On Monday Night Football, the Bears helped the Chargers to an easy field goal at the end of the first half by playing an extreme prevent defense:
The Bears’ end-of-half strategy is to let teams kick easy field goals for free
The prevent defense is typically a strategy for the last play of the game. The Bears have run it repeatedly in the first half this season, and opposing teams are fine with it.
With 11 seconds left and the ball on the 23-yard-line, the Bears put three guys on the line of scrimmage and eight guys 18 or more yards away. The Chargers easily converted a 9-yard pass to Dontrelle Inman, changing a 40-yard field goal into a much easier 31-yard attempt.
It’s not the first time they’ve done this. They ran the same prevent defense late in the first half against the Chiefs, who converted a 35-yarder:
And against the Seahawks, perhaps the weirdest situation of them all. The Seahawks had the ball on the 18 with 20 seconds left, and had two timeouts. It wasn’t even really an end-of-half scenario, and the Bears gave up a free 15-yard pass down the middle of the field to set up three shots at the end zone and a 21-yard field goal.
Fox admitted he might’ve jumped the gun:
John Fox admits #Bears maybe went to a prevent defense look "a play too early" at end of first half, but still kept Seattle out of endzone.
— Jeff Dickerson (@DickersonESPN) September 28, 2015 Technically, all three plays worked for the Bears. They ran the prevent defense to prevent the opponent from scoring a touchdown, and on these three plays, they allowed zero touchdowns. Congrats!
But all three times, they offered no resistance as the other team set up an easier field goal attempt. Against the Seahawks, they almost gave up so much ground that they allowed a touchdown on the next few plays.
Normally, teams only run a defense this conservative if there’s nothing to lose -- for example, if it’s the last play of the game, and the team can’t win on a field goal. The Bears are running it in the first half, when they stand to gain from a kicker missing a 40-plus yard field goal. So far this year NFL kickers are hitting 93 percent of 30-to-40 yarders, and 78 percent of 40-to-50 yarders. That’s a big difference.
I don’t quite get why they’re so on board with making it easier for the opponent to score points. John Fox either thinks opposing kickers are good enough to make all field goals most of the time, or he has very little faith in his base defense’s ability to prevent a touchdown on any given play.
(Then again, the Bears beat the Chiefs by one point and beat the Chargers by three points Monday night... so... maybe we should be calling John Fox a defense for not allowing seven in these scenarios?)
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