Chicago Bears lose to Buccaneers: Defensive grades

Defensive Line: C

No defensive group suffers more from having to play extra snaps than the defensive line. And that’s what we saw borne out yesterday.

Now, in the interest of being fair, the Chicago Bears defensive line didn’t do much at the outset either.

Jameis Winston and the Bucs offense strolled down the field with relative ease on their first drive, though the Bears did turn them away with just a field goal. In general, the eye test simply did not reveal the same domination from the Bears front that we’ve seen thus far in preseason and last week.

Akiem Hicks had another key third-down stop, penetrating and wrapping up Jacquizz Rodgers short of a first down. Otherwise, he had a fairly quiet game. J.R. Sweezy gets the majority of the credit for that, but, as with last week, one can clearly see the difference between a fresh Hicks and exhausted one.

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On an optimistic note though, another defense of lineman other than Hicks managed to make a play early on. Mitch Unrein of all people stormed the backfield for a tackle for loss on the Chicago Bears first defensive possession, a rare sight to be sure.

I am not an enormous Unrein fan, but I won’t deny that the Chicago Bears need plays like that from him. Whoever plays across from Hicks has to take advantage of the attention that the big guy gets.

Unfortunately, when he’s off his game, so is everyone else.