice on ball security.
“You can tell that it’s coached and emphasized highly,” Colts tight end Dallas Clark said of the Bears’ penchant for stripping the ball. “It’s important as an offensive player to protect the ball. We’ve been working on that in practice and making the same conscious effort on trying to make sure we protect the ball and knowing that they’re coming for it.”
There are some similarities between these Bears and the 1985 Bears, winners of Super Bowl XX. Both teams were led by tenacious defenses. And just as the defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan left the Bears after Super Bowl XX to become coach of the Philadelphia Eagles, Rivera could be leaving after Super Bowl XLI to become coach of the Dallas Cowboys.
Rivera said Thursday that neither he nor his agent had spoken with the Cowboys, but he had heard the speculation that he was the Cowboys’ top choice. Might Rivera give his defense an impassioned speech in their last defensive meeting, much as Ryan did before Super Bowl XX?
“I don’t know if any chairs will fly anywhere, but we’ll see,” he said.
More important than watching chairs fly, Smith and Rivera want Chicago’s defense to fly, to create the takeaways that have been so much a part of the season. The Colts have not lost a fumble during the postseason, but Manning has thrown six interceptions. A few more takeaways by the Bears on Sunday, and their next takeaway could be the Lombardi Trophy.
Ellie
Bears Make It a Practice to Force Turnovers
By CLIFTON BROWN
MIAMI, Feb. 3 — After falling short of the Super Bowl last season, the Chicago Bears’ coaching staff sought ways to make its defense even more ferocious. The coaches studied videotapes. They charted plays. And they found an answer.
“We created 26 fumbles last season, and only got 10 of them,” Ron Rivera, the defensive coordinator, said during an interview Thursday. “This year, we wanted 11 guys running to the football. We wanted to play faster. We wanted more turnovers.”
The Bears led the N.F.L. this season with 44 takeaways, which included recovering 20 of 32 fumbles, And they want their next takeaway to be the Lombardi Trophy, awarded to the winner of Sunday’s Super Bowl XLI between the Bears and the Indianapolis Colts. No matter the opponent, no matter the magnitude of the game, the Bears have four specific defensive goals every game:
¶To hold the opponent to 17 points or fewer.
¶To force at least four three-and-out series.
¶To force at least two turnovers.
¶To put the offense in scoring position at least once, or to score at least one defensive touchdown.
If the Bears accomplish those goals against Indianapolis, Rivera says, there will be a championship parade in Chicago. The Bears’ defense has carried them this far, finishing the regular season with four more takeaways than the next closest team, the Baltimore Ravens, and eight more than the next closest team in the National Football Conference, the Minnesota Vikings.
The inconsistency of Chicago’s offense and quarterback Rex Grossman has been much discussed. Yet the Bears were the second-highest scoring team in the league during the regular season, tied with the Colts. Their 26.7 points a game came in part because their defense and special teams often scored, or gave the offense superb field position.
In their 39-14 victory over the New Orleans Saints in the N.F.C. championship game, the Bears forced four turnovers that led to 13 points, using the art of the takeaway to set the tone for the game. All N.F.L. teams talk about forcing turnovers, but the Bears obsess about it. During every practice, whenever there is an incomplete pass, defensive players keep running to the ball until one of them recovers it. Defensive end Alex Brown said that he and his teammates sometimes reacted to the ball as if they had been hypnotized.
“Every single practice, it’s emphasized, over and over,” he said. “I’ve never been around a team, college, high school, that talks about turnovers this much. I have to catch myself during games sometimes, because there’s a dead ball on the ground, the ref’s blowing the whistle, but I’m still chasing it. We’re just trained to do it. The way we practice, it creates a sense of urgency when it comes to taking the ball.”
Bears Coach Lovie Smith, a former defensive coordinator in St. Louis and linebackers coach with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, challenges his defense to take the ball at every opportunity. If one defender is making a tackle, somebody else should be trying to strip the ball. Deflecting a pass is good, but intercepting it is much better.
In his quest to have a fast defense, Smith has not been bashful about giving playing time to young players. Starting safety Danieal Manning is a rookie, as is defensive end Mark Anderson, who led the team with 12 sacks.
“I’ve always been a coach that believed in playing rookies,” Smith said. “We look to see who our best players are, period. It doesn’t matter how old they are.”
When Rivera watches videotape, he often freezes it to count how many Bears he sees in the frame.
“If I only see two or three guys in the frame, I get on the other guys,” he said. “It’s an accountability thing. They take a little bit of pride in it. They don’t want to get called out.
“When it comes to forcing turnovers, some guys just have an innate sense to do it. Charles Tillman is terrific at it. Brian Urlacher is very conscious of it. Adewale Ogunleye thinks about it. When you’ve got three or four guys believing in it, it kind of spreads to more guys.”
Several times this season, the Bears’ defense has taken over a game with takeaways. The most notable example came in Week 6, when the Bears rallied from a 23-3 deficit against Arizona to win, 24-23, with the defense and special teams combining to score three touchdowns. On the Bears’ first touchdown, Anderson sacked Cardinals quarterback Matt Leinart and forced him to fumble. Safety Mike Brown recovered and ran 3 yards into the end zone. Later in the game, Urlacher stripped the ball from running back Edgerrin James and Tillman recovered, running 40 yards for a touchdown. Minutes later, the Cardinals punted to Devin Hester, who returned the ball 83 yards for a touchdown.
When the Bears sense that their offense needs help, they increase their appetite for a turnover.
“We say it to each other on the sideline, ‘We need to get the ball back, right now,’ ” said Tillman, a starting cornerback. “It’s big for momentum when you can get one, because a lot of times, that’s what sparks the offense.”
The Colts certainly know about Chicago’s knack for takeaways, and they have worked in practice on ball security.
“You can tell that it’s coached and emphasized highly,” Colts tight end Dallas Clark said of the Bears’ penchant for stripping the ball. “It’s important as an offensive player to protect the ball. We’ve been working on that in practice and making the same conscious effort on trying to make sure we protect the ball and knowing that they’re coming for it.”
There are some similarities between these Bears and the 1985 Bears, winners of Super Bowl XX. Both teams were led by tenacious defenses. And just as the defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan left the Bears after Super Bowl XX to become coach of the Philadelphia Eagles, Rivera could be leaving after Super Bowl XLI to become coach of the Dallas Cowboys.
Rivera said Thursday that neither he nor his agent had spoken with the Cowboys, but he had heard the speculation that he was the Cowboys’ top choice. Might Rivera give his defense an impassioned speech in their last defensive meeting, much as Ryan did before Super Bowl XX?
“I don’t know if any chairs will fly anywhere, but we’ll see,” he said.
More important than watching chairs fly, Smith and Rivera want Chicago’s defense to fly, to create the takeaways that have been so much a part of the season. The Colts have not lost a fumble during the postseason, but Manning has thrown six interceptions. A few more takeaways by the Bears on Sunday, and their next takeaway could be the Lombardi Trophy.
Ellie