LAKE FOREST, Ill. -- As Chicago Bears players sat through their film study of Sunday's 52-21 drubbing by the Detroit Lions, players didn't have trouble identifying the issues that led to one of the franchise's worst defensive performances in recent history.
Through two weeks, the Bears have the NFL's worst scoring defense (39.5 points per game), a statistic skewed by the 73 points they've given up over their past five quarters. Detroit's 52 points were the most scored on a Bears defense since 2014, and the 8.8 yards per play allowed was Chicago's worst rate in a game since 1961.
"A lot of the things are fixable, if not everything," defensive tackle Grady Jarrett said. "It really wasn't that difficult to find out what the problem was. We just have to execute at a high level and fix it."
On Sunday, the Bears, who have lost 12 of their past 13 games, host the Dallas Cowboys, who are coming off a 40-37 overtime win over the New York Giants.
For all the criticism of quarterback Caleb Williams and the offense, it's the Bears' defense that has been the sore point.
And the problems for the defense begin with health. Cornerback Jaylon Johnson is out indefinitely after leaving the game in the second quarter because of a groin injury. The team is weighing options for his recovery, which include surgery. Nickel corner Kyler Gordon and linebacker T.J. Edwards, who both have hamstring injuries, are considered "week to week," according to coach Ben Johnson.
But the biggest issue in slowing Detroit's high-powered offense came down to the Bears' inability to pressure quarterback Jared Goff.
"We did not have any sacks," Ben Johnson said. "We didn't get any quarterback hits or pressures, not to the amount that we wanted to.
"Step No. 1 for us going into this game was trying to affect the quarterback; we came up short in that regard."
The Bears pressured Goff on six of his 28 dropbacks and did little to disrupt him. Goff had a higher completion percentage (83.3%) and yards per attempt (23.5) when pressured versus when he wasn't (81.1% completion percentage, 8.8 yards per attempt). He finished the game with a near-perfect passer rating of 156.0 (158.3 is perfect) while throwing for 334 yards and five touchdowns.
"We know with that particular player, when his pocket is clean, that he plays at a really high level," Johnson said. "He's a very accurate player, so we're going to have to try to find a way, whether it's within the four that we're rushing, to generate more pressure, condense the pocket and collapse it from the inside. Or whether that means we need to pressure a little bit more, we'll find a way."
The Bears spent big in free agency to shore up the pass rush, which was their weakest link on defense. In came defensive end Dayo Odeyingbo on a three-year, $48 million contract and Jarrett, a DT who signed a three-year, $43.5 million deal. Chicago later used a second-round pick to draft Texas A&M defensive tackle Shemar Turner.
Through two games, the Bears' pressure rate ranks 28th (20.8%) while their pass rush win rate is 29th (23.1%), according to ESPN Research. Chicago has nine QB hits and three sacks in two games.
It has taken longer than the Bears had hoped to see their new acquisitions contribute. Odeyingbo has 26 pass rush losses without a pass rush win, which is tied for the seventh most by any player this season. His teammate, former second-round pick Gervon Dexter Sr., is in similar territory with 26 pass rush losses without a win. Jarrett's 12% pass rush win rate ranks 44th out of 133 players with 30 pass rushers. Turner has been a healthy scratch in both games.
But it's not only the newcomers who have struggled to generate a consistent push.
Less than two years ago, the Bears made Montez Sweat the highest-paid player on defense ($24.5 million per year) to be their primary pass rusher. He recorded six sacks after being traded to Chicago for the team's final nine games in 2023 (his season total that season was 12.5, which earned him Pro Bowl honors), but his production dipped to 5.5 over 16 games in 2024.
One of general manager Ryan Poles' priorities for the offseason was acquiring more help up front to free Sweat from contending with constant double teams. That's what led the Bears to Odeyingbo.
So far, not much has come from that pairing. Sweat's first sack of the season went for a 9-yard loss and would have pushed Goff and Detroit back into its own territory on third down had it not been negated by offsetting penalties.
"He's brought substantial effort," Johnson said of Sweat. "He's tried to do it the way that we're coaching it.
"I think the one thing, the one area he's hearing from our coaches right now is when he does get these one-on-one opportunities, whether it's with tackles or the tight ends, we'd like to see him capitalize on those a little bit more. It's few and far between that they're singling him up, but we would like to see him get to the quarterback."
Sweat was double-teamed while pass rushing five times against Detroit as opposed to once versus Minnesota. Overall, only 19.4% of his pass rush attempts have come against double teams, which ranks 92nd out of 133 players with at least 30 pass rushes (29.4% in Week 2 and 7.1% in Week 1).
"It's not just Montez, it's our entire unit right now," Johnson said. "We need to affect the quarterback as a whole.
"We'll certainly look at where we can help him so he can succeed a little bit more in terms of getting that done. Dayo on the other side, when he gets the one-on-ones, we need to see a little bit more production there. And then I'd like to see from our defensive tackles, a little more push to the interior of the pocket so we can put the linemen on the lap of the quarterback. It really takes everybody, and when we pressure, we've got to make them feel that as well. It's a combination of all of it. It's something that we're certainly going to address."
Last season, Chicago finished fourth in the NFL in pressure (33.6%) and 24th in pass rush win rate (36.5%). When Johnson hired Dennis Allen as the Bears' defensive coordinator, he did so in an effort to establish a defensive identity with an attacking mindset.
Much of that stemmed from how Allen's defenses have had success getting after opposing quarterbacks.
From 2016 (Allen's first year as the New Orleans Saints DC) through 2024, the Saints had the sixth-best pressure percentage in the NFL during that span (30.7%). In the past five seasons, including when Allen became New Orleans' head coach for three seasons, the Saints were ninth in pressure percentage (30.6%).
Johnson has discussed the difficulty in going against Allen's defense in training camp. While the Bears' defense hasn't looked like that version to their head coach during games, Johnson's confident outlook rests on his defensive coordinator.
"We brought in Dennis Allen for a reason -- he does a phenomenal job coaching it to not only the coaches but the players," Johnson said. "I got a lot of faith and confidence that the experience we have on that side of the ball is gonna shine through for us, and we'll get this thing back cranking the way we want it to go."