Dennis Allen’s defense took a brutal hit Sunday, but one ugly afternoon doesn’t erase what the Chicago Bears have built on that side of the ball.
The 31-7 loss to the Green Bay Packers came after Chicago had been rolling defensively, with Allen’s group allowing just 19 combined points over the previous eight quarters. Then Green Bay struck early with two touchdowns, the game snowballed, and by the final two quarters it was obvious the Bears had run out of steam. The offense kept putting the defense in terrible spots, and eventually the dam broke.
That’s why this doesn’t look like the start of a larger trend. It looks like a game where the Bears were asked to do too much in a hostile building against a capable opponent while their offense struggled to stay on the field and repeatedly turned the ball over. When that happens, even a good defense is going to get worn down.
Put simply, no defense can keep handing a competent coordinator and quarterback extra possessions and expect the ending to look pretty.
There’s also some context here that matters for Chicago. This was, in a sense, playing with house money after the Bears had already picked up two wins with Caleb Williams on the bench. Staying around .500 or better while their quarterback is out is more than enough to live with, and it’s a result most fans would have taken three weeks ago without hesitation.
Allen has already shown he can get elite results out of this roster when the offense gives him anything close to support. The one other clear exception came in Week 1 against Carolina, when the defensive shuffle left the staff sorting out which combination actually worked best.
That’s why Sunday stands out as the outlier. Not the rule.
Once Williams returns, the expectation is that Chicago’s offense will help the defense by stringing together longer drives and easing the pressure on a unit that is still very much capable, even if it isn’t loaded with stars. The bigger question now is how Allen adjusts and what tweaks come next as the Bears shift their focus to the Atlanta Falcons.
After a late-game collapse, Atlanta gives Chicago a chance to show that Sunday was the exception, not the beginning of something worse.
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