Bears need A-effort from D-line to beat 49ers
The best way - maybe the only way - for the Bears to avoid the embarrassment of the past two losses is for the defensive line to step up and make a difference.
While giving up a combined 86 points and 886 yards in losses to the Cincinnati Bengals and Arizona Cardinals, the defense had a total of 1 sack on 77 pass plays, while also getting trampled for 397 rushing yards and 5.4 yards per run.
That's the kind of combination that results in double-digit losses for the season and job losses after the season.
To turn it around, the D-line needs to play as it did in the first four weeks, when it was instrumental in the 3-1 start, getting 10 of the Bears' 14 sacks. But in the last four games, the Bears have collected one win and only 2 sacks.
Thursday night in San Francisco, on national TV against the 3-5 49ers, the Bears need a team revival. And a lot of individuals need to atone for the past four weeks.
"I think I do," said defensive left end Adewale Ogunleye, who had 4 1/2 sacks in the first four games but none in the last four. "I'm just going to speak for myself and the defensive line. I think we need to step it up a little bit better, a lot better, to help this team out. For us to get to where we want to go, we've got to play a lot better on the defensive line."
It would seem they couldn't play much worse. With the exception of defensive right end Alex Brown, who has the Bears' only 2 sacks in the past 38 days, no member of the veteran defensive line has made much of an impact.
"We have to get off blocks and we have to make plays, but we're not doing that," Brown said. "We're not earning our paychecks."
Against the Bengals the Bears' defense allowed scores on the first seven possessions of the game. Against the Cardinals it was the first six.
"We got embarrassed, and it's not a good feeling," nose tackle Anthony Adams said. "Any time something like that happens, you always want to go back on the field and correct your wrong. I always say, 'The best medicine is just to be out there on the field.' (Thursday night) we get a chance to go back out there on the field and show up."
While the pass rush has all but disappeared lately, assistant head coach/defensive line coach Rod Marinelli points out that it's difficult to get after the quarterback if you can't stop the run and put opponents into obvious passing situations. During the current four-game sack drought, the Bears were gouged for 215 rushing yards by the Bengals and 182 by the Cards.
"You're striving for that consistent pressure," Marinelli said. "But in two of the games we have to eliminate the run better. We have to go in and really slam the run. Because when the offense can run play-action, those (sacks) are tougher. They still go up as a pass attempt, but you don't get the look (of a straight dropback), the look that's pretty for you, that's clean and clear as you'd like it to be.
"If you can eliminate the run, then you have a really good (sack) opportunity."
In each of the Bears' top three sack games, they allowed less than 3.8 yards per carry and an average of 89.7 yards on the ground. But in the last four games, when they've had just 2 sacks, they've allowed an average of 145.5 yards on the ground.
"When you start to get steamrolled and you don't do one thing well, everything works (for the offense)," Ogunleye said. "We have to find a way to stop the run. Any game that we've been blown out in or gotten mashed in, they've run the ball pretty well, and that opens up the passing game.
"If we can make a team one-dimensional, that's going to help out the secondary and help the whole defense out. But, when they're able to have the whole playbook out for the whole 60 minutes, it's trouble for us."