Chicago Bears: Why statistics suggest the defense will not regress
The 2018 Chicago Bears defense was terrific, and there’s no reason to believe this year’s squad will be any worse.
The internet has been flooded with posts, tweets and articles discussing why the Chicago Bears will take a giant step back in 2019. Despite going 12-4, winning the NFC North, and appearing to be one-year ahead of schedule, they apparently have a lot of work to do to convince many in the media, and most of the general public.
Outside of Chicago, the team is not getting any kind of respect. In fact, there was even a recent article from Andy Benoit that stated the Bears would revert back to a “pre-Nagy like” record this year. Keep in mind, in the five years prior to Nagy’s arrival, the Bears won a total of 27 games. That means, according to Benoit, they are looking at a 5-6 win season, at best.
That seems utterly absurd, but the reason Benoit pointed to for the decline is the same reason many doubters point to. They claim the defense will experience a significant regression, citing the departure of the greatest defensive mind in the history of the world, Saint Vic Fangio.
Alright, tongue-in-cheek comments aside, Fangio is a terrific defensive coordinator. However, these “regression” takes presuppose he is the only defensive coordinator worth anything in the league.
While I never bought into the argument, I couldn’t help but be curious why so many people did. Surely there had to be something more to it than simply pointing to the loss of a defensive coordinator — even if he is a good one like Fangio.
There had to be another reason, right? So I looked at some recent history in the hopes it would shed some light on the argument — and it did — though not in the way you might think.
First, I looked at every team since 2010 that finished No. 1 in Defense-adjusted Value Over Average (DVOA) for total team defense according to Football Outsiders. I also looked at their ranking the year prior as well as the year after they achieved the No. 1 ranking. Finally, I identified whether any of those teams experienced a defensive coordinator change in that span.
The results are below and depict the following: in the middle column, you have the team and year they were ranked the No. 1 defense. You also have their ranking the year prior and the year after. For each of the years, I also listed the defensive coordinator to give you an idea of what effect a change at the position had on their rankings.
| Year Prior | Year Ranked No.1 | Year After |
|---|---|---|
| 9th (Dick LeBeau) | 2010 Pittsburgh Steelers (LeBeau) | 7th (LeBeau) |
| 6th (Greg Mattison) | 2011 Baltimore Ravens (Chuck Pagano) | 19th (Dean Pees) |
| 4th (Rod Marinelli) | 2012 Chicago Bears (Marinelli) | 25th (Mel Tucker) |
| 2nd (Gus Bradley) | 2013 Seattle Seahawks (Dan Quinn) | 1st (Quinn) |
| 1st (Quinn) | 2014 Seattle Seahawks (Quinn) | 4th (Kris Richard) |
| 4th (Jack Del Rio) | 2015 Denver Broncos (Wade Phillips) | 1st (Phillips) |
| 1st (Phillips) | 2016 Denver Broncos (Phillips) | 10th (Joe Woods) |
| 4th (Todd Wash) | 2017 Jacksonville Jaguars (Wash) | 6th (Wash) |
| 14th (Fangio) | 2018 Chicago Bears (Fangio) | ??? (Pagano) |
So what does the data show? Well for starters, only two teams that were ranked first finished the following year outside the top 10. One of those two was the 2013 Bears under Mel Tucker, who fans will remember had a disastrous tenure. The other was the 2012 Ravens, who lost their defensive coordinator from the previous year. Who was it, you ask? Well none other than the Bears current defensive coordinator, Chuck Pagano.
Two of the teams that finished in the top 10 the following year also experienced a coordinator change. Additionally, three of the teams who finished ranked first had a different coordinator from the year before.
What does it all mean? It means that a change in defensive coordinator is not the death knell some experts are making it out to be. That only happens when you replace him with the wrong guy (see Tucker and Pees).
The other thing we learned from looking at the teams above is that talent reigns supreme. The one thing those No. 1 ranked teams all have in common is they had incredibly talented and even elite players on the defensive side of the ball. It really may be more about the Jimmies and the Joes than the Xs and Os.
Fortunately for the Bears, they have elite players on defense. They also replaced their defensive coordinator with another fantastic coordinator. In fact, Pagano knows what it’s like to lead a talented group to a No. 1 ranking.
Bottom line is while there may be some technical “regression” (because it’s really hard to rank No. 1 in consecutive years) it’s not as if fans should expect the precipitous dropoff some are calling for. Will they be ranked at the top again? Probably not, but history tells us they’re still going to be pretty damn good.