Is Bears Defense Overrated?

In an article by Gregg Rosenthal on NFL.com, the claim is made that the Bears defense is the most overrated group in the NFL.  He cites that the Bears defense has been in the top 12 in pts allowed OR yards allowed only once in the last five years.  Well, maybe he’s right.  That sounds like an awfully telling statistic.  As always, we’ll look at these stats for ourselves and come to a decision.

Here’s a look at some key stats since Lovie Smith became head coach in 2004:

As you can see, Rosenthal’s stat is correct.  The Bears have only been in the top 12 in pts/gm OR yds/gm only once, in 2010, in the last five years.  Looking at the chart, though, shows how carefully that “stat” was chosen.  While they have been in the top 12 only once in that time frame, they have been in the top half of the league in pts/gm in four of the last five years.  They’ve also been in the top half of the league in that category in all but one of Smith’s 8 seasons.  I also listed yards per play as a category to help account for the Bears offensive woes over the last eight (ten, twenty??) years.  You can see that the Bears rank higher in yds/play than in yds/gm in each of the last eight seasons. 

In claiming how overrated the Bears defense is, you can also see that Rosenthal smartly avoided discussing turnovers, one of the key staples of Lovie’s defense and the one thing that he preaches above all others.  Over these last 5 years, Chicago has been in the top 7 in turnovers four times.  They’ve also been in that top 7 in this category in six of Lovie’s eight seasons and have been in the top half of the league every year.  In fact, if I were to pull a Rosenthal and make up my own stat to show that the Bears defense is clearly not overrated it would be something like this:  Over Lovie Smith’s tenure as Bears head coach, Chicago has finished in the bottom half of the league in points allowed OR takeaways only once in eight seasons.

As far as I can tell, the only overrated thing here is Rosenthal’s article.